Lake District travel guide

The Lake District makes it very easy for you to eat local and reduce the carbon footprint of your holiday. Tuck into salt marsh lamb and Cumberland sausage in the evenings, and stuff Kendal mint cake or Grasmere gingerbread into your backpack.

Free roaming and grazing sheep in the Lake District are often blamed for the barren appearance of the fells. But there is a balance to be struck between stronger protections for the environment and biodiversity, and traditional sheep farming that is part of the region’s heritage.

This successful rewilding project is encouraging the Lakeland landscape to evolve more naturally by reducing human intervention to little more than the occasional nudge in the right direction. The reintroduction of the Marsh Fritillary butterfly is one notable success.

Swallows and Amazons set the standard with its boaty shenanigans, and the Lake District remains just as magical for family holidays today. Abseil down waterfalls, scramble through mountain streams, and try rock-climbing or canoeing. Professional instructors ensure activities are as safe as they are fun.

Wainwright was a lifelong fell-walker, author and champion of the Lake District, and his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells remains an influential classic. His ashes were scattered at Innominate Tarn on Haystacks, his favourite fell, and the summit can be seen from Buttermere church.

The Lake District struggles with biodiversity loss but it’s still worth keeping an eye out for wildlife. Several species of bat and owl share the shadows. Red squirrels can be seen in woodlands around Grasmere and Ambleside, and birds of prey are a familiar sight in the sky.

Places such as Bowness-on-Windermere and Kendal are reliably packed pretty much all year-round, especially in summer and school holidays. That’s not to say they’re not worth a wander round, but if you’re looking to escape the crowds then you’ll want to stay elsewhere.

There’s little point in going by car here, as all you’d be doing is contributing to snaking lines of traffic on single-lane roads. The Lake District’s jaw-droppingly beautiful landscapes positively demand to be explored on foot, by bike or, if you’re on an activity holiday, even by canoe.

Around 100,000 people attempt England’s highest peak every year, which is unsustainable given many have the bare minimum of preparation. Unpaid volunteers are worn down by the number of mountain rescues needed, so dress for the weather and get properly equipped, or stick to lower terrain.

The Lake District’s barren fells are unnaturally so, free-grazing sheep preventing any hint of tree growth; plantations of non-native pine, a bugbear of Lakes icon Alfred Wainwright, are dark and uninviting, while the popularity of the region with walkers has led to many footpaths becoming degraded, causing soil erosion and a campaign to ‘Fix the Fells’.

The environmentalist and journalist George Monbiot called the Lake District an ‘ecological disaster zone’, but he’s only half-right. The debate between environmentalists and sheep farmers is polarised, but essentially the Lake District should be a protected, living landscape, where traditional industries such as sheep farming coexist with far stronger protections for the environment and biodiversity. Beatrix Potter farmed Herdwick sheep, and Herdwick mutton was served at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Today however, most sheep farmers rely on subsidies. Certain areas of the Lake District could be turned over to free-roaming and free-grazing sheep, with the essential subsidies remaining in place, while others could be rewilded, restoring them to their former glories. Tourism should be better regulated, and perhaps a small tourism tax imposed which could be ring-fenced and contribute to urgent conservation efforts. The Lake District is a unique landscape, inextricably linked to a unique culture. Both have seen better days, and could see them again.