How fast do I need to be able to swim?

We often have a wide range of swimming speeds on a particular departure, with our guests covering 1km in the open water in anything from 10-40 minutes. As a guide, guests should be able to swim a minimum of 1km in 40 minutes. The average SwimTrek speed is 15-20 minutes per kilometre which works out at around 29 minutes a mile.

One of the great features of a SwimTrek trip is that we cater for this range of swimming speeds on each departure. At the start of your trip, your guides will carry out an acclimatisation swim with all guests, which will then be used to group together swimmers of a similar speed. Generally, there are 2-3 different speed groups per trip, however, this can vary depending on the makeup of the group on each particular departure.

By splitting swimmers into smaller speed groups, we are able to ensure that all guests are swimming at an appropriate pace. For most of our SwimTrek trips we ask that swimmers are able to swim 1km (0.6 miles) in 40 minutes to take part in our swimming trips.

All SwimTrek trips are also graded based on the difficulty and length of swims – from beginner to challenging (or even ultra!) – so you can use the filters on our trip search page to find the SwimTrek adventure that suits you best.