Gifts for Walkers: The perfect present for outdoor lovers
Figuring out what gifts to get a walker can leave you overwhelmed with a huge number of options, from new boots and rucksacks, to wooly hats and the evergreen classic… socks. So, to help you make the right choice, we recommend the beauty of maps as the ideal gift to buy someone who loves walking the great outdoors, regardless of the weather.
For those who walk, a map is never merely a navigational tool. It's a record of experience, a keeper of memory, a bridge between the physical act of moving through landscape and the deeper emotional geography we carry with us. The contour lines that spiral around a summit trace not just elevation but aspiration; the valley marked in green recalls the smell of rain on bracken, the sound of a stream over stone.
When we gift something to a walker, we're acknowledging this relationship and the way certain places imprint themselves on us, becoming part of our internal architecture.
Artistic maps meet this need with unusual precision.
Unlike standard Ordnance Survey prints or digital screenshots, we create cartographic artworks designed for the wall - pieces that transform beloved landscapes into something you live with daily. They function as both memory and inspiration, conversation starters that carry genuine aesthetic weight. For walkers who have intimate knowledge of particular ranges or peaks, seeing those familiar ridgelines rendered with artistic sensibility creates a powerful sense of recognition and connection.
Gifts for Lovers of Snowdonia / Eryri
Snowdonia - Topographical
From £30
Carnedd Llewelyn - Topographical
From £30
Snowdonia holds a particular place in British walking culture. Its peaks have sufficient drama to feel genuinely mountainous, yet remain accessible enough to draw walkers of varied experience. For many, Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) represents a first serious summit - the Pyg Track, the Miners' Track, the scramble up Crib Goch all forming chapters in a personal walking history.
Mapelio's Snowdonia collection captures this landscape with careful attention to cartographic detail and artistic presentation. Our contour-based maps render the massif's complex topography in elegant relief, allowing the eye to trace familiar routes or imagine new ones. The ridges and cwms that you've experienced in weather, in fatigue, in elation, appear here in refined form accurate enough to be geographically truthful, stylised enough to function as beautiful wall art.
We also provide a personalised Snowdon route map, which allows you to commemorate a specific ascent or multi-day traverse. This moves beyond generic representation into something genuinely personal - your route, your achievement. All our work suits contemporary and traditional interiors. These aren't nostalgic reproductions but modern interpretations of landscape data, designed to hold their own in spaces where aesthetics matter.
Gifts for Lovers of The Lake District
Map of Helvellyn - Topographical
From £30
The Wainwright Fells - Topographical
From £30
The Lake District carries perhaps the heaviest cultural freight of any British walking landscape. Wordsworth, Wainwright, Ransome - the fells arrive pre-storied, dense with literary and artistic association. Yet for those who walk them regularly, the real Lake District exists beyond the mythology: in the particular gradient of Striding Edge at dawn, the way light moves across Wastwater, the precise muscular effort required to ascend Scafell Pike from Borrowdale.
Mapelio's Lake District collection acknowledges both dimensions. The maps are beautiful enough to satisfy those drawn to Lakeland's romantic tradition, yet cartographically rigorous enough for walkers who know these fells as physical fact. The contour work reveals the landscape's sculptural complexity - how the valleys radiate from the central massif, how the ridges connect, where the high ground truly lies.
What distinguishes artist maps from standard cartography is interpretive choice. Colour palette, relief emphasis, what's included or omitted - these decisions shape how we see and remember place. The best map art doesn't flatten landscape into data but reveals its character through informed aesthetic judgment. For a walker with deep Lake District knowledge, the right map becomes a form of dialogue - recognition of what they know, presented in new light.
These pieces work particularly well as milestone gifts: retirement for someone who's walked the Wainwrights, a significant birthday for a fell runner, an anniversary for a couple whose relationship has been shaped by shared mountain days. The permanence of museum-quality printing and framing matches the enduring nature of the connection being honoured.
Gifts for Lovers of The Scottish Highlands
Map of Ben Nevis - Topographical
From £30
The West Highland Way - Topographical
From £30
The Highlands demand a different vocabulary. Where Snowdonia offers drama and the Lakes provide variety, Scotland's mountain country trades in scale and remoteness. The distances are longer, the weather more severe, the sense of wildness less mediated.
To walk the Highlands seriously is to develop a particular set of skills and sensibilities - navigation in featureless terrain, respect for weather, comfort with solitude.
Mapelio's Scotland collection reflects this character. Our maps often encompass larger areas than their Welsh or English counterparts, acknowledging the need to see whole mountain groups, entire glens, the relationship between Munros and the bothies that serve them. The cartography honours the Highlands' scale while maintaining the artistic refinement that makes these pieces ideal mounted on the wall at home.
For walkers with specific Highland attachments, a regular pilgrimage to the Cairngorms, annual trips to Knoydart, the long-held ambition to complete the Munros, a map that captures their particular terrain offers profound resonance. These aren't souvenir prints but substantial artworks that acknowledge the seriousness of the pursuit and the significance of the landscape.
The artistic interpretation becomes especially valuable in Highland mapping. This is country that resists easy prettification; it requires respect. The best map art finds the balance between aesthetic appeal and accurate representation of the terrain's true nature - its difficulty, its grandeur, its indifference to human presence.
Personalised Maps for Walkers
Personalised map of Snowdon
From £30
The Three Peaks Challenge - Personalised
From £46
The ultimate expression of map-as-gift lies in customisation.
For walkers, certain routes carry extraordinary personal meaning: a first long-distance trail, a challenge completed despite injury or doubt, a walk undertaken in memory, a journey that marked a life transition. Standard maps, however beautiful, cannot fully capture this specificity.
Mapelio's bespoke service addresses this directly. Working from GPX & Strava data or described routes, we create custom maps that commemorate individual achievements and experiences. The cartographic quality remains consistent with their standard collection - this isn't novelty printing but serious map art tailored to personal narrative.
The process requires actual consultation. We work directly with clients to understand what matters: which sections of a route deserve emphasis, what level of surrounding context to include, how the piece needs to function within a specific interior. This attention distinguishes custom work from automated route plotting - it's collaborative creation rather than transaction.
For significant occasions, this approach has unusual power. A map showing the exact route of a marriage proposal walk in the Highlands, framed for an anniversary. A parent's favourite coastal path section, created as a milestone birthday gift by adult children who grew up walking it. The Pennine Way, complete, marking retirement after years of section-hiking. These aren't sentimental gestures but thoughtful recognition of what landscape experience actually means to people.
A Lasting Connection
The walking gift that endures must recognise what walking actually is: not tourism, not sport exactly, but a practice of sustained attention to landscape. It's repetitive, sometimes uncomfortable, often weather-dependent, and somehow essential to those who do it seriously. The right gift acknowledges this without sentimentalising it.
With over 560 verified four and five-star reviews, we’ve established credibility around design, printing, framing, and delivery. We take huge pride in our work and are only a phone call away if we can be of any help.
Featured Image: The Cotswolds Way
