Long-distance footpaths can be seductive things. You gaze at them on a map – the greater and lesser squiggles on the Ordnance Survey’s snakes-and-ladders grid. If the air and your step feel full of spring, the temptation is to set off for the start of one of these routes and mentally project yourself along the awaiting stretches. Five days, maybe six or seven if you dawdle, and in what feels like no time you’ll be at the other end, in the pub, brimming with beer and achievement.

Sometimes, however, the will founders, even in seasoned walkers. On the third day, you find yourself in fine rain, with no view, sore feet, the waymarking all to hell, in a boggy field, with bulls staring back. And there’s no signal on your mobile, so no taxi to bail you out to the nearest station, wherever that is.

One solution is to “collect” the walks: do them in bite-size portions, a single day here, a weekend there. That way you can put together even the longest of the British footpaths, such as the 630-mile South West Coast Path, from Minehead in Somerset to Studland in Dorset. That will take you a while, but then, what’s the hurry?

I am in the middle of “collecting” the magnificent Grand Union canal, which runs from west London to Gas Street Basin in the heart of Birmingham. It offers 147 miles of towpath walking – the extra length is partly explained by the way some of the stretches go with the flow of the land, contouring round its features rather than engineering a straight line by aqueduct and tunnel.

I started at Paddington station, which is next to the canal’s terminal basin. Yes, the railways of the mid-19th century often stalked the existing canals, and the courses of these erstwhile rivals crisscross dramatically all the way up to the Black Country.

I got off the underground at Paddington and started walking – and talking to the people on the boats along the way (literally along the way, since they’re going at walking speed). It’s impossible to hurry, because the world slows into a placid, reflective corridor, green-fringed through the dense townscape. And there are pubs dotted along the entire route.

A week later, I took a suburban ride to Brentford. My next leg of the walk involved taking the Piccadilly line to Alperton; then, the Chiltern line out of Marylebone for Rickmansworth; to Euston, for the Rugby line to Berkhamsted, Tring, Leighton Buzzard, Milton Keynes … you get the picture. It’s a kind of elasticated commute, but instead of a walkers’ B&B I went home each night.

So now I’m at Wolverton, 73.3 miles from Paddington and almost the same distance from Gas Street. I’ve done this in nine sections and it has taken almost as many months. I’ve trumped the barges for slowness. Every few minutes there’s a chunk of displaced air coming at my face as the Birmingham-bound trains roar past, reminding me that they can do the journey in 90 minutes. Good for them.

Yes, when I was much younger I did the 177 miles of the Offa’s Dyke path, down the Welsh border, in one 10-day trip. And while I’m trying to brag, I once walked a series of 30-mile days as part of Ian Botham’s transalpine charity marathon in Hannibal’s footsteps, complete with three elephants. (That was too tough to be called fun, let alone leisure. One of the animals had to pull out with an offside-elbow strain, but that’s another story.)

Many of Britain’s long-distance paths, such as the Ridgeway, have a historical rationale, and none more obviously so than the Grand Union Canal. This great strip of water was the future once: at the end of the 18th century, Britain was just pulling clear from a depression caused by the US war of independence. Industry was picking up, and hungry for raw materials. A horse that could haul maybe a couple of tons on a good road could pull more than 20 times that along the canal. To walk this towpath, even with all that activity over long ago, is to see a little of how we got to where we are now. And by spring, I should be in Birmingham.

More ‘collectible’ walks

There are several hundred long-distance footpaths in Britain, ranging from 17-mile hikes such as the Altrincham Circular in Cheshire, through the medium-size (at 65 miles) Black Fen Waterway trail in East Anglia, and the West Highland Way in Scotland at 95 miles, up to classics such as the Pennine Way at 247 miles. The Walking Englishman website has a directory. Here are a few options.

Hadrian’s Wall
This 84-mile walk, from Wallsend on Tyne to Bowness-on-Solway, follows the remains of the second-century fortification. It is served by the Newcastle-Carlisle rail link, which crisscrosses the wall along its way. Stopping points can be: Newcastle, Blaydon, Wylam, Prudhoe, Stocksfield, Riding Mill, Corbridge, Hexham, Haydon Bridge, Bardon Mill, Haltwhistle, Brampton, Wetheral and Carlisle. It’s also accessible on the 685 bus route along the A69. (See Hadrian’s Wall Path by Anthony Burton, Aurum Press, £12.99.)
• visithadrianswall.co.uk

South Downs Way
Almost all 106 miles of this chalkland bridleway – from Eastbourne in East Sussex to Winchester in Hampshire – is accessible by train. Try Eastbourne, Polegate, Glynde, Lewes, Southease, Amberley, Petersfield and Winchester. (Further details in the National Trail Guide series’ South Downs Way.)
• nationaltrail.co.uk

Offa’s Dyke

A slightly more ambitious proposition, and a good candidate for weekend expeditions, this is 177 miles down the England/Wales border, allegedly constructed by the eighth-century king of Mercia. Stopping points: Sedbury, Monmouth, Pandy, Hay, Kington, Knighton, Brompton Crossroads, Buttington Bridge, Llanymynech, Chirk Mill, Llandegla, Bodfari, Prestatyn.
• offasdyke.demon.co.uk)

Angles Way
Beneath enormous Norfolk and Suffolk skies, this 93-mile stretch is regarded as the best waterside walk going. It’s eminently accessible by train – from the starting point of Great Yarmouth, across the Broads from Norfolk; then Oulton Broads and Beccles, both on the line to Lowestoft from Ipswich; Bungay and Harlesden by number 80 bus from Diss, then Diss itself, on the London-Norwich mainline; and Thetford, on the Ely-Norwich train. There’s an interactive map at norfolk.gov.uk.
• ldwa.org.uk