Hiking/camping from Southampton to Bournemouth

[Wayfarer]

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, the route takes me east to west across the new forest and it looks to be a great trip. The problem I'm having is planning - I don't know where to start!

I've done hikes before and camping but along national trails and pre-defined routes. There is no set route for this however and this is where I've run into some trouble, does anyone have any advice/recommendations for this?

Sam

 

[MarkN]

Hi Sam,

It's a good route, I've done quite a lot of walking in the New Forest and working out a route should't be too difficult. I would recommend staying south of the M27/A31 etc as there are a lot of paths to follow. Your problem comes with finding somewhere to stay. Wild camping is really frowned upon in the New Forest and there are a lot of rangers about. I've even been jumped on in the past for using a Trangia while brewing up in some trees. It can be done, but you'll need to be a very secret squirrel to get away with it, bivvi bag, arrive after dark and leave at first light etc.

Your alternatives are camping in proper camp sites but this once again is tricky, many of the camp sites do not have toilet blocks and require you to bring a chemical toilet etc. I looked at a similar trip this year and found a couple of camp sites around Brockenhurst but that could make for a long first day for you depending on your time scale. I found them on the Camping and Caravanning Club website.

For your trip, I'd work out how far you want to travel each day, look for camp sites that fit in along the route and plan your route from there. It could be a good project for a few evenings and a bit of fun to plan.

Hope all goes well.

 

[potboiler]

Hi Sam, welcome to the forum. When you get a moment, there's an Introductions sub-forum as well so you can say hello.

In answer to your question, there are a number of "official" sites throughout the New Forest although they may get crowded at times.

You might consider whether a short train journey would trim off the urban bits at either end of your trip, unless you're dead set on walking from one place to the other.

Good luck.