4 Night Navigation Skills for Beginners in the Northern Lake District
There’s an art to navigating the outdoors that goes beyond mastering a GPS tracking device and loading a smartphone app. You’ll learn how to read a map, find grid references, work your compass correctly, estimate distances and timings, and plan your own countryside walks. This holiday is suitable for anyone with limited or no experience of navigating with a map and compass.
What you’ll love
- Learning basic navigation skills through practical indoor and outdoor exercises
- The expertise of a knowledgeable and experienced tutor
- Gaining confidence to read a map and use a compass
- Estimating distances and time
- Planning your own countryside walk
- Staying at Derwent Bank, our country house near Keswick
What’s included
- Comfortable en-suite accommodation in our country house
- Cream tea on arrival day
- Cooked or continental breakfast every morning
- Daily packed lunches
- Three-course evening meals, plus tea & coffee
- Easy-to-follow routes, maps, and information available in our Discovery Point if you want to explore independently
Trip Notes
Easy to download as a PDF, our trip notes provide detailed information for every holiday. Please click below to find the trip notes for your departure date.
All our carefully-curated itineraries are designed by our experts. While we make every effort to adhere to the described itinerary, we may take alternative routes or adapt the running order for weather and/or operational reasons.
You're welcome to check in from 4pm onwards. Enjoy a complimentary cream tea on arrival. After tea enjoy a short walk with an introduction to maps.
Our friendly trainers will introduce you to the basic principles of map reading and compass work. We give expert tuition and plenty of support, so that when you return home you can put your newly acquired skills into practice in the countryside.
We work through a range of practical indoor and outdoor exercises, which cover relating the map to the ground, estimating distances and timings, and top tips for planning a walk.
The course includes two days outdoors, some map work exercises and walk planning after Dinner each night. Maps will be provided for use during the course but you will need to bring a compass we recommend a compass which has a baseplate, 360 degree protractor, map measuring features, plus scales of 1:25k and 1:50k an example compass is the Silva Expedition 4.
Enjoy a leisurely breakfast before making your way home.