For Londoners, how to start hiking & discover UK ?

If you are new to London buzz life like myself or an experienced Londoner who never managed to find a chance or time to explore & hike around the amazing UK national parks, I do have good news for you, it isn't that hard !

Meetup is very booming in UK & in London in specific & put simply, it is a platform to gather around people who are interested in any sort of activity which includes & not limited to; music, running, fitness, hiking, travel, coffee drinking ! & anything else that crosses your mind.

It works on the concept of groups, where you can either start your own group or you just join someone else group if you are interested in the sort of events and activities they organise & you wish to be part of it.

Before we talk about hiking in specific, just keep the following tips in mind:

• Nothing in life is perfect, some meetup groups are excellent, some are medium & some are bad. You can't easily tell unless you try an even or more yourself. Rule of thumb is; if a group has so many members, it most probably means it is a good one !
• Some groups organise events for free & some others for money because they run it as business. In between those two extremes, you will find events for small amounts e.g. £1 to help organiser cover up any cost they incur but they aren't making profit out of it.
• When you go to a meetup event for the first time, keep in mind, you are going to meet strangers whom you are seeing for first time, so ladies up there, follow usual safety rules when meeting strangers, meetup isn't an exception.  

Ok, now for hiking, there are enormous number of groups specialised in arranging trips around London or all over UK & some even extend their trips to Europe. Definitely, I didn't try all of them but I will just share with you the two main groups which I think are the most famous & well organised too (but that doesn't mean all others are bad):

• Outdooraholics
• They are for hiking only ! 
• They arrange day trips around London on Saturday & Sundays as well as week ends around more interesting location e.g. Wales, Lake district, ...
• They include Yoga in some week end trips before and after the hike as optional part of the trip.
• They started recently arranging trips to Europe too
• AAA
• They do hiking & some other adventurous activities like camping, canoeing, ..
• They arrange day trips around London on Saturday & Sundays as well as week ends around more interesting location e.g. Wales, Lake district, ...
• They include Yoga in some week end trips before and after the hike as optional part of the trip.
• They have regular hiking trips in Europe e.g. Croatia, Slovenia, ..

It isn't surprising to say, you have to pay for any events they both organise :) which ranges around £30 (less or more depending on location) for day trips & around £150 for week end trips - not including transportation & again more or less depending on trip length & agenda.

More to come in next blog posts, stay tuned.

Picture below taken from one of my hiking trips in Lulworth Cove :)

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Lulworth Cove