Relaxing family getaways in Britain off the beaten path.
Less-touristed family getaways in Britain, for travelers seeking fewer crowds but all the beauty.
New Quay
A modest seaside resort on Cardigan Bay in Ceredigion, Wales, with a harbour, sandy beaches, and a coastline on both the Ceredigion Coast Path and the Wales…
Porthmadog
This pocket-sized coastal town in Gwynedd, Wales, Porthmadog grew in the 19th century as a slate port on the Glaslyn estuary, and its surviving wharves now s…
Tywyn
Home to the Talyllyn Railway and the Cadfan Stone — an early medieval cross bearing the oldest known written Welsh — this small seaside town sits on the Card…
Bala
Sitting at the northern tip of Llyn Tegid — the largest natural lake in Wales — this modest Welsh-speaking town in Gwynedd's Snowdonia foothills offers mount…
Clacton-on-Sea
This seaside town on the Essex coast that developed as a resort from the 1870s, Clacton-on-Sea has a walkable centre with a concentrated food-and-drink scene…
Holmfirth
Best known as the filming location for the BBC sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, which ran from 1973 to 2010, Holmfirth is a stone-built West Yorkshire town in…
Christchurch
Smugglers worked the rivers Avon and Stour through much of the 18th and 19th centuries in this Dorset coast town, founded in the 7th century at the confluenc…
Bexhill-on-Sea
A seaside town on the East Sussex coast, Bexhill-on-Sea sits between Hastings and Eastbourne with a walkable centre full of cafés and a heritage-dense street…
Saltaire
Built between 1851 and 1871 by wool industrialist Sir Titus Salt alongside the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, Saltaire is a Victorian model vi…
Brecon
This small market town in mid Wales sitting within the Brecon Beacons National Park, where the rivers Honddu and Usk meet in the town centre.
Aberaeron
A small Welsh harbour town on the Ceredigion coast, Aberaeron was built from 1805 by the Reverend Alban Thomas Jones-Gwynne in a formal street pattern said t…
Pwllheli
Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, was founded in Pwllheli, a tiny market town on the southern coast of the Llŷn Peninsula in north-west Wales.
Pontypridd
Sitting at the confluence of the Taff and Rhondda rivers in South Wales, Pontypridd is a walkable town with a café-filled centre, historic churches, and moun…
Tamworth
Walkable Staffordshire market town north-east of Birmingham, Tamworth sits at the confluence of the River Tame and carries a dense concentration of listed hi…
Buxton
England's highest market town, Buxton sits at around 1,000 feet above sea level on the edge of the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire.
Altrincham
This Greater Manchester market town whose food-and-drink scene centres on a market house granted its charter in 1290, Altrincham draws visitors for its café…
Bletchley
Bletchley Park, the headquarters of Britain's World War II codebreaking operation and now a major tourist attraction, sits in this town on the south-west edg…