Highlands

A patchwork quilt of purple heathers, rusty moorland, bristling reeds and savage crags, the scope, scale and sheer rawness of the Scottish Highlands are hard to beat. You can almost hear the cinematic orchestra striking up behind you, scoring your every movement as you make your way across the fells and mountains watching as the sky bruises above you and the elements take you in their grasp, Rob Roy or William Wallace by your side, bagpipes blaring.

A place of dark legend, rich history and overflowing with dramatic scenery from the lochs which stretch out to the distant horizon, castles which perch precariously on cliffs and over shadowy waters, and the intimidating bulk of the mountains which loom up behind them, the place is epic by nature.

Wildlife proliferates too, from the canny red squirrels that abound in many parts, to the mischievous pine martens who prefer the woodland, the elegance of the red stags who patrol the moorlands and the bottlenose dolphins who can often be seen chasing salmon in the waters of the Moray Firth.

Take a flight to Inverness, pick up a car and take the stunning triptych of A roads out past Loch Ness and Fort Augustus and be prepared to have to pick up your jaw several times along the way.

New Forest

Tucked away at the base of the country (Southampton is probably the best airport) is this emerald jewel which, apart from providing a welcome green lung to the network of arterial roads which all inevitably lead towards London, also provides an arboreal counterpoint to the promenades and the pebble dash of the south coast.

Though a relatively small area when compared to, say, the great landmass expanses of the Highlands or the Lake District, the more compact scale of the place still offers drama. The drama here comes from the dappled light through the English oak, ash and beech trees and the shadows cast when the sun salutes the day. The drama here also comes from the colour shifts; being a woodland area it’s strongest season is Autumn when leaves of a million tones cover the forest floor and float from the branches.

The Beaulieu river flows through sections of the forest; Beau Lieu means ‘beautiful place’ in French. No further words are necessary really.

Peak District

Nestled in the crux of the country and representative of the kinds of landscape to be featured in a thousand films and television programmes, the Peak District is a short drive away from quite a few of the UK’s major airports including Manchester.

Drama is in its heritage, in its rivers and its spa towns, in its rural cottages and its stately Victorian pavilions. Most recently the area has been put on a televisual pedestal by the success of a hard-bitten rural drama called The Village; the area just lends itself naturally to emotion, it seems.

To take in the stunning topography of the place, there are now cable cars and hilltop parks, a long and twisty network of bridle paths and trails across the gaping limestone plateaux.

Dartmoor

Far away from the the main thrust of the country and stretching out down toward the south west of the country are the rough and wind-beaten peaty moorlands of Dartmoor. The bogs and marshlands here can be beautifully eerie and are pocked by quakers and/or feather beds – tufts of squidgy moss-covered peat-masses which can leave unaccustomed wayfarers floundering in their wake.

Such an eerie and awe-inspiring place is obliged to be forever associated with myths, legends and folklore. Dartmoor, over the years, has been claimed as the home turf for a headless horsemen, pixies, a pack of ghostly hounds, and – most famously of all – a big, savage black dog (immortalised in fiction forever as a terrifying mystery for Sherlock Holmes to crack in the Hound of the Baskervilles which replaced Fox Tor Mires with the fictional Great Grimpen Mire).

North York Moors

Another area of comparable dramatic scale, replete with moss bogs, peat and alkaline-rich limestone soils underpinning heather, gorse and wild grass-covered fells, are the North York Moors up in the north of the country (within good distance of Leeds-Bradford Airport).

The moorlands supply enough dramatic vistas and panoramas by themselves but now it is impossible to refer to them without thinking about the literary heritage which is intertwined with their existence. From the classic tales of doomed romance from the Brontë sisters, to Ted Hughes’ earthy and raw verse and the lines of W.H. Auden which echo down the ages: the North Yorkshire Moors have inspired generation after generation of dramatists to communicate what they experience up there.

Mention the word “travel” and, chances are, people think of cruise liners, five-star hotels, pagodas, museums, exotic food, beaches and theme parks. Not any more. There’s a new dimension to travel that brings it to an entirely new level. It’s called experiential travel and it’s changing what people expect from visiting different places.

Experiential travel means not just “seeing” what’s new but “living” it. It means spending your holiday longer in one place instead of jumping from one new city to another. It entails getting to know the people of the place, their lifestyle, customs and traditions. Experiential travel means that you immerse yourself in a different way of life so you get a deeper understanding of other races and cultures.

English: Oasthouse http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/821745 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An excellent yet simple experiential travel method is house sitting. When you take on a house sitting job in a new place, you spend weeks and even months there. This gives house sitters of time to explore the place, get to know the people who live there and become part of their community. You’ll get the chance to witness how things are done differently, participate in new traditions, make new friends and gain new insights into a different way of life. What’s more, travelling as house sitters answers many of the challenges that arise with experiential travel.

With a house sitting job decent, comfortable accommodations come free. This saves you having to spend for hotels or boarding houses. You can schedule your time the way you want to, balancing your house sitter tasks with exploring your surroundings. Being a house sitter also helps you with your food budget. You can buy your food where the locals shop, cook your own food in your home’s kitchen and save on restaurant bills. When you do decide to have a night out, the friends you’ve made can tell you where the best (and least expensive) places are for a good time.

Should you be paid for being a house sitter you can use the money you earn to make your stay even more memorable. On your days off or when your house sitter chores are finished, use the money to visit other areas in the region, go to places and events that your friends recommend and even learn the arts and crafts of the place.

There are organized experiential travel programs that one can easily join. Traditional and online media provide a vast amount of information about experiential travel: what’s available, where to go, how much it costs, what to do and how to go about it. There are annual trade shows that bring together the different sectors of the travel industry, highlighting the status of experiential travel and showing what’s in store for everyone. Nevertheless, house sitting will always be a simple, inexpensive option for someone in search of experiential travel. With house sitting, you choose the time and the circumstances that can add a whole new dimension to your stay. That you can earn something in the process is icing on the cake.

Contributed by Mel Hogan. Mel is a house sitter and travel blogger. He writes for the house sitting website Mindahome.co.uk