Daniel Raven-Ellison: What if we created a giant active travel network together?

Slow Ways is for everyone: walkers, runners, wheelers, cyclists and anyone else who wants to participate in active travel.

I think it should always be possible for people to get to their destination under their own steam. If you can drive somewhere by petrol-power, you should be able to get there by people-power too. 

It might take longer, even a lot longer, but there should always be a way to go that is reasonably safe, easy and enjoyable. 

I’m not suggesting this principle for ideological reasons. I’m suggesting it because of the numerous benefits for people, society and the planet.

I personally love walking. I love the freedom and space it gives me, both physically and mentally. I love the sense of adventure and discovering new places, spending quality time travelling with other people, creating memories and the delight of arriving somewhere under my own steam.

People-powered travel is an incredible thing.

With it people can have longer, healthier and richer lives that save them money and reduce their carbon emissions. 

Despite the numerous benefits, too many people are missing out. There are numerous reasons why, but not knowing the best way to go is a major one. A lack of trustworthy, relevant and desirable information gets in their way. Afterall, who wants to have a bad experience?

Back in 2020 I started Slow Ways, a citizen project to develop a national walking network. The goal was to make it easier for people to walk between neighbouring towns and cities by sharing good ways to go. 

Slow Ways is a beautiful thing. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of people the network includes nearly 10,000 routes that collectively stretch for 140,000km. People from across the country have been walking, checking, verifying and surveying the routes in a giant effort to give other people the inspiration and confidence to follow them. Over a third of the network has been given 4 or 5 out of 5 stars.

It’s an incredible success story of large-scale collaboration that is also a tapestry of personal journeys and achievements. A number of Slow Ways volunteers have walked and reviewed over 3,000km of routes.

I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved, but it’s not good enough.

Slow Ways is currently an inter-town and inter-city network. For people who want to enjoy a walk a 10-20km linear walk to arrive somewhere or connect places, it’s a brilliant thing and we will continually make it better – but it’s not nearly inclusive enough.

Slow Ways should connect everyone everywhere with everyday and epic routes, and everyone should be able to both contribute to it and enjoy it. 

We have an ambitious vision and plan to make that happen.

We plan to replace our tired, creaking and quickly built pilot website into a platform. It will be developed into an online platform with tools that enable community organisations, councils, charities, schools, social enterprises, clubs, societies and other nonprofits to share routes and networks that meet the needs of their communities.

Imagining an active travel future for everyone.

As an example, imagine if teachers in a primary school shared a number of great nature-rich routes for local families to try. And then imagine if neighbouring schools did the same. Eventually it would be possible for a whole town, city, county or nation to have a network of nature-rich family-friendly routes.

And what if other organisations did the same thing for their communities? For runners, wheelers, cyclists, riders? For children, dog-walkers, cow-avoiders? For people who love bird watching, dark skies, bluebell woods, train-station hopping, industrial heritage or just getting from A to B?

And what if we brought this giant effort into one easy-to-use place, making it easier for people to find and follow the best routes for them?

We have just launched a very punchy crowdfunding campaign to build the platform that will enable this to happen. 

Please take a look, chip-in and help to spread the word. You can back us as an individual or an organisation. You can even sponsor community organisations or whole towns to be able to get started with collaboratively creating their networks.

We would love your support. Let’s build something brilliant together.

Daniel Raven-Ellison is founder and CEO of the Slow Ways national walking network. Daniel is a Guerrilla Geographer, National Geographic Explorer and uses a combination of exploration and story-creation to tackle social and environmental challenges. He founded the National Park City movement and later this month will release Earth in 100 Seconds, a short film that reveals how we are mis/using land on Earth.