Horse riding, Exmoor
Peak Riding is the perfect way to head deep into the countryside. More exhilarating than walking, more off-road than mountain biking and far more peaceful than anything involving mechanical horse power. Exmoor National Park has 400 miles of bridleways, making it a rewarding place to ride. On a horse you'll find yourself part of nature rather than just an observer. Deer, buzzards, a skulking fox, feral Exmoor ponies are rarely bothered by your passing when you're disguised as a centaur. At Pine Lodge, a working sheep farm, Bobbie Bullman has put horses – some home-bred, others reschooled rescue cases – under riders of all experience levels for many years. Though she is happy to take novice and "lapsed" riders, you'll get more out of the long day rides if you're comfortable at all paces and can "knock on a bit". Safari rides take you to the prehistoric Tarr Steps clapper bridge or the London Inn on the Molland estate.
Stay at The Horses House (01398 323 559; pinelodgeexmoor.co.uk) provides comfortable "upside down" accommodation for six. Nearby Dulverton's Rock House Inn (rockhouseinndulverton.com) is good for evening meals.
Jasper Winn, horse wrangler for the film Ride Around the World
Surfing, Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire
The most consistent surf beach in Wales, this huge sweep of golden red sand offers waves for everyone from beginner to expert. Set in the heart of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, "Fresh West" is nature at its finest – sun, sea, sand dunes and not much else, although lifeguards do patrol the beach – reassuring for beginners. Freshwater West has the biggest and most powerful waves in Pembrokeshire and there are several separate breaks here, so even at the height of summer it's rarely too busy. Bring a picnic with your board and wetsuit as the only refreshment to be had s from an ice-cream van.
Surf lessons Outer Reef Surf School (01646 680 070; outerreefsurf school.com) offers half-day lessons from £25, all equipment included. Stay at Trefalun Park (01646 651 514; trefalunpark.co.uk) in nearby St Florence has tent and caravan pitches from £13.50 a night.
Alf Alderson, author of Surf UK (Wiley Nautical, £14.99)
Walking The Ridgeway, Wiltshire
One of the joys of a long walk is the feeling of connection with those who have gone before: you're on the same route, going the same speed and using the same two feet as countless ancestors. All the more so if you tackle the Ridgeway, a track that has been walked as long as people have inhabited these islands. The Ridgeway National Trail is split into two halves, and I'd advise trying the wilder western section, from Goring-on-Thames to the trailhead among the henges and mounds of Avebury, Wiltshire. The 43-mile track scorches its lofty way along the chalk downs, brushing past hill forts, standing stones and the oldest carved chalk figure in the land. Down below, a very welcome sight after a day's hike, are chipper little villages that get better the further west, and the further into Wiltshire, you go. England's most gloriously bonkers county does not disappoint. It was meant to be seen at 3mph.
Stay at The Royal Oak (01793 790 481; royaloakbishopstone.co.uk) in Bishopstone, near Swindon, Wiltshire, just below the Ridgeway path. Superb, cosy village pub whose food all comes from the surrounding organic farm. Double room £60. More walks: ramblers.org.uk.
Mike Parker, author of The Wild Rover: A Blistering Journey Along Britain's Footpaths (Collins, £12.99)
Wild swimming, River Cam, Cambridge
Swimming adventures here are so accessible that they have been enjoyed by people as various as Wittgenstein, Maynard Keynes, Pink Floyd and hundreds of drunken students involved in a modern-day pagan ritual at dawn on May Day. Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke scandalised by going for nude skinny-dips at a time when many unmarrieds had chaperones for activities when clothed, while Byron had a pool named after him. Of all the rivers in England, the sleepy green Cam holds a particular allure for swimmers: it is generally clear, with a flow gentle enough for swimming upstream or down, and if you get in at publicly accessible Grantchester Meadows (a popular picnicking and summer lounging spot), there are myriad getting-out points. Yet when you're in, the river seems blowsy and wild, miles away from civilisation. A wise man (though perhaps not as wise as prior swimmers EM Forster, Bertrand Russell or Augustus John) can plot an adventure downstream from one end of Grantchester Meadows to the other, which will take 40 minutes. Watch out for punts. And listen out for skylarks, audible on a loop on the Floyd track "Grantchester Meadows".
