Fearless wall-wrangler, pundit of the pathless, trod-botherer extraordinaire, Lakeland local and all-round cuddly curmudgeon Bobby Gard-Storry fires a missive from over the drystone wall that divides The Lakes from the rest of the world and guides us through some top tips for keeping locals on side and making the most of the best National Park in Cumbria.
In his own words:
“It is a listicle inspired by the glorious experience of the Lakeland summer. I believe it is the perfect combination of clickbait and things that are absolutely true. People will be triggered, people will be enraged, people will be in absolute agreement. They may snigger. It has all the makings of a classic. I have tried to make it as aimed at outdoor types as possible, and include the OMM in a way that doesn’t make me feel like I have sold my soul to the devil.
I wrote what I think will entertain, and I would like you to use it. But if nothing else, I amused myself. Whether or not you intend to publish my masterpiece, let me know.”
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Ahhh… the Lake District. Full of emerald fields, moody fells, sparkling lakes and… people.
Lots of people.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against people. I like people. Some of my best friends are people.
But growing up, living, working and playing here in the Lakes, sometimes you can’t help but get just a bit tired of the endless hordes, shuffling their way disconsolately along the alleyways of Keswick and filing up the steps onto the summit cairn of Scafell Pike. Tourists.
There are only about 40,000 of us who live in the National Park, and we host roughly 18 million visitors annually. And I feel like all of them are on a mission to irritate me.
But not you, of course, dear reader. You’re one of the good ones, right? Nobody with enough taste to browse the OMM website would ever be so crass as to engage in any of the kinds of infuriating behaviour I’m talking about…
So shake your head along with me, as I take you on a snarky Top-10 listicle tour of bad tourist behaviour.
Let’s get stuck in.
Look, I don’t want you to rush. I don’t want you to crash. I understand that driving in the Lakes is not straightforward. In fact, it’s very windy, and steep, and requires you to know how to use all your gears, do hill starts, tuck in, and reverse, and maybe where you live you don’t have to do any of these things. By all means, drive at the speed that feels safe for you. But the thing is, I know these bends, I know these hills, and what feels terrifying to you is normal for me.
So, for the love of all that’s holy, just pull over as soon as you get to a decent passing place, and enjoy the scenery for a few seconds, while I carry on about my day. If you do this, you will instantly be catapulted into the elite 1% of visitors, and I will be showering you with compliments from behind my wheel.
If you really want to enter the stratosphere of touristic godliness, you will also keep tabs on all the passing places that you go past on narrow lanes, and when you come head-to-head with me coming the other way, you will magnanimously opt to reverse 10 yards to your nearest one, instead of sitting there like a lemon and waiting for me to spin my way back half a mile to mine.
Even better than all that, park the car and get the bus, or the train! Some of the most satisfying outdoor adventures that you can have involve canny use of public transport. There’s just nothing quite like stepping off the train with a fully loaded backpack, eyes cast towards the fells, knowing that your adventure is already underway. And now that the busses are capped at £2 per trip, it really is a no-brainer.
On that note, remember it’s a National Park, not a National Carpark. It’s simple:
Pay and Display? Yes.
Wide quiet road verges? Ok.
Narrow Lanes? No.
Gateways? NO!
It’s wet. How do you think all the lakes got here? So when it’s a laal bit grim out, instead of spending the day trudging around the outdoor shops in Ambleside, idling looking through the clearance racks and considering whether a fourth coffee stop of the morning is warranted, just invest in some of the top quality gear available to deal with the cold and the rain, and get out there!
Experiencing the fells on inclement days really is all part of the outdoors experience. Not only will it make you a more battle-hardened for when you inevitably become obsessed with mountain marathons and spend the year in near-constant psychological training for the grim conditions of the overnight camp, but it will also make you feel alive, reward you with many atmospheric moments, and make you really appreciate that hot chocolate in the café afterwards.
Learn the skills that will allow you to navigate when the clag is down, and for heavens sake, dress for the weather. Jeans and a cotton T-Shirt are not going to cut it when it’s 40mph winds and tipping it down. Neither is your phone a useful way to find your way when it’s freezing cold. Getting the most out of your trip to the lakes means being prepared to face the weather, so come prepared: mentally, physically and, uh… equipmentorily.
I hear OMM stuff is pretty top notch, by the way… ahem.
I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had a visitor try and tell me about just how well they know the Lake District. “I have a deep connection with this place” they say, “I’ve been coming here every year since I was a child!”. I try my best to bite my tongue, and not point out that I myself might have spent a few days in the place, having grown up and lived most of my adult life here.
