At some point every parkrunner looks up from their home course and notices there are other parks. The best part of 900 of them in the UK alone, well over 2,000 worldwide, all perfectly happy to scan the barcode that is already in your pocket. Running one you have never seen before is called parkrun tourism. It is the least efficient way to run 5K ever devised, because you drive for an hour to run for thirty-five minutes, and it is also the best thing about parkrun after the coffee.
This is the beginner's version. Not the one for people with a spreadsheet and a cow-print snood, though we will get to them. The one for someone who has done fourteen parkruns at the same park and has started recognising the same dog.
What parkrun tourism actually is
Going to a parkrun that is not your usual one. That is the whole concept. Your barcode works at every event on earth, you do not have to tell anyone you are coming, and nobody asks for a reason. Away for a wedding? Tourist. Fancied a different set of trees? Also a tourist.
The only real admin is being there before the briefing. In England and Wales that means 9am. In Scotland and Northern Ireland it means 9:30am, which has caught out more than one Englishman standing alone in a car park in Stirling at ten to nine, wondering where everybody is. (The answer is still in bed, then in a café.) Check the time on the event's own page before you set the alarm.
Picking one
The events map on parkrun.org.uk lists every UK course with a description, a postcode and a note on laps and terrain. Some are three laps of a flat field. Some involve a hill with a name and a reputation. The traditional first target is your NENDY, the Nearest Event Not Done Yet, which settles where to go on Saturday without an argument.
The night before
Look at the event's news page or social feed for a cancellation. Events get called off for weather, flooding or a fun run on the same paths, and the tourist who did not check is the one jogging round an empty park at five past nine. Pack the barcode. parkrun's global rule is no barcode, no time, no exception, though a scannable one on your phone is fine.
How not to embarrass yourself somewhere new
Go to the first-timers' briefing
Even if you have done two hundred parkruns. Especially then. That is where they tell you it is three laps, the finish is nowhere near the start, and the bit by the pond floods. Standing at the back looking experienced is how people end up doing an extra lap alone while the cones get packed away.
Put your hand up
Most run directors ask if there are any tourists, and the correct response is to raise an arm and say where you are from. This is the one social setting in Britain where telling strangers where you live is actively encouraged.
Don't race the locals
You do not know the course. The person who shot off like a startled hare knows there is a climb at 4K. Run your normal pace and save the heroics for home, where at least you will be humiliated among friends. There is a tail walker at every event, so you cannot come last however hard you try.
Give the token back
The finish token goes to the barcode scanner, then back to the event. Taking one home from a tourist visit is the parkrun equivalent of stealing a hotel towel, except the hotel is run by volunteers and had to buy the towel itself.
The challenges, for when it gets out of hand
parkrun tourism has a whole folklore of unofficial challenges, mostly invented by people who stopped pretending this was about fitness years ago. The official parkrun app now tracks a good number of them.
Tourist
Twenty different events. This is the entry ticket to the UK parkrun Tourists Facebook group and to the cow cowl, a cow-print neck tube that lets tourists spot each other on a start line. You will think this is ridiculous right up until you own one.
The Cowell Club
A hundred different events, named after Chris and Linda Cowell, the first parkrunners to get there. Fifty is half a Cowell. The app calls the same thing Explorer 100, which is accurate and has none of the charm.
The Alphabeteer
An event for every letter of the alphabet except X, because there isn't one. There is no Z in the UK either, so the alphabet eventually needs a trip abroad, which is a large commitment to a game about letters. Alongside it sit the Pirates (seven Cs and an R, said out loud), the Compass Club and the Full Ponty, which is exactly what it sounds like.
The Bushy pilgrimage
Bushy Park in Teddington is where thirteen people ran the first one on 2 October 2004. The field is now enormous and everyone goes once, the way everyone goes to Stonehenge once. Pair it with our London coffee guide and make a day of it.
What to pack for a parkrun away
The barcode, obviously. A top that dries overnight on a Premier Inn radiator, which is the honest reason the Agony Tee lives in the weekend bag. Socks you trust, because a new course means new mud, and a blister on a tourist trip has to be driven home. That is the Blister Socks. For a course with no shade, the Brow-Mop Cap weighs nothing and earns its place in the glovebox. Then a dry layer for afterwards, because the café will be warm and you will not be. All of it is in the kit. None of it will make you faster, and the tourist rules say you were not meant to be.
Common questions
Do I need to register again to run a different parkrun?
No. One registration, one barcode, every event in the world. Forget the barcode and you still get the run, just not the time.
What time does parkrun start in Scotland?
9:30am, the same as Northern Ireland. England and Wales start at 9am. It is the fact tourists get wrong most often.
How many parkruns do you need to be a tourist?
One. Any event other than your home course counts. Unofficially, twenty different events earns the Tourist badge and the cow cowl, fifty is half a Cowell, and a hundred puts you in the Cowell Club.
Can I do parkrun abroad with my UK barcode?
Yes. The same barcode works in all twenty-plus parkrun countries. Start times vary, so check the local one before planning the holiday around it.
Is parkrun tourism free?
parkrun is free everywhere. The tourism costs whatever the petrol, the train and the post-run bacon sandwich come to, which is the part nobody budgets for and everybody pays.
More along these lines: the unwritten rules of parkrun, in defence of the 35-minute 5K, and where to get coffee after a Lake District parkrun.
Suffer every mile. Still no medals. Now in a park you had to look up on a map.