Stay at Historic Cambridge college accommodation (cambridgerooms.co.uk) during student holidays from £34pp B&B.
Kate Rew, author of Wild Swim (Cornerstone, £14.99). For more swimming adventure locations, visit Kate's swim map at wildswim.com
Climbing, The Peak District
The grit stone edges of the Peak District have drawn climbers from across the globe for generations. On God's Own Rock the grit crags have the advantage of being amenable in height. Often not much higher than 60ft, these are quick to access on foot and boast thousands of routes from very easy to desperately hard, the vast majority on reassuringly rough and solid rock. With apologies to Wales and Scotland, the weather tends to be more reliable. Stanage Edge, four miles in length, and within a short car, bus or bike journey from Sheffield, is one of the jewels of British climbing. Deeply historic, it offers climbs from the delicate and bold to elegant crack-lines, grunting chimneys and easy stepped slabs first climbed in the Victorian era, and desperate modern exercises at the limit of adhesion of skin and shoe rubber to rock.
Stay at North Lees campsite, Hathersage (tinyurl.com/northlees camping), adults £5 a night. Pure Outdoor (0114 360 8007; pureoutdoor.co.uk) offers a one-day rock-climbing taster course in the Peak District for £49.50pp. Peter Beaumont
Narrowboat, Warwickshire
It's not exactly white water rafting, but there's gentler, more contemplative adventuring to be had pottering along on a narrowboat on Britain's 3,000-mile-long system of waterways. You're on a voyage of discovery – a journey to lost parts of England through landscapes unchanged for centuries. But should you yearn for the comforts of civilisation, there's terrific traditional pubs and restaurants along the way serving a surprisingly varied cuisine.
Rent a boat for the weekend from the pretty Warwickshire village of Napton-on-the-Hill and experience that unique combination of frenetic hard labour and indolence which characterises canal travel. You start with a stiff ascent of the nine attractive locks to Priors Hardwick, the windmill at Napton your backdrop. Afterwards the going gets easier as you navigate the 12 twisting miles which is the summit of the Oxford Canal. It's a winding, tortuous route through a hauntingly beautiful countryside characterised by glorious views on all sides.
Assuming you haven't spent too long at the beginning of the cruise in The Folly in Napton (home-cooked pies and local faggots on the menu) or detoured at Priors Hardwick for Portuguese cooking at the 14th-century Butchers Arms, then you'll make Fenny Compton before nightfall. There – what a surprise! – you'll find the Wharf Inn serving a full menu in its landscaped garden. Unless you can resist the temptation to chuck in the job and turn water gypsy, head back to base and do the whole thing again.
Bookings Boats through Drifters (0844 984 0322; drifters.co.uk). Stay and eat at The Folly, Folly Lane, Napton-on-the-Hill (01926 815 185; thefollyinn.co.uk). The Butchers Arms (booking recommended, 01327 260 504; thebutchersarms.com), The Wharf Inn (01295 770 332; thewharfinnfennycompton.co.uk).
Steve Haywood, author of three books describing his canal boat adventures. His latest is Too Narrow to Swing a Cat: Going Nowhere in Particular on the English Waterways (Summersdale, £8.99)
Adventure, Kingley Vale, West Sussex
Kingley Vale in West Sussex is one of those places that bids you to get lost and then find yourself again. A single footpath leads away from a car park – it is long enough and sufficiently unpromising to deter most from reaching the pocket of wild countryside that it points to. Persevere and you will find ancient yew trees that draw you into tangled copses. Here a cool darkness has reigned for centuries, sealing out modernity. If invited, the Vale will happily prove the importance of light levels on our sense of wilderness. Walk 50ft from an open grass patch that has been warmed by the late sun, step into a thick wood and wait for chilly darkness to creep in from all sides. If you fail to feel a moment of ecstatic terror akin to an early scene in an episode of Scooby Doo, well, then you're a braver soul than I (or Shaggy). Kingley Vale is thrilling enough by day, but dare yourself to find your way out after the sun has sunk on a clear night, using only the stars and the feel of the breeze on your skin to navigate, and you will get more than your full cup of adventure.
