Meenfield Wood

Walking into Meenfield Wood near Sevenoaks feels like stepping back about fifty years. The trees are proper old - a mix of beech, oak and sweet chestnut - and they've been left to do their thing without much fuss. You get woodland rides wide enough for a decent stride, and patches where the canopy opens up enough to let light filter through. It's the kind of place where you half expect to bump into a deer, though honestly you're more likely to just hear them crashing about in the undergrowth.

This is absolutely one for walkers. Families with kids will manage fine on the main tracks, but there's bugger all in the way of facilities - no café, no car park signs that make sense, no marked trails with maps. You need to know roughly where you're going or be happy to wander. The woodland itself is genuinely lovely in spring when the bluebells come through, and autumn's equally good if you like watching things get properly golden and damp.

Allow a couple of hours if you're doing a proper explore, less if you just want a quick stomp. It's free, obviously - it's a wood. Combine it with a stay at Thriftwood Country Park just five miles away, and you've got yourself a proper woodland base for the Kent countryside. The wood works best as part of a broader walking day rather than a destination in itself, but that's not a criticism - it's exactly what it should be.