A 24-year-old from Droitwich solo hiked more than 2,000 miles in six months to raise funds to reduce healthcare inequality around the world.

Lakshya Jain took on the challenge for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

Lakshya has raised just over £7,000 and is hoping that her story will help her to achieve her target of raising £8,500.

She started from her hometown of Droitwich Spa in late February 2023. Her target was her second hometown of Edinburgh where she had spent five years as a student.

She started out along the West Midlands canal network and then the Pennine Way and finally along the east coast ending in Edinburgh in early April and hiking more than 500 miles.

Next stop was USA. When Lakshya first got the idea of doing a solo hike more than five years ago, her aim was to walk the 2650-mile long Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).

However, Mother Nature had something else in mind. Starting in 2023, California and the Sierra Nevada mountains (which account for a large part of the PCT) got over 300 per cent of their normal snowfall leading to the closure of most of the mountain passes.

It meant that Lakshya came up with Plan B - the 800-mile long Arizona Trail starting at the Mexican border and finishing just north of the Grand Canyon - which she started in late April.

But again, extreme weather caused problems. Southwest USA had one of their hottest summers on record. This severely restricted the number of daily walking hours to very early morning and very late evening which would have made it difficult for Lakshya to meet her daily average walking miles for her challenge.

Lakshya again had to go back to the drawing board. Once again she left from Droitwich and headed for Edinburgh, starting in early May. But this time, she first headed south east along the Cotswold Path, then east along the Thames Path, then south to Eastbourne, then west along the South Downs way, north along Offa’s Dyke, through northwest England into Scotland, along the West Highland Way and Loch Ness, as far north as Inverness and then down along the Scottish east coast to Edinburgh.

The final day of her hike was exactly six months after she first set out in late February. In August, Lakshya hiked and climbed the Yorkshire Three Peaks, completing the 25-mile hike including over 5,200 feet of climbing and descending in just over nine hours.

Over the six months, Lakshya hiked just over 2000 miles (3200 km) over 137 days.

To donate to her cause, visit: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/lakshya-jain-pct

Lakshya has also recorded her journey on her Instagram page @lakshya_the_hiker