How to plan a walk-and-pub weekend in the van

The best weekends in the van all have the same shape. Drive somewhere on Friday evening, sleep. Walk all Saturday, finish at a pub, eat, sleep in the car park. Short walk Sunday, drive home. No campsite booking, no checking in, no packing up an awning in the rain.

Here's how we plan one in about twenty minutes.

1. Start with the pub, not the walk

Most people pick the walk first and then look for somewhere to sleep. Do it the other way round. A pub that lets you stay the night and has a walk from the door is rare, and when you find one, it fixes everything else about the weekend: where you park, where you eat, what time you can start.

In the library, that's a combo: every walk that starts within a kilometre of an overnight pub. Pick a region, pick a combo, and you've got your Saturday.

If there's no combo where you want to go, look at overnight pubs in the area and check what paths leave the village. Then read how to find pubs that let you stay overnight for the ones that aren't logged yet.

2. Ring the pub on Thursday

Not Friday afternoon, when they're busy, and not Saturday from the car park. Thursday lunchtime. Say you're walking from the village on Saturday, you'll be eating in the evening, and you'd like to park the van overnight. If it's a yes, ask where they'd like you and what time the kitchen closes. Book a table if they take bookings; a pub that's expecting you is a pub that's pleased to see you.

The etiquette matters more than anything else in this guide.

3. Size the walk to the day

A combo walk leaves from the pub, so you can start when you like. But the pub kitchen sets the finish. Work back from it: if food stops at eight and you want a shower and a sit down first, you want to be off the hill by six.

A rough guide for mixed hill walking, with stops: two miles an hour plus half an hour for every thousand feet of climb. A ten-mile walk with 2,500 feet of ascent is about six and a half hours. Start at nine, finish at half three, pint at four.

4. Sort Friday night

Friday night is the awkward one. You could stay at the same pub two nights, and some are happy with that, but it's a lot to ask. Options:

• A campsite near the start, which also solves the toilet and the shower.
• A different pub on the way, which makes Friday a short evening walk and a pint.
• Drive up early Saturday instead, which works for anything under three hours away.

Whichever you pick, arrive with full water and an empty cassette. See water, waste and where to empty.

5. Keep Sunday short

The temptation is to do another big walk on Sunday. Don't. Do something two hours long with a view and a café, leave by lunchtime, and be home before the roads fill up. You'll go again sooner.

A worked example

Where: the Peak District, which is in reach of half the country.

• Friday: drive up, campsite in the Hope Valley, chips in the village.
• Saturday: move the van to the pub, park where they said, walk a circuit over the edges and back to the door. Shower behind the tailgate, dinner in the pub, bed in the car park.
• Sunday: coffee, walk to the viewpoint and back, home for three.

That's the shape. Swap the region for the Dales, the Lakes, the Welsh hills, the Cheviots, wherever. The method is the same.

Before you go

• The kit list for the walk.
• The forecast for the tops, not the valley.
• A note of the nearest campsite with a chemical disposal point.
• Something to leave the pub cleaner than you found it.

Then log the weekend when you get home. The next combo on the map might be yours.