Forest bathing at Kielder Water and Forest Park

Kielder Forest covers about 250 square miles on the Scottish border, and Forestry England calls it the largest forest in England. Planting began in the 1920s. Most of it is Sitka spruce, with Norway spruce, lodgepole pine, Scots pine, larch and some birch, oak and beech mixed in, and it holds around half of England's red squirrels. The scale is the point here: a few minutes from a car park, you can have a long stretch of forest to yourself.

Most people start at Kielder Castle, where several walking trails begin, including the walk to the Hindhope Linn waterfall, and where you can join the Lakeside Way, a 26 mile path around Kielder Water. You do not need to go far along it. The forest also has over 100 miles of mountain bike trail, so pick a walking route rather than a bike route. A quarter of the area is open ground at any one time, so expect felled patches and bog as well as dense conifer. The Forest Drive, a toll road open from May to December, reaches further in.