It wasn't as I crossed the mossy riverbank, or the bracken-carpeted forest floor. And it wasn't as I waded through the long grass or stepped over the wooden stile. No – it was as I stood ankle-deep in mud, feeling it squelch between my toes, as giggles and squeals only dogs could hear escaped involuntarily from my mouth. That was the moment I became a barefoot-walking convert.

When I told friends that my husband, Christian, and I were going barefoot walking in the Yorkshire Dales national park, they looked at me perplexed. "As in, no shoes?" one asked. "Why?"

I, too, was sceptical. But I had read about a growing movement towards "barefooting" – taking part in outdoor events without shoes – and was intrigued. When I discovered that Alison O'Neill, a shepherdess who offers popular walking holidays from her farm, Shacklabank, in east Cumbria on the edge of the Dales, was launching guided barefoot walks through the Howgill Fells, I thought my feet would be in safe hands.

Our accommodation at Shacklabank was a "shepherd's hut" – actually a cosily converted cattle trailer with just enough room for a double bed and a woodburner, perched on the edge of a field with views over Dentdale. We woke to blue skies and a fry-up in the farmhouse, cooked by Alison's husband, John, before it was time to get walking. The plan was that, following public footpaths, we'd walk to Sedbergh for lunch, before heading along the river Dee to Dent for supper (where John would collect us). It's a journey of around 10 miles – and we'd do it au naturel. Well, mostly.

"We'll take our shoes off once we clear the farm," said Alison, who has been walking barefoot in the Cumbrian hills for years, tending her sheep. "But when we come to gravel, or a main road, we'll put them back on again."

As I unlaced my shoes, rolled up my trousers and negotiated my way across Capplethwaite Beck – taking care not to slip on the rocks – and up the bank to a grassy footpath, being shoeless felt, well, odd. The last time my feet encountered textures like these was more than 20 years ago, when I'd go paddling in Linford Bottom in Hampshire as a little girl.

But, after a mile or so, the oddness subsided, and it started to feel rather good. We have 200,000 nerve endings in each foot, and all 400,000 of mine were on sensory overload: the feeling of the leaf mould, soft and damp; knee-high grass, still wet from the early-morning dew; the smooth wood of the stiles; moss-covered rocks that felt like velvet; the different temperatures of the soil sunlight or shade. It was as though my other senses were heightened, too. Everything seemed more vivid – the smell of hay, the sound of twigs breaking underfoot, the sherbet-tasting wild strawberries we picked en route, even the sight of a buzzard soaring overhead.

Walking barefoot is, of course, nothing new. It's what we did for millennia before we started wearing shoes, around 40,000 years ago. And we haven't forgotten that going barefoot feels good. In China, reflexology paths paved with stones have been used for thousands of years to enhance physical and mental wellbeing. In the 19th century a Bavarian monk called Sebastian Kneipp believed that wading barefoot through wet grass or shallow water stimulated the internal organs, strengthened the immune system and helped the body to heal itself (today, variations of Kneipp therapy are practised in spas around the world).

In the late 1960s hippies starting shunned the wearing of shoes, and in 1970 an article in the New York Times entitled "Shoelessness on the rise" told how the practice had hit the mainstream, and that it was now common to see barefoot young couples queueing outside Broadway theatres. By the 1980s, however, public venues had introduced policies against bare feet, and the practice went out of style.

Back in Cumbria, our group of 21st-century barefooters entered the Killington Bridge nature reserve, filled with wild purple orchids, and followed a stony footpath – resembling a Chinese reflexology path perhaps – along the river Lune. It occurred to me that not only were my feet not hurting, as they often would in boots (no blisters, hurrah!), but they felt great.

"Footwear constricts our feet," explained Alison, whose soles have toughened after years of rambling shoeless. She's right: according to health experts, people who habitually walk barefoot generally have stronger feet, better flexibility and fewer ailments such as flat feet.

"It's kinder on the environment, too," said Alison, as we padded across a meadow towards Silver stream, picked wild mint and sat on the bank cleansing our soles with the rolled-up leaves. "When we walk barefoot, we tread a lighter path and show our respect for a natural world."

At some points during our walk I did find myself tiptoeing to avoid stepping on flowers, or thorns.

The rise in the popularity of barefoot walking in the UK is undeniable. In 2000, John Woodward, an Alexander Technique teacher and avid barefooter, launched barefoot running courses in the Lake District (naturalrunning.co.uk). These have snowballed in popularity over the past three years. And in 2006 the UK's first outdoor barfuss (German for barefoot) trail opened in Nottinghamshire, followed by another barefoot trail at Greenwood Forest park in Gwynedd in 2009.

Alison, who has been running guided walks since 2004, launched the barefoot variety after guests loved it when she encouraged them to give it a try. "It's instinctive," she said. "I'm not saying we should wander around cities barefoot, but in a park, on a beach, even just in your back garden … People should give it a try."

After a quick pit stop at Sedbergh to refuel on sarnies at the Duo cafe (we put our shoes back on, and they felt cumbersome and constricting), it was back on the barefoot trail, along the Dales Way. As we climbed Frostrow Fell, with its sweeping views of the Howgills, and crossed the river Dee, through that mud which had me giggling like a schoolgirl, I felt strangely liberated. And the feeling lasted all the way to Dent, where we ate fish and chips at the Sun Inn.

The slogan on the Society for Barefoot Living's homepage is "set your feet free and your mind will follow" (barefooters.org).

Whether you believe that or not, no one sums it up better than barefoot enthusiast Edgar Brown, a 77-year-old retired teacher living in north London, who got hooked on the joys of going shoeless when he was 12. (His mum would give him a clout if he returned home with muddy shoes, so off they came.) He spends most of his life barefoot – from playing the organ in church to travelling on the London Underground. "I could intellectualise it, or claim it's for health benefits," he said. "But it's just fun."

• Alison O'Neill (015396 20134, shacklabank.co.uk) offers a day's guided barefoot walk, with half-board accommodation in the shepherd's hut, from £135 per person. Return fares from London Euston to Oxenholme with Virgin Trains (08719 774222, virgintrains.co.uk) start from £28