But you could spend countless lifetimes living and exploring this county, and never truly know every rock and tree. The awesome thing about the Lakes is that despite being so compact and quick to get around, it holds almost infinite little corners to explore. After a few decades spent poking around in ghylls and scampering over the fells myself, I am still constantly looking out from viewpoints and thinking to myself ‘well now, I wonder what’s over there?
People like to have a sense of ownership of the Lakes, probably because of the whole ‘National’ Park thing, but that doesn’t mean park as-in: your own personal playground, it means park as-in: uh… really nice area. And the people who live here are the ones making it nice for you, so try not to behave as though you own the place.
In the same way that if I was a bolder man I would tell people who visit my house not to ‘make themselves at home’, but rather ‘treat it like it’s my home’, I would tell visitors to the Lakes: be a good guest, not a transitory disturbance.
And no, just because you’ve ‘done the Wainwrights’, that doesn’t mean you’ve ‘done’ the Lakes.
So come and explore, with humility and good grace, and learn from local knowledge as much as possible!
I build and repair dry stone walls for a living. People walk past while I’m working, and they love to make remarks. Please, if you see me: ask questions, engage in conversation, have a look at what I’m doing. But don’t tell me ‘it’s just like a jigsaw’. If I hear that one more time, I might just turn the wall into a tomb.
Other popular options to be avoided if you want to stand out from the crowd: ‘There’s a real art to it!’ and ‘It must be very satisfying.’
Both true, but trite.
It’s not ‘The Borrowdale Valley’ or ‘Langdale Valley’, it’s just Borrowdale and Langdale. Dale means Valley, so there’s really no need to tag on extra words. And it’s not Lake Windermere – mere means lake – it’s just Windermere. Yes, yes, I know, it’s confusing because there’s the lake and there’s the town, but I think context will give me everything I need to know. If you tell me you’re going to the pub in Windermere, I won’t assume that there’s a neat new joint just opened up at the bottom of the lake and you’ll be in there in your snorkelling gear trying to force down some poorly brewed IPA.
Does it really matter? No, not really. But if everyone everywhere just starts using the same words for everything, the world will become a much duller place. Keeping local place-names alive is part of the fight against the borification of the world, and I know you wouldn’t want to be part of that. Also, if you’ve come this far without being turned off by my incessant whinging, I’m assume you are a fellow pedant, and you will be nodding along with every word.
So when you’re exploring the Lakes, think about the place names, and what they mean, and when you’re out and about describing features in the landscape, reach for the words that are unique to this place:
Don’t say mountain, say fell.
Don’t say ravine, say ghyll.
Don’t say pond, say tarn.
Don’t say stream, say beck.
It’s not a hike, it’s a walk. It’s not a trail, it’s a path. It’s not a cliff, it’s a crag. And if you really want to knock my socks off, you’ll learn how to say ‘Torpenhow’. No googling.
I get it. Vans are cool. Or at least, that’s the trend right now. No more are they the preserve of the dirtbag climber in a battered old banger, looking to save on money even if it means their motor is as likely as not to conk out going over Kirkstone. No, now it seems like everyone and their dog has a shiny new model with blacked-out windows and wood-panelled interiors, each of them worth enough to fund a lifetimes-worth of youth hostel stays for the owner.
But no matter how much cooler your vanlife snaps look than the comfort of a stiflingly middle aged, middle class B&B, your Insta doesn’t fool me. I know that you’re not enjoying a tranquil evening alone, surrounded by the wonderful sounds of nature. You’re parked off the A591 with half a dozen other wannabe influencers, wondering whether or not to buy the bumpers sticker that says ‘Gone Adventuring’ or the one that says ‘Live, Laugh, Lake District’. And you’re paying more for it, too.
Most of my mates have vans… but they probably won’t read this. So I say again: don’t be one of those insufferably self-congratulatory van-lifers. If you must vanlife, at least do it apologetically.
8. DON’T TREAT IT LIKE GLASTONBURY
Quite an alarming number of tents and sleeping bags are just ditched in the Lakes every year. Of course, I don’t think the organisers of Glasto want you to abandon your £10 popup piece of rubbish there either, but it’s somehow even more infuriating to see one mashed into the corner of a sheepfold on the side of High Raise.
Throwaway culture goes against everything that enjoying the outdoors should be about: moving through the landscape lightly, carrying only what you need, and knowing what to do with it. You look after it, it looks after you. We can’t all always afford everything we want straight away in terms of the newest high-tech gear, but we can make steady investments over time to have things that we want to treasure and look after for the long-haul, not just use and dump.
