Lochs, rivers and sandy shores: Scotland is synonymous with its abundance of water. For millennia, these waters have fed livelihoods, fortified industries and fuelled legends. But only in recent centuries has recreational swimming seeped into the daily habits of people: a phenomenon that’s mostly swelled in the past decade.
Among those leading the charge into the water is Alice Goodridge, 37. As well as being an adept long-distance and ice swimmer in her own right, Alice is also the author of the celebrated guidebook Swimming Wild in Scotland, published in 2023 by Vertebrate Publishing. She’s also the founder of SwimWild. Established in 2018, SwimWild is a small business based in the Scottish Highlands that organises and leads small-scale, year-round swimming holidays, retreats, workshops and events, as well as teaching and coaching individuals and groups from the pool to open water.
Alice first dove into open water swimming in 2009, when she tackled a 5km island-to-island swim in the Mediterranean. She already had a breadth of indoor experience in her wake. “I’d always done long distances in the pool. So, to me I was like, ‘Oh it’s five kilometers, that will be fine,’” she says. “I hadn’t really thought it through. I just literally signed myself up… I wouldn’t tell people to do that now, but that’s what I did.”
During this challenge, Alice learned two things. First, she was terrified of deep water. Second, she had an innate strength for the sport. Thankfully the latter geysered ahead of the former. “On that trip, I met someone who had swum the channel. He sat me down and said, ‘Alice, I think we need to find you a bigger challenge.’ He’d seen how easily I’d done it. It didn’t feel easy in my head, but I found it quite easy physically.”
Initially unsure if she could handle colder waters, Alice has since solo swam the English Channel (32km) and taken on the length of much chillier locations, including Loch Lomond (36km) and Loch Awe (41km), the UK’s longest lake/loch. In parallel, she pursued a career as a swim teacher/coach, led swimming holidays in destinations around the world and, in 2023, published her first wild swimming guidebook.
Now she facilitates unique swimming experiences in the Scottish Highlands under her own company, SwimWild. She roots its swims in two key elements: community and accessibility. Alice fervently believes this is an activity that is truly for everyone.
“I think it can be very, very inclusive. More so than other activities like hillwalking or other water sports,” she says. “Okay, some swim locations are not going to be accessible to everyone, especially if reaching them involves a long hike, but in terms of just swimming in open water generally… I think anyone can give it a go.”
A sea of benefits awaits those who take the plunge – both mental and physical. Alice highlights the sense of immediate calm, clarity and focus that wild swimming can bring, thanks to the release of mood-enhancing endorphins. Then there’s the promise of superior fitness: improved cardiovascular ability, reduced muscle soreness and shorter recovery time. The practice has been cited as an effective preventative for long-lasting health conditions such as chronic pain, dementia, depression and respiratory disease. Other scientific studies have shown that those who swim regularly can develop higher bone density, leading to a reduced risk of injury and possibly a lower incidence of conditions such as osteoporosis.
Embracing the cold
Winter months often tempt fewer swimmers. But Alice, who lives in one of the UK’s coldest areas, the Cairngorms National Park, isn’t deterred. “We get ice. The water temperatures go down and it’s very extreme… we get plenty of frozen lochs,” she says. Then again, technically, plunging in any water below 15°C qualifies as cold-water swimming.
“Very rarely do we go above that. If we did, that would be the warmest of summer days,” she laughs. “Our local small lochs, like Loch Insh and Loch Morlich, occasionally peak at 18 degrees or so, but only for about one day a year. Fifteen degrees is usually the norm. The deeper lochs, like Loch Ness, won't get up that high. They'll never go above 13 or 14 [degrees]. But then they don’t freeze in the winter. They act more like the sea because they’re big bodies of water.”
Anything below 5°C is technically considered to be 'ice swimming'. Alice feels like the term is a little misleading, however. “It rarely actually involves breaking through ice, especially if you don’t want to. It’s just very cold water.”
Alice mostly sees women aged 45 to 60 partake in her excursions. But people of all ages, genders and nationalities attend her annual Scottish Winter Swimming Championships, an event she founded in 2019. Previously hosted at Loch Tay, it was the UK’s largest winter swimming event. While it took a few days to sell out in its first year, recent years see places fill up in under thirty minutes, demonstrating an almost insatiable demand for the activity.
