The Cotswolds Inn to Inn Walk Adventure
- Sheri Johnson, RD
- Nov 14, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 15, 2025
The Cotswolds
The Cotswolds lie in the southwest part of England, about an hour and a half west of London by train. It's a mostly rural area peppered with small villages that look like they came straight out of a Jane Austen novel. The name "Cotswold" means "sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides." It is aptly named, as we certainly saw plenty of both.
The rural charm and low-key, countryside lifestyle have also made the Cotswolds a posh hideaway for the rich and famous including: David & Victoria Beckham, Ellen DeGeneres & Portia De Rossi, Hugh Grant, and King Charles, among others. We saw none of them.
The Inn to Inn Walks:
Our good friends, and frequent travel companions, Mike and Laurie joined Brad and me for a different sort of adventure that combined hiking with stays in many of the charming towns and villages that make up the Cotswolds. Here's a description of our walk from our tour company who says it better than I can:
"The hike takes you between the most beautiful villages in the Cotswolds to discover why this is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The trail meanders through the beautiful rolling countryside visiting honey-colored villages, historic stately homes, immaculate English rose-filled gardens and ancient sites. You begin in Moreton-in-Marsh, a bustling market town and hike south through the Cotswold countryside. You overnight in quaint villages to reach Bourton-on-the-Water, a Cotswold gem. The route turns west to Winchcombe before looping back to Moreton-in-Marsh via Stanton, Broadway and Chipping Campden."
Our tour company arranged all of the inn and guest house stays for us, provided us with detailed directions for all the walks, and arranged for our luggage to be transported from inn to inn each day. We were free to leave each day when we wanted, to walk at our own pace, and to stop to sight-see along the way, as we desired.
Lunch and dinner were on our own, but the inns and guest houses included breakfast, which was almost always a version of the full English Breakfast. While it was nice to not have to worry about finding breakfast each day, we did grow a bit tired of the very hearty breakfasts that had little variation. First world problems.
The Cotswold Towns
As you can see from the pictures below, all of the towns have a similar look. Don't ask me which picture is which town; they all blended together after a while. One of the reasons they all look so similar is the Cotswold stone. The limestone is golden or honey colored due to the iron present, and it is used to build almost all of the structures in the area, as it has been for hundreds of years. I'm pretty sure even the smallest of towns we passed through had both a church and a pub, so residents and those passing through could wash away both their sorrows and their sins without leaving town.
Literary Connections
Many writers were influenced by the Cotswolds, including Beatrix Potter, Jane Austen, and T.S. Eliot. In Moreton-in-Marsh, where we began and ended our loop walk, was a pub said to have inspired J.R.R. Tolkien's pub The Prancing Pony in his novel The Lord of the Rings. If it has been a while since you read it (and of course you have read it!), The Prancing Pony is where the hobbit party first meets Strider/Aragorn. Sadly, we did not find any hobbits or future kings (that we were aware of), but we did stop in for a pint of Guinness and to check out the map of Middle Earth.
Though it is not as obviously documented with a plaque, we were pretty sure this wardrobe in our hotel room led to C.S. Lewis' Narnia:
The Walks
Our walks through the Cotswolds took us down many paths, as you can see below. We walked anywhere from 3.5 to 8 miles per day, with most days being around 6 miles. Across England and Wales, there are over 140,000 miles of rights of way paths. Most of these paths are through private land, but they are required to be open to the public at all times.
The western part of our loop trail followed the Cotswold Way path which is an official National Trail of England. Some paths lead through fields, others through forests, and a few down roads we shared with cars (our least favorite). You are allowed to cross these private lands as long as you keep to the path. We had a booklet of detailed directions for each walk as well as a GPS track we could follow on our phones. We quickly ditched the booklet after the first day as the GPS track was accurate and much easier to follow.
Walking the many paths of the Cotswolds:
Walking through the many fields and over the hills of the Cotswolds:
Befitting the Cotswolds' name, we met many, many sheep along the way, including the one in the last picture (below) who was fiercely guarding the entrance to their pasture. He stamped a hoof at us as we passed through, and kept an eye on us until we left his domain.
Of course, fields full of animals left minefields of what they produce:
The Cotswolds are not just fields of sheep (though they are mostly fields of sheep). We did meet a few other animals of note along the way:
I'll bet you didn't know there were penguins in the Cotswolds, did you? No, they aren't indigenous, but they are very famous. These penguins live in Birdland Park and Gardens, in the Cotwolds town of Bourton-on-the-Water. Spike (last picture) is the most famous penguin in the world! In 2023, Spike won the title of Most Famous Penguin in the World through an international competition, so it's official.
The Motley Crew
Every day we started our treks with a group photo. It's easy to look happy in the mornings when you are well-rested and full of English Breakfast.....
....but we even look happy at the end of our last day!
Cotswold Final Thoughts & Wisdom
Yes, the Cotswolds are beautiful, quaint, charming, and sheep-filled. However, we did start to find both the towns and walks a bit repetitive after a few days. One could easily drive from town to town which took some of the adventure out of the walks. We did not have any grand spectacles to work towards, like when we trekked to Machu Picchu or through the Grand Canyon to Havasupai. While the towns were all cute, we arrived late and tired, then left the next morning, leaving little time to explore them.
That being said, a day spent outside, in a beautiful place, with good friends, and few obligations, is a very good day indeed. How fortunate are we to have been on so many grand adventures that a really good one pales in comparison?
We leave you with these profound words of wisdom found on an old Cotswold fence:
This looks like the most excellent Sepulveda Animal Hospital reunion I have ever seen, mostly because there is no Sepulveda Animal Hospital in the background.
Pretty! I may have learned something too. The routine may have gotten stale but i imagine it could’ve been much worse had the weather been less favorable.