The best places to take a swim on the wild side

With indoor pools closed until recently, people have been taking to wild swimming. Chris Carter reports.

Swimmer on Brighton Beach © Simon Dack / Alamy
Take care if you’re new to the game
(Image credit: © Simon Dack / Alamy)

Indoor swimming pools reopened in England last weekend, with the rest of the UK hopefully to follow shortly. Until then, “swimming in lakes, rivers and coastal waters has seen an exponential rise in popularity”, says Elisabeth Perlman in The Times. Wildswim.com, a crowd-sourced online map started by the Outdoor Swimming Society showing the best spots to swim, has even had to be taken down owing to the surge in interest. And as John Kent, chairman of the Brighton Swimming Club, tells the paper, many people new to the pastime are unaware of the dangers that can be involved, such as poor conditions, strong currents and high tides. “Individuals who don’t swim with a club or group run into problems born out of inexperience,” he says. “Unfortunately, our members often end up rescuing them.”

Staying safe

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

You can follow Chris on Instagram.