In a similar vein, although you probably don’t ditch tents, you probably do dally with the ‘in and out’ model of visiting? Less littery, yes, but still a bit abrupt.
Whether it’s the OMM itself, which I am contractually obliged to include * or any of the many fantastic fell races or other events going on in Cumbria every single year, there are endless opportunities for you to come here and test yourselves competitively over some quality mountain terrain, if that’s your jam.
But why stop there? If you’re coming for a day, then make it a long weekend, or a week. Folk who really embrace their trip and put a lot into the area, get the most back out of it. Use the cafes and the pubs. Walk around. Learn some local history. Build a whole trip around your event: foreplay before, cuddling after. Don’t just grab your coat and slam the door, or else we won’t want you back anytime soon.
*Editor’s note: No, he isn’t. He just loves the OMM
I know, I know. I’m a grumpy bastard.
And if, after reading this, you feel inspired to spread the gospel of touristic responsibility, then I fully encourage you to print it out and paste it onto windscreens, slide it underneath holiday cottage doors, shout it from the hilltops, get it tattooed on your chest and run topless through Bowness on full display to the assembled hordes…*
* Editor’s note: Please do not do any of these things.
But as much as part of me would like to erect a huge dry stone wall around the perimeter of the county, and operate a one-in, one-out policy to maintain visitor numbers at a manageable level (lets say… ten?), I do not actually hate tourists.
The Lakes has been a popular destination for quite literally hundreds of years, and for better or worse, our entire economy relies on this constant stream of visitors. And yes, I even have friends from outside the promised land, who I sometimes like to show around my patch, with poorly-disguised pride.
So come, and enjoy! Get up those hills, squelch in those bogs, scramble on those crags, walk, run, camp, and have a pint in the pub after. It’s a grand place to live, and a grand place to visit!
But please, please, don’t drive in front of me from Kendal to Keswick at 15mph.
Fearless wall-wrangler, pundit of the pathless, trod-botherer extraordinaire, Lakeland local and all-round cuddly curmudgeon Bobby Gard-Storry fires a missive from over the drystone wall that divides The Lakes from the rest of the world and guides us through some top tips for keeping locals on side and making the most of the best National Park in Cumbria.
In his own words:
“It is a listicle inspired by the glorious experience of the Lakeland summer. I believe it is the perfect combination of clickbait and things that are absolutely true. People will be triggered, people will be enraged, people will be in absolute agreement. They may snigger. It has all the makings of a classic. I have tried to make it as aimed at outdoor types as possible, and include the OMM in a way that doesn’t make me feel like I have sold my soul to the devil.
I wrote what I think will entertain, and I would like you to use it. But if nothing else, I amused myself. Whether or not you intend to publish my masterpiece, let me know.”
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Ahhh… the Lake District. Full of emerald fields, moody fells, sparkling lakes and… people.
Lots of people.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against people. I like people. Some of my best friends are people.
But growing up, living, working and playing here in the Lakes, sometimes you can’t help but get just a bit tired of the endless hordes, shuffling their way disconsolately along the alleyways of Keswick and filing up the steps onto the summit cairn of Scafell Pike. Tourists.
There are only about 40,000 of us who live in the National Park, and we host roughly 18 million visitors annually. And I feel like all of them are on a mission to irritate me.
But not you, of course, dear reader. You’re one of the good ones, right? Nobody with enough taste to browse the OMM website would ever be so crass as to engage in any of the kinds of infuriating behaviour I’m talking about…
So shake your head along with me, as I take you on a snarky Top-10 listicle tour of bad tourist behaviour.
Let’s get stuck in.
Look, I don’t want you to rush. I don’t want you to crash. I understand that driving in the Lakes is not straightforward. In fact, it’s very windy, and steep, and requires you to know how to use all your gears, do hill starts, tuck in, and reverse, and maybe where you live you don’t have to do any of these things. By all means, drive at the speed that feels safe for you. But the thing is, I know these bends, I know these hills, and what feels terrifying to you is normal for me.
So, for the love of all that’s holy, just pull over as soon as you get to a decent passing place, and enjoy the scenery for a few seconds, while I carry on about my day. If you do this, you will instantly be catapulted into the elite 1% of visitors, and I will be showering you with compliments from behind my wheel.
If you really want to enter the stratosphere of touristic godliness, you will also keep tabs on all the passing places that you go past on narrow lanes, and when you come head-to-head with me coming the other way, you will magnanimously opt to reverse 10 yards to your nearest one, instead of sitting there like a lemon and waiting for me to spin my way back half a mile to mine.
