Five days of walking with the sea on one side and everything you need on your back is the quickest way to learn what actually earns its place in a pack. Coastal routes are their own breed: wind that arrives sideways, salt that stiffens wet clothing, sun bouncing off water and pale rock, and stretches of beach or tidal causeway where timing matters more than mileage. This list is built for a three-season coastal walk with a bed or campsite each night, no resupply stops and luggage you carry yourself. Change the specifics to suit your route — a warmer mid layer for a spring Scottish coast, trail runners instead of boots on a dry Portuguese path — but keep the logic underneath it.

Clothing: wind and spray first, sunshine second

Coastal weather is rarely the weather you packed for. A sheltered valley can be still and warm, then you round a headland and the wind doubles while spray comes up over the rocks. The answer is layers you can add and remove in under a minute, without taking off your pack and unpacking it.

• Two base layers in merino or synthetic. One worn, one clean and dry for the evening. Cotton is the one fabric to leave at home; once it wets through it stays cold against your skin.
• One mid layer — a light fleece or a thin synthetic jacket. This is what you will live in at rest stops.
• A waterproof shell with a hood that stays up in wind and taped seams. It doubles as a windproof layer on exposed cliff tops.
• Two pairs of walking trousers, or one pair plus shorts if your route is reliably warm. Quick-drying fabric matters more than features.
• Three or four pairs of socks and underwear, rotated so one set is always drying on the pack.
• A long-sleeve sun shirt or hoodie. On a coast you can burn on a cloudy day; a light shirt is easier than reapplying sunscreen every two hours.
• A warm hat, a wide-brim hat and a buff. The buff earns its tiny weight as a neck cover, ear band and hair tie.
• One set of dry camp clothes — light trousers and a warm top kept in a dry bag and never worn while walking.

That is roughly a five-kilogram clothing pile, which is about right. If you are carrying more, you have packed for a different trip.

Feet: the part of the kit that decides your week

Everything else can be improvised. Feet cannot. Choose footwear you have already walked long days in, and choose it for the terrain you will actually meet: rock and mud want a stiffer boot, firm sand and paved coastal paths suit a trail runner. Waterproof boots keep splash out but hold sweat in and dry slowly; breathable shoes drain fast but let grit in. Neither choice is wrong, but a new pair on day one is.

Carry a small foot kit separate from your main first aid: two blister plasters, a length of thin tape, a small pot of anti-chafe balm and a spare pair of socks. Stop at the first hot spot rather than at the first blister. On a five-day walk, ten minutes of taping at lunch saves you two days of limping. If a blister becomes hot, spreading, or weeping pus, treat it seriously and get it looked at rather than walking on it.

Add a pair of lightweight sandals or camp shoes. After eight hours in boots, getting your feet out and aired at camp is the single best recovery habit on a trip like this.

Safety and navigation, even when the forecast is perfect

Coastal routes often have patchy phone signal and occasional cliff-edge exposure, and weather can shut down a headland in twenty minutes. Carry the boring things.

• Navigation: offline maps downloaded to your phone plus a paper map and compass you know how to use. Batteries die; paper does not.
• Power: a 10,000 mAh power bank and cable, phone in a waterproof case.
• Light: a headlamp with spare batteries, even if you plan to finish by four.
• First aid: blister kit, antiseptic wipes, plasters, painkillers, tape, a couple of gauze pads, any personal medication.
• Emergency: a foil emergency blanket, a whistle on your shoulder strap, and — for remote stretches — a personal locator beacon or satellite messenger.
• Sun: high-factor sunscreen, lip balm with SPF, and sunglasses. Glare off water is relentless.
• Tide information printed for the specific beaches and causeways on your route, plus the local high-tide times noted on your map for each day.

Before you set off, leave your route and expected finish time with someone at home, and mark the escape points — the villages, road crossings and bus stops where you could cut the day short. Knowing where the exits are changes how confident the rest of the walk feels.

Water, food and the small daily resupply

Assume you will not find a shop when you want one. Carry at least two litres of capacity and three if there are dry stretches; a filter or purification tablets let you top up from streams and taps and save carrying weight. Electrolyte tablets are worth 40 grams in hot weather.

For food, aim for things you will actually want to eat at hour six: nuts, oat bars, dried fruit, a block of cheese, cured sausage, tortillas, instant noodles for camp. Roughly 200 to 300 calories per hour of walking is a reasonable working figure for most people, and appetite on a coastal walk is unpredictable — pack one extra dinner as insurance. A small stove and pot pay for themselves over five days compared with buying hot meals, but a no-cook plan is lighter and simpler if you are happy with cold suppers.

Lightweight extras that earn their grams

These are the items people skip and then wish they had not.

• Two or three dry bags — one for the sleeping bag, one for clothes, one small one for phone and wallet.
• A microfibre towel and a swim kit, because a coastal route without a swim is a wasted route.
• Three metres of cord for a washing line and a dozen other jobs.
• A repair kit: duct tape wrapped around a trekking pole, a needle and thread, two zip ties, a spare buckle.
• Earplugs and an eye mask if you are in shared accommodation or a campsite near a road.
• A small notebook and pencil for tide times, notes and the name of the beach you want to return to.

The night before: pack it, lift it, repack it

Lay everything out, pack it as you plan to walk, then lift the pack and walk around the block with it. Anything you can honestly say you would not use before day three goes back in the cupboard. Put the items you need during the day — water, snacks, sunscreen, shell, hat, map, blister kit — in the top or lid so you are not unpacking at every stop, and keep the heaviest items close to your back and just below your shoulders.

Fill your water bottles, charge everything, print the tide tables, and check the forecast one last time. Then sleep. The coast is not going anywhere, and the walk starts better with a full night behind you.

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