Walking festivals return
- Community walking events are ramping up for spring and summer, positioning walking as accessible fitness and social activity. (ilovemanchester.com) (northsomersettimes.co.uk) - Greater Manchester's GM Walking Festival starts May 1, and North Somerset Walk Fest runs throughout May with guided health walks for all ages. (ilovemanchester.com) (northsomersettimes.co.uk) - A women's walking group received a funding boost for safety, and 'Walk for Courage' raised over $48,000 last year, returning July 25. (bbc.co.uk) (bayshorebroadcasting.ca)
Walking festivals are filling spring calendars again, with Greater Manchester and North Somerset both rolling out month-long programs of guided walks in May. The Greater Manchester Walking Festival starts on May 1 and runs through National Walking Month with free group walks across the city-region. Organizers say the festival was first held in 2015, and this year’s listings include step-free, buggy-friendly and public-transport-linked routes. Listings for Greater Manchester already range from a women’s walk in Openshaw on May 11 to a step-free Salford Quays circular on May 17 and family-friendly guided walks in Bolton on May 28. The GM Ringway trail behind some of those events spans 200 miles across all 10 Greater Manchester boroughs. (gmringway.org/) North Somerset Walk Fest is also running throughout May, with North Somerset Council promoting guided walks, walking sports and health walks for “all ages and abilities.” The event is tied to National Walking Month and follows earlier council-backed walking programs in the area. The push is not only about exercise. Greater Manchester’s festival this year is explicitly framed around “connected communities,” and several listed walks are designed around access needs, including wheelchair-friendly and beginner-friendly routes. Local walking groups are also drawing support outside the festival circuit. In Grey-Bruce, Ontario, Walk for Courage is returning on Saturday, July 25, for its fifth year after raising more than $48,000 in 2025 for the Canadian Mental Health Association Grey Bruce, according to Bayshore Broadcasting. That event began after the 2019 death of Jeffrey Courage, a former Owen Sound resident, and has expanded into a regional fundraiser focused on mental health and suicide prevention. Last year’s walk was held in Owen Sound and Hanover. Taken together, the new festival schedules and returning charity walks show how organizers are packaging walking as a low-cost public event: short local routes, fixed dates, and social groups rather than solo fitness plans. The next test is turnout, starting May 1 in Greater Manchester and continuing across North Somerset through the rest of May.