Stay at Wild Boar Wood Campsite (07966 441 023; ecocampuk.co.uk). £65 per night for a bell tent.
Tristan Gooley, author of The Natural Navigator Pocket Guide (Ebury Press, £9.99). For information about his other books and navigation courses, go to naturalnavigator.com
Wild camping, Loch Lomond
I love wild camping. There's something inexplicably blissful about waking up with the middle of nowhere all to yourself (give or take any passing wildlife). However if that sounds just a bit too out there, Loch Lomond's 130-acre oak-clad island of Inchcailloch has a bijou campsite at its southern tip that makes for an ideal mild-wild experience. There are compost loos and a few picnic tables but no drinking water so you'll have to lug your own in or, in proper wild camping style, make the loch water potable. Best of all, just 12 people are allowed at any one time so you'll never feel overwhelmed. There's a maximum stay of two nights, after which you can hop on a ferry and indulge in some real wild camping – you are, after all, in the lovely Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.
Stay at Inchcailloch Campsite (01389 722 600, tinyurl.com/lochlomondcamp). Adults £5 per night, under-12s free.
Getting there Scotrail (08457 484 950; scotrail.co.uk) has singles from Glasgow Queen Street to Balloch for £4.40. The 309 bus runs from Balloch to Balmaha, £2.40 single. Ferry service MacFarlane's Boatyard (01360 870 214, balmahaboatyard.co.uk).
Dixe Wills, author of Tiny Campsites (Punk Publishing, £10.95)
Fishing, nationwide
Ted Hughes wrote that it is the shadowy connection – through rod, line, float, bait or fly – to worlds under water that makes fishing so bewitching. Natalie Merchant sang that she goes to the river to soothe her mind. Louis Armstrong liked a shady, wady pool. Jeremy Fisher knew a good place (though he did get swallowed by a trout when he got there, and spat out again – thank heavens for those bitter galoshes). They were all on to the same thing: the catharsis, the joy, the sheer infatuation of angling. If you're not… well, fine – more riverbank for the rest of us. But where to start if you are fish-curious? Here are a few of my favourite spots and the names of a few fishing pals of mine, angling guides who'll show you the ropes.
On the Thames, try Mark Anderson (07932 567 410; xstreamflyfishing.com) if you'd like to tussle with the toothy river monster known as the pike.
Down Dorset way, gin-clear chalk streams such as the Piddle and Frome seep lazily through lush meadows, and fat trout live in them. It's some of the best trouting in the country, and Richard Slocock at Goflyfishing.co.uk offers day tickets from £40-£85 a day and can arrange accommodation. Tony King can teach you (07855 196 332).
Sea trout fishing at night in West Wales is not for the faint hearted or those spooked by bats and owls. But the best fun you'll have at night standing up with waders on (I think). Angling Worldwide (07879 898 344; anglingworldwide.com) offers day tickets at the Golden Grove Fishery on the River Towy from £117.50 per rod per day.
Charles Rangeley-Wilson, author of the "How to Catch Trout" chapter in On Nature (Harper Collins/Caught by the River, £20)
Cycling North Sea Cycle Route, Yorkshire
On my 5,000-mile bike ride around the British coastline, I used Sustrans' national cycle network tracks as much as possible. They were always a joy to pedal along, but in terms of majestic scenery nothing compared with the section from Scarborough to Whitby. With 60 bridges and two viaducts needed to link the two towns along the rugged coast, the 18-mile line had been a miracle of Victorian railway engineering. Unprofitable, it closed in 1965. Now it's cyclists, not trains, who rattle along under a canopy of hawthorn and silver birch, seeing the trees parting from time to time to reveal a glimpse of the sea far below. Occasionally you pass through the platforms of former stations, lovingly turned into homes, semaphore signals set at "stop" in perpetuity. You cycle around the vast sweep of Robin Hood's Bay, past the old smugglers' port, and then into Whitby, crossing a viaduct high above the River Esk, with the brooding ruins of the abbey sitting above the town. Quite a ride.
Stay at La Rosa campsite, outside Whitby, which has a series of gypsy caravans (01947 606 981; larosa.co.uk), £60 per van per night. Sustrans cycle network: sustrans.org.uk.
Mike Carter, author of One Man and His Bike (Ebury, £11.99)
