09.06
Inspired by this month’s Outside Magazine, I thought I’d try to compile a list of the best places, in the UK, to live, or indeed visit, based on the opportunity to maximise your leisure time. Outside does this kind of thing a lot but I’ve never seen such a thing for our small group of islands, so here goes with the first one…
If you’re into any or all of the following:
- Mountain Biking
- Rock Climbing
- Indoor Climbing
- Bouldering
- Fell/Trail Running
- Paragliding
- Canoeing
- Kayaking
- Caving
- X-Country Horse Riding
Then you could do a lot worse than live in Sheffield or surrounding areas. Now, this is where it all tends to go wrong for people who know the UK a bit because Sheffield isn’t known for it’s amazing city, blooming economy and amazing architecture. Most people would know it as a little bit of a dump to be honest. Well, there are many reasons for this, but as someone who’s spent rather a lot of time up there in the past ten years or so, I can say that despite all this, Sheffield is a great place. Why is this? One main thing really, The Peak District is just a few miles down the road and offers the single best National Park for outdoor activity the UK has to offer if judged on access, variety of activity available (and allowed) and facilities for visitors. Of course, it’s a big place with many towns around it’s edge so you don’t have to live in Sheffield itself. Matlock, Bakewell and Hope are all pretty nice places with great access to the park too, especially if you like the quieter nature of a smaller town.
Some Peak links:
- Peak Experience – Maps, Guides, History etc
- Take a Peak – Accommodation, Planning, Outdoors Activity Resources
Some suggestions:
- Biking around Ladybower Reservoir is pretty good, especially for the less-extreme biker.
- Climbing on gritstone at Stanage Edge
- Caving in Castleton
- Cafe living at the ‘Outside’ cafe in Hathersage
Excluding the lack of altitude, The Peak reminds me very much of some areas of Colorado in the US for the access and diversity of activity on offer. The Peak District has to be one of my favourite places…
All of the posts in this series will be in the ‘UK Outdoors’ category for easy filtering/linking.
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