In the morning, Eileen and I unpick the stitches we've used to turn our duvets into half-sleeping bags. We consolidate the groceries and retract our belongings from various nooks of the rental van, returning to our backpacker forms. The camp host eagerly accepts our lightly used duvets, pillows, and foam…

Legend has it that Saint Govan was pursued by pirates here- they used to chase missionaries for stolen gold- when he sailed into these cliffs and they opened and closed around him until the pirates passed. Now, there is a chapel built into the cliffside- it's said he built it…

Foot travel is contemplative, all the points connecting. Driving, it's easy to miss things; they slip by. We are conscious to make the drive a road trip, to carve off slivers of experience before re-embarking. A morning visit to the Glaslyn ospreys opens a birdwatching world, eager volunteers relating the…

"Look," Eileen says, pointing at the map. "You can walk the beach all the way to Pwllheli if the tide is out." We're standing on the beach of Abersoch, the main surf town of the Llyn Peninsula. We've treated ourselves to breakfast out, so now we're feeling ambitious. We can…

"No way." Foam blocks, 39x22x3” are right there on the bottom shelf of the home goods store. This is a huge score. It was Eileen's idea to rent a van and sleep in it. We had already committed to the premise of not bringing sleeping bags, so instead we confirmed…

Tonight is the last of our six nights at the Pen Y Pass Youth Hostel. It's nice to have a long stay in the middle of a trip, enough time to settle in. We've grown so used to our little room that it's almost strange that we're leaving in the…

We haven't been planning our walks much ahead, so our hikes and walks end up serendipitous. We discover detours and shortcut trails, chase the little icons for caves and waterfalls as they appear near our routes. We've just hiked an hour into the hills, emerging to a country road lined…

With its long lake and steep mountainsides, the Llanberis Valley has much of the look of a Norwegian fjord- but for the old slate mines which dominate one of the slopes. There are massive strip mines all the way up the mountainside, rivaled only by the mountains of tailings piled…

A couple of years ago, I stepped outside of my front door, slipped on a rock, and ended up in the emergency room with a sprained ankle and several stitches on the other foot: bilateral injury in an instant. For some reason, this and other such incidents have not impacted…