National Walking Month: Try something new in the South Downs National Park
May 1, 2025
May is National Walking Month and a good time to celebrate its simple joys.
Whether you’re looking for an hour-long stroll with a breathtaking view or a work-up-a-sweat ramble up and down some hills, there are hundreds of walks to enjoy in the South Downs National Park.
While any walking is good for us, walking in glorious green spaces surrounded by nature has its very own restorative powers for both mental and physical health.
Kate Drake, Health and Wellbeing Officer for the National Park, explains: “We’ve all heard that walking is great for those feel-good endorphins and the heart and lungs, but fascinating new research is shining a light on electrical activity in the brain and showing that time in nature improves focus, attention and memory. Because we evolved in nature, nature is where our brains operate the best!”
One of the most invigorating things you can do is trying something new and what better time than National Walking Month?
We may all have our go-to walks and picnic spots, but why not try something a bit different?
Make some memories this May and enjoy sharing your newfound adventures with family and friends!
Here are five ideas for trying something new:
Walk the lesser trodden path
With 3,600km (2,200 miles) of footpaths, bridleways and byways, the South Downs National Park has the biggest rights of way network of any National Park.
We’re famous for honeypot sites such as Birling Gap, Seven Sisters and Devil’s Dyke, but there are plenty of lesser-known locations that offer breathtaking views and tranquillity in abundance.
One of your new adventures could be the Healthland Sculpture Trail. Inspired by stories from communities and drawing upon sources as diverse as the poet Tennyson and a 394-year-old local map, seven bespoke stone carvings – including a lizard and a curious “Sheep Pig” – are now dotted around some of the most beautiful locations in the National Park.
Why not make a summer adventure by slowly trying to find all of the heathland sculptures? To help you out, we’ve created some videos offering clues on how you can find them all. Find out more here www.southdowns.gov.uk/help-your-heaths/heathlands-reunited/heathlands-sculpture-trail/
Another trail less trodden is the Downs Link, near Shoreham. Connecting the South Downs to the North Downs, the Downs Link follows two disused railway lines and crosses the Surrey Hills and Low Weald.
With a train station at Shoreham, it makes for both a perfect start point and end point.
Intersecting at times with other paths and trails, you can choose to make quick diversions, including to the top of Truleigh Hill near Steyning and Bramber. The view from the top of the hill provides views out to both the English Channel and the breadth of the central South Downs.
Try a dawn or dusk walk
What better way to start your day than an orchestra of nightingales, songthrushes, robins, and chiff-chaffs!
Watch the sunrise and enjoy your first cuppa of the day with a warming flask of tea or coffee.
Did you know morning exposure can boost serotonin production, helping you feel calmer and happier for the rest of the day?
While getting up at the crack of dawn is not everyone’s idea of fun, you’ll be rewarded with pure tranquillity and the most stunning views of the landscape in the “golden hour”.
Equally as magical is the last hour before darkness and a dusk walk offers the opportunity to see that signature warm glow cascading across the landscape.
Did you know that walking at sunset can activate melatonin and help you get a better night’s sleep?
Forest bathe
A quarter of the South Downs National Park is woodland – more treescape by area than any other National Park in England and Wales.
So you’re spoilt for choice for forests and woodland to escape to for a bit of zen time.
This Japanese practice is a process of relaxation; known in Japan as shinrin yoku. The simple method of being calm and quiet amongst the trees, observing nature around you whilst breathing deeply can help both adults and children de-stress and boost health and wellbeing in a natural way.
Here are a few simple tips:
- Turn off your devices to give yourself the best chance of relaxing, being mindful and enjoying a sensory forest-based experience.
- Slow down. Move through the forest slowly so you can see and feel more.
- Take long breaths deep into the abdomen. Extending the exhalation of air to twice the length of the inhalation sends a message to the body that it can relax.
- Take in your surroundings using all of your senses. How does the forest environment make you feel? Be observant, look at nature’s small details.
- Keep your eyes open. The colours of nature are soothing and studies have shown that people relax best while seeing greens and blues.
- Stay as long as you can, start with a comfortable time limit and build up to the recommended two hours for a complete forest bathing experience.
Try an audio trail
A guided walk listening to the human voice (or nature sounds of course!) brings a new dimension to any South Downs experience.
It’s a chance to really get into the finer details of what makes the landscape so special, discover its weird and wonderful history, and learn about different people’s perspectives.
Here are some of our audio adventures:
Cuckmere Audio Trail
Located at Seven Sisters Country Park, the Cuckmere Accessible Audio Trail connects people with the sights, sounds and seasonal changes of this breathtaking coastal gem that’s home to dozens of species, such as chiffchaffs, kingfishers, adonis blue butterflies, and yellow horned poppies.
The trail follows the Cuckmere Miles Without Stiles route along flat concrete, gravel and grass paths, making the trail suitable for people of all fitness and mobility levels.
Walkers simply need to scan a QR code – conveniently located on public benches – to tune in to an immersive audio that delves into the wonderful wildlife at the country park.
In Their Footsteps
Writers, artists, poets and musicians have long drawn inspiration from the landscapes of the South Downs.
The ‘In Their Footsteps’ app is an immersive, audio-visual walking experience that tells the unique stories of the people who lived and worked in the South Downs including Virginia Woolf, naturalist Gilbert White, Augustus Pitt Rivers, Ivon Hitchens and Flora Twort.
You can download the App for free from your phone’s app store:
- Google Play store: http://bit.ly/InTheirFootstepsGoogle
- Apple store: http://bit.ly/InTheirFootstepsApp
We Hear You Now
We Hear You Now is a new spoken word audio commission embedded in the landscape presenting contemporary speculative fiction, poetry and new myths by nine Sussex-based writers of colour.
A network of narratives voiced by the writers can be accessed through 14 listening points, situated across six miles of the shifting, iconic chalk landscape of Seven Sisters Country Park and the Sussex Heritage Coast.
The works reframe the traditional English pastoral image of this coastal fringe of the South Downs through a personal, poetic and quietly radical lens.
Who’s that bird?
How often are we intrigued by a curious new bird song?
It’s normally followed by that crushing feeling of having absolutely no idea which bird it actually is!
Well, not any longer, as the free Merlin app allows us to Sound ID birds. The app can recognise thousands of species from across the world.
If you’re hearing bird song, just select Sound ID from the main menu and press record. Merlin will instantly start listing the birds it hears.
Next time you’re on a walk in the South Downs, why not find out more about your surroundings and the many species that live here? You might be surprised at the diversity!
Looking for walk inspiration? Start your next adventure here at our walking hub which is packed with downloadable guides.