“I was really just dipping my toe in the water, as it were, [when I first started the company] and seeing if there were people who wanted to do these sorts of things,” she says. “But there was enough. And it worked.”
This is worlds away from the swimming culture Alice first encountered. “In 2009, in the south of England, I couldn't find anyone to swim with. I really struggled to find training partners while I was doing my big swims. Now look at what’s happening down there. There are groups on every metre of the beach. It’s so crowded!”
She experienced the same following her move to the Scottish Highlands in 2013, prompting her to start numerous local swimming groups, including the Cairngorm Wild Swimmers and the Loch Insh Dippers.
“When I first came to Scotland I didn’t have anyone to swim with. There wasn’t this big swim community that there is now… I created the groups because I knew there would be people out there, and I didn’t know how to get them together.”
Now a sense of community is helping to power swims here across all months of the year – even January to March, when the waters drop to their lowest temperatures.
“If you’re part of a group, like our local groups that we have, we’ve got certain people who like breaking the ice and certain people who just like dipping. And that works. Some people aren’t going to be wielding [a sledgehammer] as they might not have the strength, but they’re still part of the group, so they’ll still go.”
Beyond the benefits of joining a like-minded community, Alice has a few additional tips for keeping your cool during cold water swimming.
1. Pack the essentials
Insulated gloves, shoes and a woolly hat: these are Alice’s non-negotiables. But you also might like a flask, or something hearty to warm the cockles (and your hands up) afterwards.
2. Move after your swim
Your body temperature may continue to drop for 30 minutes after leaving the water, which could lead to muscle stiffness, shock and hypothermia, among other symptoms. That’s why moving post-swim is essential. From dancing to stretching, any light movement can help counter this. Alice likes to take her groups for a walk.
“If we haven’t walked far to access a swim, I get people to do a little walk just to warm up on the inside before we sit down somewhere,” she says. It’s also a good excuse for exploring nearby nature. “We live in a beautiful part of the world. Yes, there’s lovely things to look at. But mostly it’s to get people warmed up!”
3. Recognise day-to-day differences
Certain factors impact your ability to cope with the cold. These include external factors such as the weather (water temperature, air temperature, wind chill), which directly impact the water temperature, and internal factors, which impact your energy levels and personal ability to stay in the water. Among these include diet, hydration, sleep and social circumstances.
“That’s why I tell people not to pick a time of how long they’re going to stay in for. No,” says Alice. “Get into the water and see how your body feels. Stay in for the amount of time that feels appropriate for your body on the day.”
4. Remember to breathe
This one is an important reminder for winter swimming, and anyone new to cold water swimming generally. “It’s not just breathing, but remembering to exhale. Even in the summer, it’s going to feel cold because it’s colder than your body temperature… so you need to try and exhale. Because what happens otherwise is you take a deep breath in, you hold your breath or hyperventilate and it feels stressful, so you tense up in the cold. But if you remember to let that breath go, it makes it easier.”
Alices actually encourages the release of the odd naughty word too. “You can sing, shout, scream and swear. It doesn’t matter. Any of those noises coming out of your mouth mean that you’re not holding your breath.”
5. Accept the challenge
Know it’s going to be hard, and that this is just part of the process. “Even for me, getting in now, that first minute is hard. But once you’ve done the hard bit, that’s when you get the good bit,” she says.
Wild swimming also offers up a unique perspective for embracing scenic landscapes, particularly in standout mountain locations such as the Cairngorms National Park, and the chance to tune into the little things.
“That’s one of the reasons I love swimming here. You get the same view, but from the swimming perspective, and it refreshes it. Suddenly you pay attention to the reflections in the water, you notice the ducks swimming past you and you think, ‘Actually this is awesome, not many people get to do this regularly’,” says Alice.
That also means paying attention to seasonal differences. Changing weather conditions make some swim spots, such as the enchanting River Feshie, more elusive than others. “We’ve got a variety of rivers we can swim in, but we can’t swim in them all the time. That’s what makes river swimming really special.”
But she can always count on Loch Morlich, a vast body of water that sits stoically at the foot of Cairngorm Mountain, near Aviemore, amidst panoramic mountain views.
“In the winter, when our little group has the whole of the beach to ourselves and there’s snow on the beach and snow on the hills with mist rising off the loch, there is literally nowhere else in the world I would rather be swimming.”
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