At 83 and 74, we still take multi-day walks around the world

For more than 40 years my husband Barry and I have undertaken long-distance walks around the world, often to mark a milestone birthday. At 30 we hiked the Muktinath trail in Nepal; at 40 the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu; at 50 the Camino de Santiago; at 60 the Coast-to-Coast across northern England; and at 70 Hadrian's Wall near the Scottish border.

Barry is now 83 and I am 74, and we have no intention of stopping; in the last two years we did shorter treks in the Ecuadorian Andes and the silvery-spired Italian Dolomites. We are not uber athletes, but as long as you're in reasonable health you can keep walking.

Some hikes are more challenging: on the Machu Picchu trek the Inca steps were so steep I don't know how anyone could clamber up and down them — my knees are happy we did that when I was 40. Beauty can be very simple: we've climbed to elevations of 18,000 feet in the Himalayas and to a humble 1,200 feet near Hadrian's Wall, where ordinary green fields, hills, and stones took my breath away.

long-distance, hiking, inca trail, machu picchu, hadrian's wall, muktinath, nepal, ecuadorian andes, italian dolomites, older walkers