In this section we’ll be posting thoughts from around the Chilterns and the Thames Valley as we explore it for Slow Travel. In the meantime…

Why the Chilterns and Thames Valley?

Despite the number of people who live here, work here, visit the area or travel through it, the Chilterns and Thames Valley are not well-served by existing guidebooks.  There are many excellent walking guides, for the Chilterns in particular, but no general guidebook.  In larger guidebooks covering England, Britain or the UK, the Chilterns and Thames Valley barely merit a mention.  Given the area’s many charms and attractions, it’s about time that someone corrected this oversight!

Where is the Chilterns and Thames Valley in any case?

For the Slow Travel guidebook, we are defining it as: the area covered by the Chiltern Society, the area’s largest environmental group, across parts of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire, along with the Vale of Aylesbury; plus the Thames Valley area to the south, from Runnymede in the east to Reading in the West.  We include the Vale of Aylesbury as its landscape, wildlife and heritage is impossible to separate from that of the rest of Buckinghamshire.