Even better than all that, park the car and get the bus, or the train! Some of the most satisfying outdoor adventures that you can have involve canny use of public transport. There’s just nothing quite like stepping off the train with a fully loaded backpack, eyes cast towards the fells, knowing that your adventure is already underway. And now that the busses are capped at £2 per trip, it really is a no-brainer.
On that note, remember it’s a National Park, not a National Carpark. It’s simple:
Pay and Display? Yes.
Wide quiet road verges? Ok.
Narrow Lanes? No.
Gateways? NO!
It’s wet. How do you think all the lakes got here? So when it’s a laal bit grim out, instead of spending the day trudging around the outdoor shops in Ambleside, idling looking through the clearance racks and considering whether a fourth coffee stop of the morning is warranted, just invest in some of the top quality gear available to deal with the cold and the rain, and get out there!
Experiencing the fells on inclement days really is all part of the outdoors experience. Not only will it make you a more battle-hardened for when you inevitably become obsessed with mountain marathons and spend the year in near-constant psychological training for the grim conditions of the overnight camp, but it will also make you feel alive, reward you with many atmospheric moments, and make you really appreciate that hot chocolate in the café afterwards.
Learn the skills that will allow you to navigate when the clag is down, and for heavens sake, dress for the weather. Jeans and a cotton T-Shirt are not going to cut it when it’s 40mph winds and tipping it down. Neither is your phone a useful way to find your way when it’s freezing cold. Getting the most out of your trip to the lakes means being prepared to face the weather, so come prepared: mentally, physically and, uh… equipmentorily.
I hear OMM stuff is pretty top notch, by the way… ahem.
I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had a visitor try and tell me about just how well they know the Lake District. “I have a deep connection with this place” they say, “I’ve been coming here every year since I was a child!”. I try my best to bite my tongue, and not point out that I myself might have spent a few days in the place, having grown up and lived most of my adult life here.
But you could spend countless lifetimes living and exploring this county, and never truly know every rock and tree. The awesome thing about the Lakes is that despite being so compact and quick to get around, it holds almost infinite little corners to explore. After a few decades spent poking around in ghylls and scampering over the fells myself, I am still constantly looking out from viewpoints and thinking to myself ‘well now, I wonder what’s over there?
People like to have a sense of ownership of the Lakes, probably because of the whole ‘National’ Park thing, but that doesn’t mean park as-in: your own personal playground, it means park as-in: uh… really nice area. And the people who live here are the ones making it nice for you, so try not to behave as though you own the place.
In the same way that if I was a bolder man I would tell people who visit my house not to ‘make themselves at home’, but rather ‘treat it like it’s my home’, I would tell visitors to the Lakes: be a good guest, not a transitory disturbance.
And no, just because you’ve ‘done the Wainwrights’, that doesn’t mean you’ve ‘done’ the Lakes.
So come and explore, with humility and good grace, and learn from local knowledge as much as possible!
I build and repair dry stone walls for a living. People walk past while I’m working, and they love to make remarks. Please, if you see me: ask questions, engage in conversation, have a look at what I’m doing. But don’t tell me ‘it’s just like a jigsaw’. If I hear that one more time, I might just turn the wall into a tomb.
Other popular options to be avoided if you want to stand out from the crowd: ‘There’s a real art to it!’ and ‘It must be very satisfying.’
Both true, but trite.
It’s not ‘The Borrowdale Valley’ or ‘Langdale Valley’, it’s just Borrowdale and Langdale. Dale means Valley, so there’s really no need to tag on extra words. And it’s not Lake Windermere – mere means lake – it’s just Windermere. Yes, yes, I know, it’s confusing because there’s the lake and there’s the town, but I think context will give me everything I need to know. If you tell me you’re going to the pub in Windermere, I won’t assume that there’s a neat new joint just opened up at the bottom of the lake and you’ll be in there in your snorkelling gear trying to force down some poorly brewed IPA.
Does it really matter? No, not really. But if everyone everywhere just starts using the same words for everything, the world will become a much duller place. Keeping local place-names alive is part of the fight against the borification of the world, and I know you wouldn’t want to be part of that. Also, if you’ve come this far without being turned off by my incessant whinging, I’m assume you are a fellow pedant, and you will be nodding along with every word.
So when you’re exploring the Lakes, think about the place names, and what they mean, and when you’re out and about describing features in the landscape, reach for the words that are unique to this place:
Don’t say mountain, say fell.
Don’t say ravine, say ghyll.
Don’t say pond, say tarn.
Don’t say stream, say beck.
