I’ve not been to the US so not by direct comparison but from what I’ve heard, more footpaths, easier access to the countryside, more cycleways. England is covered by a network of ancient footpaths and although you are not allowed to walk across anyone’s ground except on a footpath, you find footpaths that lead almost anywhere you want to go.
It also has a strictly enforced green belt policy. Around every city, town or even a village there is a boundary area where you can’t build houses unless in exceptional circumstances. And outside of that, in the countryside it is very difficult to build anywhere unless there is a house or a shed there already in which case you can build a house to replace a smaller house or shed so long as it isn’t too much larger than it. The countryside is covered in “planning zones” so in some of them you have more leeway to build than others, but generally the places where it’s easiest to build new houses are actually inside existing towns or villages.
So - you don’t get many houses along roads or streets in the countryside. Just occasional villages, and houses here and there usually old houses or places where there have been houses for decades at least. So lots of fields and woodlands that go right up to the roads, and then lots of footpaths, which are often centuries old criss-crossing those fields.
In Scotland then you also have a “right to roam”. Anyone can walk anywhere - right through a field, no need to ask permission. A landowner can stop you if you might cause harm to their livelihood by walking across their fields but this is rare. Mainly - it’s a case that in the mountainous areas you need to take care where you walk during the season when they shoot the stags and hinds (which they have to do, whether as sport or not, because there are no natural predators such as the wolf to keep their population in check).
You wouldn’t normally walk through someone’s garden - there I think it’s a matter of privacy. But if you want to cross someone’s field, if it’s pasture just walk straight across it. If growing a crop of course you make sure not to damage it so walk around the edges.
Also of course people here don’t have guns generally, and even in England if you stray from a footpath and walk across someone’s land, the most you are likely to get is a landowner saying “did you realize you aren’t on a footpath here, the footpath is over there…”. Because after all with so many footpaths it’s a natural enough mistake to make, to walk along a private road or private path thinking it is a footpath.
I think that’s only possible in the national parks in the US? And in England also - but in England you have all those footpaths going everywhere so though there is no right to roam generally, you nearly always have a footpath going where you want to go. In Scotland also, though you can walk anywhere, there is a network of footpaths too leading just about everywhere.
File:Public Footpath looking towards Derby Road, Duffield, Derbyshire (4538041050).jpg
Just to add, I do know that the US has large areas of national and city parks where you are free to roam just as you are in Scotland and the national parks of England. :). According to wikipedia, it’s 1,294,476 square km² Protected areas of the United States. Also has 762,169 km² of National Forests
File:USA National Forests Map.jpg
While the area of UK is 242,495 km² and of Scotland is 80,077 km²
So, in Scotland you can walk anywhere usually, and the only drawback is that there are many fences so you either climb over fences or have to look for gates. Sometimes electric fences, the type to keep in sheep and cows not humans, and maybe stiles to get over them. Where there are fences there are often stiles too:
There are so many footpaths and stiles, there's usually a footpath where you want to go.
In England sometimes landowners will have notices saying "private property keep out" around their land, everywhere except on the footpaths of course, but most don't bother.
And even if you walk through a "private, keep out" land, then you don't risk getting shot or anything. Most that might happen is an angry, but more likely polite landowner telling you to find the shortest path out of their property. They are not going to take you to the police just for walking on private property.
If it is like a big house with a huge garden that's so big it’s more like a field, they could have guard dogs there, probably with big signs saying “Beware of the Dog” in some form. And there is the possibility of cows and bulls in a field, which could be aggressive too. So if you stray from a footpath, that's a possible risk too.
Some parts of the countryside of course are impassable. You may find a river with no bridge across for miles in any direction (unless you swim). And in areas with forestry plantations, the trees are a crop and are grown so close together there may be no way through them at all at some stages of growth. Basically if you see something like this:
File:Timber harvesting in Kielder Forest.JPG
then unless you know the area very well, then keep to marked tracks or you risk ending up in a cul de sack and having to retrace your steps with no way to continue forward. You can still go anywhere, except when they are logging and you get warning signs “logging in progress” which it’s wise to pay attention to. You don’t want a log falling on you. But areas of the forest are sometimes literally impenetrable, you can’t even get through on hands and legs, and you can have impenetrable forest like that stretching over square kilometers.
Some of our paths are very ancient, for instance the ridgeway which was not far from where I lived, went right back to neolithic times
The Ridgeway west of Uffington Castle (C) Stefan Czapski
That goes close to the very ancient Uffington white horse, as well as going past ancient barrows like the Wayland Smithy
Others are old Roman roads, disused railways, and so on. Oh and in England there are many paths along rivers and canals. If there is a river or canal going where you want to go, in England, in flatter regions, you can pretty much guarantee, if it is of any size, that there is a footpath along it all the way - sometimes you might have to divert to the roads for a short way and then go back to the path. Usually there’s a path only on one side of the river - the paths started as “tow paths” for horses dragging barges along the rivers and have been kept as paths ever since.
File:StaffsWorcester105.jpg - Wikipedia - a roving bridge on the English Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. The horse does not have to be unhitched when the path goes from one side to the other of the waterway, because it goes under the bridge then over (or over then under). There are footpaths along the sides of most canals or rivers in England - usually only on one side so sometimes you have to cross bridges to keep going.
These are almost always public footpaths. So if there is a waterway headed where you are going you can usually count on an interesting footpath along the waterway to get there.
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