Where do you walk in the dark?

[TheChosenTwo]

Meeting a friend this evening for a walk but our usual walking places are either closed in the dark (parks) or impossible to walk round in the dark (woods with trip hazards all over the place 😂). We’ve resigned ourselves to a boring walk around her town on the pavements but I really wish there was a nice park with lights around it in the evenings, a circuit of about 4-5 miles but can’t think of anywhere.
Could go to the coast but it’s a long drive!
In these times we are more aware of being outside and the positive health benefits of chatting with a friend and gently exercising it seems even more of a shame we are reduced to walking on the sides of a road 😭
Do you have anywhere near where you live that’s nice for walking during the dark evenings?

And yes, I know it sounds like a moan/first world problem, I’m aware! When I walk on my own in the evenings I just go from my house round the local streets etc and it’s fine but can be noisy depending on routes although headphones and a podcast mitigate that.

If I was with a friend I’d walk along the canal path near me, it’s well lit but I wouldn’t walk along there alone in the dark.

Oh that’s a good point, there is a stretch that does have lighting - thanks!
I run down there sometimes - not sure why I didn’t think of it, I actually adore doing dark things outside on my own 😂 but I am a bit of a weirdo…

When I said dark things I just meant things in the dark 😳

that made me laugh 😂

I'm lucky to live by a harbour so very scenic day or night. There's also a path along a park & ride bus route that whilst urban is very well lit and still away from the worst of the traffic and still has some views. Maybe there's something similar in your area?

Have you heard of torches?

No, what are those?

Buy head torches and walk in the woods. I love it where there's no one else about.

The bathroom.

The mining helmet is optional....

I am lucky to live very close to the beach which is perfect for evening walks, lit all the way along and always plenty of people about and the sea night is so calming.

I walk around our village, on well lit pavements and the walking/cycle path this time of year, either with my dog, or with friends.
We used to live in the USA and a friend and I used to go mall walking in the height of summer, as it was just too hot (100 degrees plus) to walk distances outdoors. At 8am, the mall opened before the stores did, just for people to walk around and get their exercise in air conditioning. I thought it was the most random thing I'd ever heard, but it worked - safe, air conditioned, loads of space. Maybe we need something similar for our dark nights!

Everywhere. Whats the issue you have?

Alone in the woods 😱

Just around our town centre. Everywhere else is too isolated or poorly lit.

A head torch is your nighttime friend!

Walking in the dark through the local woods is one of my favourite activities, especially this time of year when it's less overgrown and the council have cut back the trees which conceal the river

You get the perks of seeing an occasional shooting star or satellite on a clear night, seeing bats, sleeping field mice, scaring the shit out of late dog walkers or teenagers who think no one can smell the weed they're smoking in the bushes. It's so peaceful.

I was talking to a local about night walks in the woods. She has a dog and said both her husband and brother wanted to go on the northern lights nights, so they went.

it didn't occur to them that they might feel freaked out. But they did feel freaked and left after twenty minutes.

i love the idea but wouldn't go alone and clearly there's no point asking them to join me 😂

she said they saw and heard a few people. Probably would've been less freaked if it had just been them.

I love @mooncloud1 description of a night time sea walk.

It depends where you live and how safe it is. I live in London and there's no way I'm walking around parks in the dark.

I walk around the residential estates round here(very safe area). It's pretty boring but well lit and no trip hazards.

I’d be too scared to walk in the woods alone at night unless I was with a man.

When it’s dark I like walking around the centre of my nearest city where the bars are and where there are people. I’ve even done dog walks there in the winter as there aren’t street lights in my village.

We ended up going to a different park in the hope it had some kind of lighting - it didn’t 😂 it was quite hairy because it was absolutely pitch black but I knew there was one path we could stick to without any turning off so wouldn’t get lost. We didn’t see another soul in the 5 miles there and back!
@Sheknowsaboutme the issues were pretty much outlined in the OP but mainly that the places we usually walk you need to drive to but the car park closes when it’s dark and there’s nowhere to park for a while away and the roads are dangerous to walk along to get there anyway. And the other place which is the woods is a nature reserve, it’s really beautiful in the day but even now when it’s light it’s difficult to see where you’re going because all the paths are covered in leaves, there are little streams and ponds all over the place and also some steep paths with no ‘edges’ meaning it would be easily to miscalculate and fall.
I’ve got dodgy discs in my back and stumbling or tripping has the tendency to set them off!
Anyway we found a happy medium.