Walking The Dream

The couple behind the Walkhighlands website are living their best life and building an international community of hillwalking fans

- by BILL GIBB

FOR years, Paul and Helen Webster clocked in for the office life so many call their working day.

Now, though, their "office" can be anywhere in Scotland's great outdoors.

The best part of two decades ago, they called time on their old lives to follow their passion for walking. They set up a website to encourage others to follow their often muddy footsteps. The results have changed not just their lives but countless others, too, with half a million visits each month to Walkhighlands, believed to be the UK's busiest walkers' website.

Scots have rediscovered their own country by embarking on some of the 2,200 clearly described, beautifully photographed walks. And walkers from every corner of the globe have experienced it for the first time through the scenic treks aimed at everyone from the hardened hiker to the nervous novice.

Both Paul and Helen are English, and getting out and about had always been in their genes. For Helen it was wild Dartmoor and other natural wonders near her childhood home in Devon.

Paul grew up in a village outside Grimsby. His interest in laying down routes was evident from his early days.

"I was always keen on going out exploring with a friend and we'd end up 10 miles from home and phoning our parents saying we didn't know how to get back," said Paul. "We had lots of hidden dens in the village, and I'd make maps documenting their locations."

The couple met at a walking group when they had both moved to York for work. They bonded on a trip to Arran, and Scotland has always been a special place for them - the people as much as the scenery.