Cleveland Way or Coast to Coast: which should you walk

Our full Cleveland Way guide: route, stages and where to start

Our full Coast to Coast guide: route, stages and where to start

The short answer

Walk the Cleveland Way first. It is 109 miles rather than 190, it is a horseshoe rather than a crossing of England, roughly half of it runs along the coast where villages and buses are frequent, and getting to the start and home from the finish is a single county's worth of travel rather than two coasts.

Walk the Coast to Coast when you want the bigger undertaking. It is the better story, three national parks in a fortnight, a pebble carried from one sea to the other, and it earns the telling. It also asks a great deal more of your planning, your legs and your booking.

Comparison title and guide links checked 18 October 2026. For Cleveland Way length and endpoints, see National Trails.

Side by side

Every figure below is taken from the two route guides on this site.

The logistics difference, which is the real decider

Tour operators lead with scenery. The thing that actually decides which of these you enjoy is the journey at each end, and it is not close. The Cleveland Way starts in the market square at Helmsley and finishes on Filey Brigg. These are two points in the same corner of Yorkshire, so one car left with a friend, or one train, covers both. The Coast to Coast starts on the Irish Sea and finishes on the North Sea. Whatever you do about that, it is a full day of travel at each end and a set of connections to get wrong.

The same asymmetry runs through the walk itself. On a horseshoe you are never far from where you began, so a rest day, an injury or a change of plan is an inconvenience. On a point to point across northern England, a lost day has to be made up or paid for, because your bed that night is already fifteen miles further on.

What the moors section of each is actually like

The North York Moors sections take different lines through the park. The shorter trail gives you the escarpment: the White Horse and Gormire Lake below Sutton Bank, the long edge north to Osmotherley, then the switchback of the Cleveland Hills, which is a demanding section of the trail. Urra Moor is the highest ground in the park. After Saltburn the whole character changes and it becomes a cliff walk for fifty miles, past Boulby, Staithes, Runswick Bay, Sandsend, Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay. Two entirely different walks joined end to end.

The Coast to Coast climbs the same hills and then leaves the escarpment path to cross the moor tops. Its moorland days run along old industrial trackbeds and open watershed with very little shelter, then drop into the Esk valley and out to the sea by way of Grosmont. Our Coast to Coast guide sets out those stages in detail, including which of them need a map and compass in cloud.

Put plainly: the shorter trail shows you the edges of these moors, the Coast to Coast walks you through the middle of them.

If you only have a few days

Neither trail requires a fortnight. Day-walk options on the shorter path include Whitby to Robin Hood's Bay along the cliffs, or the Wainstones on Cold Moor, and the full list is on the Cleveland Way walk guide. From the Coast to Coast, Grosmont to Robin Hood's Bay with the steam railway there and the bus back is the standout, with two more suggestions on the Coast to Coast guide. If you have three days and want a sampler of both, walk the Cleveland Hills, which they share.

On which of the two is physically harder, the Coast to Coast page answers that directly and I will not repeat it here.

Questions people ask

Which is the better first long distance walk?

The Cleveland Way, for almost everyone. It is 109 miles rather than 190, it is waymarked with the acorn throughout, and half of it runs along a coast where villages come round often. Bus services out here are thin, especially on Sundays and in winter, so a day that goes wrong still needs thought, but you have more ways out of it than on the Coast to Coast, which asks you to be right about your planning for a fortnight.

Do the two routes overlap?

Yes, briefly and memorably. The two trails share the crossing of the Cleveland Hills at the western end of these moors before the Coast to Coast peels away east over the tops. Walk either one and you will meet people doing the other.

Which has the better coastal walking?

The Cleveland Way, by a wide margin, because it has about fifty miles of it against the Coast to Coast's last three into Robin Hood's Bay. Saltburn to Filey takes in Boulby, Staithes, Runswick Bay, Sandsend, Whitby, Bay Town, Ravenscar and Scarborough. The Coast to Coast finishes at the sea rather than along it.

Which is busier?

The Coast to Coast has always drawn the bigger crowds. It became a National Trail in March 2026, bringing more people to the final fifty miles across these moors. The shorter trail's moorland half stays comparatively empty, though its cliff sections near Whitby are busy on any fine weekend.

Can you walk either one in sections?

Both, and I would encourage it. The shorter trail breaks into nine conventional stages. Several stand alone with transport at each end. The Coast to Coast's Yorkshire days do the same. There is a rundown of individual days on each route guide.