10 things to pack for a slow adventure

The daily ritual of noting down your thoughts on paper is a quintessential slow travel practice, which can help you adjust to the gentler pace of travel, declutter your mind and provide a treasured souvenir once you’re home. The serene ambience of The Library is an ideal spot for composing your thoughts. Not sure where to start? Try giving yourself a prompt or posing yourself a question, then let your thoughts just flow.

A stay at Another Place provides many moments to pause, often without even leaving the hotel grounds. Pack a picnic rug for reading under one of the old oak trees or lazing on the lawn with colouring books and card games. For adventures further afield, find a style that you can roll up and attach to a backpack or sling over your shoulder.

There’s just something so satisfying about unfolding a paper map or opening a beautifully illustrated guide book, then deciding where to explore next based on enticing contours or an intriguing stretch of lakeshore. See what you can discover in the Library and plan your next excursion. 

The Sheep Shed lakeside cabin is for year-round changing, warm showers and post-swim wetsuit drying. Even if you’re not booked onto a guided trip, you can still swing by to borrow a wetsuit, tow float and boots to take down to the lake. But don’t forget to pack at least one swimsuit for unwinding in Swim Club, overlooking the fells, or for impromptu lake dips. 

After swimming in cold water, it is important to wrap up warmly straight away. Sipping a warm drink helps warm you gently from the inside, which is important because your body continues to lose heat up to 40 minutes after you leave the water (it’s called ‘after drop’), while sugar helps raise your body temperature. You will find a Stanley flask, tea bags and Tunnuck’s tea cakes in your room. 

Depending on how you intend to spend your time, pack either a pair of hiking boots or smart but sturdy boots that let you drift from walking the lakeshore to eating in the laid-back Living Space. If wilder weather rolls in, borrow a pair of Joules wellies from the entrance. 

Packing a pair of binoculars will not only bring the wildlife that little bit closer, it will help you to tune in and notice more. Watch for swifts taking sips of water from the lake or keep watch for the otter that swims past the pier early in the morning.

As Victorian art critic John Ruskin noted in the 1800s, sketching helps us see the world with renewed wonder and curiosity. Pack a small sketchbook and fine-liner pen to capture little vignettes of your trip. Remember, there are no mistakes with sketching!

In the Lakes, you can expect rain showers at all times of the year. In fact, it can be a real joy to watch a weather front roll in over the fells from the warmth and comfort of The Library. That said, don’t forget to pack a waterproof jacket so you can keep exploring whatever the weather. 

Documenting your trip with an analogue film camera can be a mindful experience; it encourages you to take fewer photos and trust in the moment, to look at a scene in more detail and be thoughtful about how you capture the details.