Will Self: PsychoGeography - My favourite winter walks

Yes, it's that time of the year again, when the Independent Magazine's panel of experts – radio presenter, Libby Purves; comedy terrorist, Aaron Barschak; Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General; and me – meet together at a London hotel reeking of commercial sex and stale flatulence, to compile our list of the best brumal promenades. As with all such exercises, the aim is to achieve consensus – so these may not be the top walks, per se, but rather the ones we can reasonably concur on. In no particular order, then:

Walk 1. Herat to Kabul. Distance: approximately 400 miles. Conditions: fair to middling. Ability level: beginner. It's best to undertake this walk in mid-winter, as in summer temperatures soar. Make sure you have good boots but native clothing, as fancy Gore-Tex may be ripped off your back by angry and impoverished tribesmen. At least one local dialect – Dari, Pashto – is essential if you want to avoid being shot by resurgent Taliban, or abducted by hostile warlords. Army training – preferably Special Forces – is advisable, as is an unusual level of mental resilience and physical toughness. Antibiotics may be required.

I took this walk in the company of Rory Stewart, whose The Places in Between is a masterful account of his trek across Afghanistan in 2002, six weeks after the Taliban had fled. Stewart's account is so vivid that I was convinced I was pacing alongside him, rather than lying in bed, in south London, five years after the event, eating Christmas cake – slice after hunk, until the sheets were a treacherous morass of glutinous crumbs.

Walk 2. Netherton to Motherwell town centre. Distance: 6 miles. Conditions: poor. Ability level: advanced. It's a tough customer who embarks on a walk along the Clyde Walkway, in the heart of the Scots Rust Belt, at this – or indeed any – time of year. It's wet, it's cold, and there are usually enormous shifting dunes of broken Buckfast Tonic wine bottles to negotiate. Local guides may be required – and interpreters.

I did the walk twice this Christmas; first by night, by the light of a Ban Ki-moon, then by day, with Libby Purves. The Secretary-General was completely "weirded out" by the overgrown graveyard at the foot of Dalzell Park, and found the Barons Haugh nature reserve equally intimidating. Purves, by contrast, took to the Clyde like a duck to water – in fact, this is no metaphor, for the award-winning radio presenter did indeed strip off then plunge into the Nambarrie tea-coloured river, which was in full spate. She swam downstream to the Strathclyde Country Park, before popping out again like a pink seal. I was impressed.

Walk 3. Seething Lane to Westminster Palace via the Change, then back again via the Sun Inn. Distance: 4 miles. Conditions: 15 January 1665. Ability level: seeking preferment. Up and walked to Whitehall, it being still a brave frost and I in perfect good health, blessed be God. Met with Tanger committee, where I was accosted and most highly complimented by Lord Bellasses our new Governor, beyond my expectation or measure I could imagine he would have given any man, as if I were the only person of business he intended to rely on, and desires my correspondence with him. This I was not only surprized at, but am well pleased with and may make good use of it. Then to the Sun, and finding Mistress Purves there away elle and I to a private cabinet where elle and I have été before; and there I had her company toute l'après-diner and had mon plein plaisir of elle. So home, and found there my wife and Mr Barschak, both got up as Moors. Mr Barschak and my lad, Tom, did then play upon their instruments most prettily and merrily until gone three a-clock. Supper and to bed.

Walk 4. Lofthouse to The Sportsman's Arms Hotel at Wath. Distance: 7 miles. Conditions: grim up north. Ability level: Janet. A good sodden tramp on the North Yorks moors is more or less mandatory for anyone who wishes to consider themselves a heroic modern Briton in the Gordon Brown mode. Indeed, without at least a slim majority of us undertaking such walks it's hard to see democracy surviving. Look at what's happened in Kenya and Pakistan – thousands of maddened barefooted rioters, looting local branches of Cotswolds Outdoors for Meindl walking boots. I said as much to Ban Ki-moon as we plodded across Dallowgill Moor, the cold rain driving into our faces, and he concurred, remarking that "Without robust institutions, transparent election monitoring, and a generous supply of Kendal Mint Cake, it is hard to envision a ..." before I shut him up by stuffing a glove in his mouth.

Walk 5. Back to work. Distance: illimitable. Conditions: 7.5 per cent APR. Ability level: nearly superannuated.