How to plan your first solo overnight, step by step
Your first night out alone is mostly a planning problem, not a bravery one. Here’s the exact process I use, from picking a spot to the 2 a.m. noises.
A field journal by Ada Fenwick
Hiking, paddling and slow travel, written up properly.
Trip reports with the timings I actually walked, kit lists with real weights, and how-to guides without the jargon.
Get the Sunday letterLatest trip report
Three days on the Skellan Ridge, hut to hut
Forty-one kilometres, two huts, one genuinely bad step, and the best sunset I’ve seen from a bunk window. A full route report, with the timings I actually walked.
Lately in the journal
Every post
My three-season overnight kit, item by item
Every item in my pack for a spring-to-autumn night out, what it weighs, why it’s there, and the things I’ve quietly stopped carrying over the years.
The Sunday letter
A long read for Sunday morning, and a small trip for the weekend.
One long read, one small trip you could do this month, and the kit I’d actually buy again. Every other Sunday, free.
Find your way in
Trip reports
Day-by-day accounts of real trips: distances, timings, where to sleep, what went wrong, and whether it was worth it.
All trip reportsHow-to
Plain, step-by-step guides to the skills that make a trip go well: planning, navigation, camping and staying warm.
- How to plan your first solo overnight, step by step
- How to read contour lines before you leave the house
From the essays
“When you walk somewhere once, you see a place. When you walk it every month, you see time.”
Who writes this
I’m Ada. I walk slowly and take a lot of notes.
Ada walks, paddles and takes the slow bus to the start of things, then writes it all down. She spent nine years drawing maps for a living before she started using them properly.
Every trip here is one I’ve done myself, at my own pace and at my own expense, and written up with the details I wished I’d had before I went: real timings, last buses, where the water is, and the bits that went wrong.
Read more about Ada and the journal