Summer holidays are upon us and the hills are teeming with happy hiking hordes, newly released from schools and offices. At this busy time of year the most popular peaks can receive hundreds of visits a day, yet with a little smart thinking you can still enjoy even the best known mountains in relative peace. If you're an anti social hiker, here are a few suggestions for ways to get the hills to yourself.

Start early

Summertime daylight might arrive painfully early, but if you can lever yourself out of bed then starting at the crack of dawn - or even before - is a sure fire way to snatch a few uncrowded hours on even the busiest hill. With the aid of a loud alarm and strong coffee you could easily find yourself alone on the summit of Tryfan or Scafell Pike while the lazy masses are still picking over their B&B sausages and beans.

Finish late

Since most walkers seem to squeeze their activity into the same few short hours the tail end of the day can be as empty as early morning. As tea time approaches the hills steadily empty, and if you can resist this descending tide of humanity you might soon find yourself high and dry on your own personal hilltop island. The masses might have fled the tops early in the evening, but there could be hours of usable light left in the day. Summer sunsets come late, and this is often the best time for views and photography. Why not linger longer still? With a headtorch and a sense of adventure there's nothing to fear in the night, and after dark you can pretty much guarantee to have sole run of the place.

Be a dirty stop-out

If it's solitude you're after then what's better than an early start and a late finish? The answer is obvious: spend the whole night up there. A dusk-til-dawn shift on your feet has a certain masochistic novelty, but if your body clock baulks at such extreme noctural wandering then sleeping out will get you the same sort of result. Camp or bivvy on a high top or in a lonely cove and it'll just be you and the night-time mountain.

Pick an unfashionable area

There's grockles all over the Gorms; overcrowding in Ogwen; and it's hell on Helvellyn. But summer's here, so what can you expect? The most popular ranges are busy for a reason - because they're great - so if you're making an obvious choice then it's impossible to begrudge a bit of company. After all, you are part of the traffic jam too. But even while the usual suspects are groaning at the seams obscure uplands elsewhere can be receiving a mere fraction of the footfall. Here area few suggestions.

• South Wales: If it's all bustle in the central Brecon Beacons head west to the wilder charms of the Black Mountain
• Mid Wales: Go anywhere you like; you won't be tripping over hundreds of fellow walkers
• Snowdonia: Attention tends to focus in a few hotspots, leaving less celebrated ranges comparatively quiet. For quality crowd-free walking try the Arans, the Arenigs or the Nantlle Ridge
• Pennines: Do the Peak District and Yorkshire's Three Peaks feel a bit populated? Escape to the high watershed of the North Pennines (Route Card here), or the surprising isolation of the Howgills and Mallerstang fells (this Route Card is a nice intro to the area).
• Lake District: As easily our most popular hillwalking destination, the words isolation and Lake District can rarely be said in the same breath. But all things are relative, and away from the gravitational pull of the big fells there are plenty of quiet corners. Look to the far fringes of the national park, from the obscure country west of Wasdale to the wide spaces of the far eastern fells. Heading north, there's plenty of solitude beyond the barrier of Skiddaw and Blencathra too: see this mini guide to the Northern Fells for suggestions.
• The Cheviots: Straddling the lonely border ridge, this huge grassy expanse is criminally underrated.
• Southern Uplands: A backwater of immense proportions, Scotland's rolling southern ranges have peace and quiet in abundance. This long loop through the high Galloway Hills is a good walk to find some on.
• The Highlands: By several orders of magnitude, there is more scope to get away from it all up here than in the rest of Britain combined. Away from the more accessible of the 282 Munros and the busiest of the glens, as a misanthropic walker the world is very much your oyster north of the Central Belt. A few random examples plucked out of a hat: The craggy contours of Ardgour, an area blessed with a lack of crowd-pulling 3000-footers (example Route Card here); Knoydart's well named Rough Bounds; the vast emptiness of The Mounth; and the wild peaks around lochs Monar and Mullardoch (as per this leg stretching Route Card).
• Scottish Islands: With the notable exceptions of Arran and the Cuillins of Skye you'd be hard pressed to run into too much company on most island peaks. Try the improbably rugged hills of Harris for starters. Rum's wild western peaks are a good bet too.

Become a fan of B-listers

Even the the most buzzing of honeypots have their less frequented summits. If Snowdonia's summer swarms are are getting a bit much, for instance, you could steer away from the hive of the Glyderau and Snowdon and seek respite on nearby under-visited mountains such as Moel Siabod, Yr Aran or Creigiau Gleision. In Scotland a similar crowd-beating move might see you abandoning Munros for the summer - they invariably draw the big numbers - and instead exploring the many unsung Corbetts, where there's often walking of equal merit and no one around to share it with.

Scramble

Many walkers prefer not to make life difficult for themselves. While there's no particular reason that they should, this does offer the more ambitious few a golden opportunity to lose the crowds. From the Tourist Route on The Ben to Snowdon's plethora of named paths, the easier ways up a mountain are bound to attract the most visitors. So instead, try stepping off the beaten trail and getting hands-on with more complicated bits of geology. From airy ridges to deep dank gullies the possibilities are endless - and only the most famous routes are likely to be busy. The risks and rewards of scrambling are not for everyone, but that's a great part of its appeal.

Leave the guiebook behind and DIY it

Everyone loves a classic, but perhaps you can have too much of a good thing. There's a tendency for walking guidebooks and online routes to tread much the same ground. But since a lot of walkers will be using these guides for inspiration the crowd-pulling effect on the famous walks is obvious. On many Munros, for instance, there are only one or two well-known, well-travelled routes. Yet with 360degrees of mountainside around every summit, that leaves a lot of ground comparatively under-used. So put the books aside for a bit, get out a map and follow your own course, and you might find space and solitude on even the most popular hill.

Stay off the summits

Whichever route people use to get there, they will generally be making for the top of the mountain. As a result the summit area will see the greatest concentration of walkers, most of them around the mid day rush hour. You're rarely alone for long at a summit cairn in summer. Is it sacrilege then, or just plain common sense, to suggest not bothering with the top at all? Instead of bantering with the hoi polloi at the trig point you could be enjoying your own company on a long lonely walk through through the empty lower glens; contouring adventurously around the mid height of the fell; or exploring a hidden cwm far below the busy skyline.