“A wonderful insight into the transformative power of coastal walking to connect us with nature”
——Julian Gray, Co-chair World Trails Network

★An English coastline travelogue that explores England’s relationship to its coastline and its importance to our identity.

Why do we walk? Why do we like to be beside the sea? And what happens when you infuse these questions into a journey around the coast of England – a pilgrimage in search of art, culture, community and glorious natural wealth along the world’s longest managed coastal path? Extending well beyond the confines of a walking memoir, The Coast is our Compass addresses all this and more.

Getting outdoors, hiking the littoral boundaries of a nation along the King Charles III England Coast Path, author Martyn Howe encounters diverse landscapes and communities, and learns much about England’s environment and the social challenges that will influence our future.

Rich in nature writing, The Coast is Our Compass campaigns for the environment and for the protection of the landscape.

Howe also discovers that long-distance backpacking – a simple life, liberated from consumerism by carrying just a few important possessions, and free from online addiction – gives him time to reflect and process many issues, often through the lens of public art or through observing the juxtaposition between industry and nature.

The Coast is Our Compass explores England’s relationship to its coastline and its importance to our identity: the sea-cliffs, estuaries, saltmarshes and beaches hold uncountable memories and heritage that shape our inner world.

‘I only went out for a walk,’ John Muir wrote, ‘and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in’.

Similarly, Howe’s exploration is philosophical, psychological and deeply personal. Written during a period of family turmoil – grieving for parents, brothers and friends, and learning of a new sister – Howe’s journey ventures inwards.

Walking alone, he learns, unclothes the ego, rendering us vulnerable yet approachable. This new state opens the senses, facilitates connection, enables us to tune into the landscape, to listen to what people have to say, to lose ourselves in the sensation of the outdoors – where a rainy day is no longer a challenge, but a joy infused with respect for nature.

A travel narrative less about where we go than why, The Coast is Our Compass is a book like no other.

Martyn Howe
After 40 years as a multinational technology executive, Martyn Howe (trailplanner.co.uk) rediscovered his passion for walking outdoors, completing all of Britain’s 19 National Trails in 2016 – covering 3,000 miles over 153 days through some of the world’s most wonderful and diverse landscapes. Howe’s 2021 book Tales from the Big Trails tells this story. Upon finishing the final trail, at Cromer in Norfolk, he learned of an audacious plan to build a new 2,700-mile National Trail around the coast of England – a trail now known as the King Charles III England Coast Path. In Howe’s mind, there was no question that this new route needed to be walked. Howe shares these experiences in his second book, The Coast is Our Compass, which ventures deeper into how it feels to undertake a coastal pilgrimage, and how it helped him learn more about himself and the challenges the world faces.

Introduction

1 Cromer to Felixstowe: You are the dawn after my dark
2 Harwich to Rochester: Beach Hut 103
3 Rochester to Dover: Groundhog Day
4 Dover to Chichester: To see the world in a grain of sand
5 Chichester to Swanage: The back of the Wight
6 Swanage to Teignmouth: 180 billion pebbles
7 Teignmouth to Par: The tide rises and the tide falls
8 Par to St. Ives: Turn right at Land’s End
9 St. Ives to Bude: Walking in a washing machine
10 Bude to Minehead: Ocean backpacker
11 Minehead to Chepstow: Where’s Wally?
12 Chester to Fleetwood: Another Place
13 Fleetwood to Barrow-in-Furness: Flying the flag
14 Barrow to Gretna: Cockcroft’s Folly
15 Berwick-upon-Tweed to Horden: A wind that carries the memory of coal
16 Horden to Bridlington: Are you sitting down?
17 Bridlington to Boston: A Dead Bod and Oss Wash
18 Boston to Cromer: Skinny rambling

Acknowledgments
Further Reading
List of Artists