The West Highland Way has loads of information available online.

It has its own website with everything you would need to know about it, such as the route, suggested itineraries and even links to accommodation available on the route.

You probably don’t need any other resources.

Youtube

This year it seems like most of the UK wildcamping Youtubers have walked The Way.

Andy Beavers was the first one I saw. He did it in 3 days, which was inspiring but not something I could replicate.

Backpacking UK did it in a more reasonable time of 5 days, but that still looked like too much of a challenge for me.

Paul Messner’s series is for an itinerary of 7 days, which looked ideal to me.

Paul’s videos helped me get into wild camping in the first place, so it was no surprise that it was his series that pushed me over the edge to start booking things. I copied most of Paul’s itinerary and tried to “fix” the bits he said he wished had gone differently.

On the train up I also enjoyed Stephen J. Reid’s series even if he’d only uploaded the first half of the trip by then.

And on one of my earlier nights, where I lay in my tent watching videos I’d downloaded when I had WiFi, I watched Good Bloke Outdoors. He did it in 3.5 days with a 35L bag, which again was impressive but not something I could replicate, at least on this trip.

Thanks to all of the above for sharing their journey with us, but especially Paul for setting a challenge I could attempt myself.

The Walk Highlands App

On the trail itself the most helpful resource of all was the Walk Highlands app.

I’d taken notes on my phone, and tried to memorise the important parts of the journey, but there was nothing as good as using your phone, completely offline, to know exactly where you were, how long was left and what kind of terrain you were about to encounter, especially when you were tired.

The app itself is just a website, www.walkhighlands.co.uk, but on a phone you can press the share button in your browser to add it to your home screen where it acts like an app installed from the app store.

This means it can download files into local storage on your phone, so when you have internet access you can get the next day’s itinerary and then use GPS to tell you where you are on that map, even without internet access.

You have to click a button first to say you have a real map with you, which initially you’ll do without thinking, but eventually you’ll realise how fragile your phone is and that maybe you should have brought a map just in case.

The app covers the rest of the Highlands, which probably isn’t as well sign-posted as the West Highland Way, nor would it have as good 5G coverage, so on a real Highlands route I’d insist on taking a physical map.

But on the West Highland Way? I’ll just say the signage was excellent and I survived without.

My Itinerary

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I could have gotten a stupidly early train up to Glasgow and then on to Milngavie but that didn’t sound like fun to me.

So I caught the train up to Glasgow the night before and stayed in the cheapest Premier Inn I could find. It was a 45 minute walk from the train station to save £30 on the hotel but I’d have sat on trains for almost 5 hours by then and a walk sounded nice.

Plus I used some of that £30 to have a big breakfast before setting off.

1

I got the train from Glasgow to the start of the walk in Milngavie.

Drymen Camping was my first destination. I had booked on to a camp site so I wouldn’t have to worry about the end of my first day.

The camp site’s on the side of the road that the route takes so it’s difficult to miss. It’s just after an honesty box and warnings about free-roaming chickens.

Milngavie to Drymen: 19km

2

My second destination was a permitted wild camp zone called Lochan Maol Dhuinne. This was something Paul Messner mentioned in his video and it looked like a good idea.

It was amongst the trees so I took a ground sheet for my tent and I’m glad I did, the ground was littered with dangerous pine cones and deadly pine needles.

I’d stocked up in Balmaha for that evening’s supplies.

Drymen to Lochan Maol Dhuinne: 23km

3

The last of my pre-booking was for Beinglas campsite. The walk next to Loch Lomond is the hardest walking section of the whole route so I was glad to have that evening’s stay already sorted out.

The route goes straight through the camp site so you can’t miss it.

I arrived just before the kitchen closed at 20:45 and in the morning had breakfast before stocking up on supplies in the shop.

Lochan Maol Dhuinne to Rowardennan: 1km Rowardennan to Inverarnan: 22.5km

4

You can’t pre-book online for camping at By the Way but it was my intended destination for night 4. I knew I wanted to spend the night in or around Tyndrum because I wanted Haggis, Neeps and Tatties from the Tyndrum Inn.

I’d had this at a wedding in Ayr the year before and knew I had to have it again, made properly, so when I saw it in Paul’s video I decided there and then that day 4 had to include it.

The following morning I stocked up at The Green Welly Stop before leaving Tyndrum.

Inverarnan to Tyndrum: 19km

5

The Walk Highlands app shows an itinerary for 8 days but I was trying to follow one for 7 days. This meant I would need to do a double day either day 5 or 6.

Except I woke up with my eyes and nose watering from hay-fever I didn’t know I had. This meant I had a late start and I didn’t know if I’d need to abandon the trip.

Luckily a witch told me everything would be fine, and she was right.

I’d already stocked up in the morning but I stopped at Inveroran for a drink and a snack from the shop and had a rest in the seating area outside. Here I bumped into someone who had camped right in front of me the night before and we started talking whilst walking.

After 23km that day they suggested we wild camp beside the trail, just like the Dutch couple and the Czech lads we had just walked past. I’m glad we did.

Tyndrum to wild camp: 23km

6

Day 6 needed to make up for the 7km I missed out on the day before.

We made it to Glencoe Mountain Resort just before breakfast ended and from there it wasn’t far to Kingshouse.

After some photos it was 15km to Kinlochleven where my new hiking buddy and I camped at Blackwater Hostel and stocked up at the local Co-op.

Wild camp to Kinlochleven: 22km

7

Day 7 was when it seemed possible I could finish in 7 days. This was a subject that infuriated a few people I’d been overtaking, but I had originally set out to complete the walk in 7 days and now I was so close I was determined to make it happen. Plus my new hiking buddy had a similar goal for completing it in 6 days and this was their 6th day.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t take lots of breaks, or lots of photos, or have a long lunch with a third hiking buddy we had acquired in the morning, it just meant we were determined to finish that day.

However none of us had really considered the logistics of crossing the finishing line. We would all be finishing the walk late at night, after the trains to Glasgow had ended, surrounded by £200 per night hotels that all seemed to be fully booked.

So instead we set up our tents at Glen Nevis campsite, had a quick snack, and then walked the last 5km to the finishing point. And then that extra little bit from the original finishing point to the new one in the middle of the high street.

There’s nothing in the rules saying you have to be wearing your backpack for your photo on the bench at the finishing point, nor anything about getting a taxi back to your tent after.

Not that we would have cared much by then. We were tired, we were aching, and we had done it.

Kinlochleven to Fort William: 24km

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The following morning it rained, and there were plenty of other hikers doing that last 5km, so I’m glad we finished the night before.

It meant the day was all about breakfast, packing up and leaving, instead of trying to cram it all in and presumably waiting in a queue to get a soggy photo. We got a taxi to the train station for £10.

The train from Fort William to Glasgow leaves every few hours, but to get home in one day I had to get the earliest one. The views were amazing. We covered most of the ground I’d just spent a week walking in only a few hours. I saw countless majestic mountains and even a herd of wild deer prancing around a field.

Fort William to home: 600km