It’s not a hike, it’s a walk. It’s not a trail, it’s a path. It’s not a cliff, it’s a crag. And if you really want to knock my socks off, you’ll learn how to say ‘Torpenhow’. No googling.
I get it. Vans are cool. Or at least, that’s the trend right now. No more are they the preserve of the dirtbag climber in a battered old banger, looking to save on money even if it means their motor is as likely as not to conk out going over Kirkstone. No, now it seems like everyone and their dog has a shiny new model with blacked-out windows and wood-panelled interiors, each of them worth enough to fund a lifetimes-worth of youth hostel stays for the owner.
But no matter how much cooler your vanlife snaps look than the comfort of a stiflingly middle aged, middle class B&B, your Insta doesn’t fool me. I know that you’re not enjoying a tranquil evening alone, surrounded by the wonderful sounds of nature. You’re parked off the A591 with half a dozen other wannabe influencers, wondering whether or not to buy the bumpers sticker that says ‘Gone Adventuring’ or the one that says ‘Live, Laugh, Lake District’. And you’re paying more for it, too.
Most of my mates have vans… but they probably won’t read this. So I say again: don’t be one of those insufferably self-congratulatory van-lifers. If you must vanlife, at least do it apologetically.
8. DON’T TREAT IT LIKE GLASTONBURY
Quite an alarming number of tents and sleeping bags are just ditched in the Lakes every year. Of course, I don’t think the organisers of Glasto want you to abandon your £10 popup piece of rubbish there either, but it’s somehow even more infuriating to see one mashed into the corner of a sheepfold on the side of High Raise.
Throwaway culture goes against everything that enjoying the outdoors should be about: moving through the landscape lightly, carrying only what you need, and knowing what to do with it. You look after it, it looks after you. We can’t all always afford everything we want straight away in terms of the newest high-tech gear, but we can make steady investments over time to have things that we want to treasure and look after for the long-haul, not just use and dump.
In a similar vein, although you probably don’t ditch tents, you probably do dally with the ‘in and out’ model of visiting? Less littery, yes, but still a bit abrupt.
Whether it’s the OMM itself, which I am contractually obliged to include * or any of the many fantastic fell races or other events going on in Cumbria every single year, there are endless opportunities for you to come here and test yourselves competitively over some quality mountain terrain, if that’s your jam.
But why stop there? If you’re coming for a day, then make it a long weekend, or a week. Folk who really embrace their trip and put a lot into the area, get the most back out of it. Use the cafes and the pubs. Walk around. Learn some local history. Build a whole trip around your event: foreplay before, cuddling after. Don’t just grab your coat and slam the door, or else we won’t want you back anytime soon.
*Editor’s note: No, he isn’t. He just loves the OMM
I know, I know. I’m a grumpy bastard.
And if, after reading this, you feel inspired to spread the gospel of touristic responsibility, then I fully encourage you to print it out and paste it onto windscreens, slide it underneath holiday cottage doors, shout it from the hilltops, get it tattooed on your chest and run topless through Bowness on full display to the assembled hordes…*
* Editor’s note: Please do not do any of these things.
But as much as part of me would like to erect a huge dry stone wall around the perimeter of the county, and operate a one-in, one-out policy to maintain visitor numbers at a manageable level (lets say… ten?), I do not actually hate tourists.
The Lakes has been a popular destination for quite literally hundreds of years, and for better or worse, our entire economy relies on this constant stream of visitors. And yes, I even have friends from outside the promised land, who I sometimes like to show around my patch, with poorly-disguised pride.
So come, and enjoy! Get up those hills, squelch in those bogs, scramble on those crags, walk, run, camp, and have a pint in the pub after. It’s a grand place to live, and a grand place to visit!
But please, please, don’t drive in front of me from Kendal to Keswick at 15mph.
If you have a story to tell, whether it’s from the OMM, another race or challenge or just how you use our kit, get in touch! Just pop an email to james@team-ark.com and who knows, you might just earn yourself some free kit!
OMM athletes never shy away from a challenge. From classic British races like the Skiddaw uphill trials and Welsh peaks, through to ultra challenges like the Lakeland 100 and the Matterhorn, this year is packed with tough events for the OMM team.
Dive in to find out what our athletes are taking on in 2026 and what learnings they’re taking forward from past seasons.
They’ve landed, and they’re performing. Many miles in winter conditions have been put into the OMM Fell shoes, and they are proving themselves on every terrain.
OMM launches its first running shoe: the Fell Shoe. Developed with Vibram, it delivers grip, stability and control across varied mountain terrain.
Looks like you haven't made a choice yet.
