Dartmoor & Exmoor with Everett Potter - September 26-October 3, 2010

For more than two decades, I've been traveling the world and telling readers like yourself about where to go and how to go there. Now I've decided to literally take the lead.

I first muddied my hiking boots with The Wayfarers in the early 90's, when they led me on a week-long walk through the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire. A few years later, I joined them on the Coast-to-Coast Walk of England, from the Lake District through Yorkshire and down to the sea at Whitby. And I've long been impressed by their dedication to that most English of pursuits, walking. That's walking as in eight or 12 or even 16 miles a day, stretching the legs in some of the most beautiful countryside on the face of the earth. They are purists when it comes to going up hill and down dale, albeit purists who know the merits of a good fire, a good dinner, a couple of pints of Old Peculier and a comfortable bed at day's end.

Everett Potter, editor-in-chief of Everett Potter's Travel Report, is a columnist for USA Weekend magazine, which is distributed to more than 600 newspapers and has 23 million readers. He is a contributing editor for Ski and a frequent contributor to National Geographic Traveler, Travel & Leisure Online, New York, Town & Country, Martha Stewart Living, Virtuoso Life, Endless Vacation, and Forbes Life.

Would you like to hear more about Everett's travel experiences? See the website blog .

We rendezvous late morning in Dartmouth. We meet at the Dart Marina Hotel and walk into Dartmouth to catch the ferry up the River Dart to Greenway, formerly Agatha Christie's summer home, for a light lunch followed by a tour of the house and gardens.  We return to Dartmouth, again by ferry, and stroll through the quaint, narrow streets of this historic port before returning to our hotel for dinner.

We walk out of Dartmouth following ancient pack horse tracks, meadow paths and narrow lanes to lunch in a village pub. In the afternoon, we enjoy splendid views of the Dart valley as we follow the gliding river to our next hotel in ancient Totnes.

We walk on the banks of the river Dart which follows a rock-strewn course overhung by ancient oak. We pass thatched hamlets and farms and cross open moorland at Wind Tor before reaching Widecombe-in-the-Moor for a pub lunch and a visit to the famous 15th-century church. In the afternoon we see the wide expanses of Dartmoor and a deserted medieval village before descending to Manaton and continuing to Chagford.

We follow the river Teign to splendid Castle Drogo, designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens; the castle is perched 900 feet above sea level. After lunch, we arrive at the delightful thatched village of Drewsteignton and tracks lead us to the small community of Hittisleigh. We transfer to our hotel in Coleford for dinner and overnight.

Our walk begins in Templeton from where we walk through fertile farming country before reaching our pub lunch at Rackenford. We walk along the chattering River Barle, once a communication route for Viking raiders, before descending to cross an ancient stone clapper bridge to our charming hotel in Withypool.

We walk up Varle Hill, hoping to see the tough little ponies, Britain's oldest breed, which run wild on the open moors. On Winsford Hill we explore the burial mound of a Bronze Age chief. A bracken-fringed path brings us to a deep valley leading to pretty Winsford and lunch in a thatched pub. Following the Exe valley we reach the hidden village of Exford.

A track leads us to the vast expanse of Exmoor. We enjoy grand views across the Bristol Channel to Wales and the Welsh Mountains as we descend through oak woods to the coast at Porlock Bay. At the end of the afternoon, we drive back to our hotel for our Farewell Dinner.

After breakfast, The Wayfarers will see you safely to Taunton station for your onward rail and bus connections.