The 10 Most Beautiful Places in Wales
From the wave-lashed shores of Pembrokeshire in the southwest to the mist-gathering peaks of Snowdonia up north, the golden sands of Gower to the haunting Druid stone circles around Anglesey, Wales packs in plenty. Despite its small size – a mere 20,000 square kilometres – this country bursts with beautiful spots. There are knife-edge mountain ridges. You’ll find mystical glens where faeries are said to dance. And the beaches are simply spectacular. Let’s take a look at some things you simply can’t miss…
1 | Llangennith
Where better to start than at a beach that inspired the ire of Aussie travel writers when it was – quite rightly! – named in the top 10 beaches in the world back in 2013? Yep, this one defies any who think that real beaches should have sugar-white sands and turquoise water. It’s proudly wild, rugged, raw, and lashed by some of the biggest waves this side of Cornwall.
Stretching for a whopping three miles from top to bottom, Llangennith runs from the craggy tidal island of Worm’s Head to the mouth of the Loughor Estuary. It’s a wide and often windy sweep of cinnamon-tinged sand, complete with an aging shipwreck (the Helvetia of 1887) and a haunted cottage. Bracing coast walks are obviously number one, but there’s also surf – which is among the most reliable in Wales – and quaint cafés in the bijou village of Rhossili at the beach’s south end.
local tip
It's possible to hike across to the tidal island of Worm's Head, but only at low tide. The coastguard hut south of the main carpark in Rhossili will display the latest time that it's safe to leave.
2 | Fairy Glen
Wales is a land of myth and legend, and nowhere offers a journey into the rich Celtic mysticism of the country quite like the Fairy Glen. Hidden away down a gorge on the eastern edge of the Snowdonia National Park, it covers a pretty creek on the Conwy River. There are moss-covered rocks framed by beech trees, and gurgling waterfalls that gush over little caverns and grottoes in the forest.
Poets and painters and folklorists have told of faeries and sprites and all sorts residing in the glen. These days, you’re probably more likely to see other walkers on the hunt for one of Wales’s most beautiful spots. The path there starts in a pub car park (costs £1), before weaving into the nearby woods and circling back on often-wet stone staircases. Walking boots are required.
local tip
Visit in autumn. The Fairy Glen gets very busy in the summer, but October brings ochre and copper colours to the trees that make it look even more enchanting.
3 | Sgwd Yr Eira
Hard-to-pronounce Sgwd Yr Eira is the piece de resistance of the Brecon Beacons Waterfall Country. Just a whisker northwest of the whisky town of Penderyn, it rolls over the karst bluffs that form on the Hepste River. As the water drops a whopping 10 metres from top to bottom, it bubbles into deep, dark plunge pools surrounded by lichen-covered rocks and overhanging trees. It’s a photographer’s dream.
Sgwd Yr Eira is actually just one of several waterfalls that exist in this southern corner of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Most of the others wait on a wider branch of the river that goes north. They include the dramatic Sgwd Clun-Gwyn waterfall and the handsome Sgwd y Pannwr waterfall, a regular favourite with wild swimmers.
local tip
Don't miss the path that goes behind the Sgwd Yr Eira. It takes you to an open cave with the cataract roaring right in front!
4 | Tenby
The stoop fishing cottages of little Tenby are tucked into a small crevice of the Pembroke coastline, on the far south-western end of Wales. Some jumble and jostle on the clifftops above the golden sands of North Beach – a hubbub of ice-cream eaters and sunbathers in the summer months. Others look up towards the 12th-century walls of Tenby Castle, now half ruined on its perch above the Irish Sea.
Back in the town and the centre is a labyrinthine muddle of streets that bend this way and that. There are lovely tearooms and cafés, love spoon galleries and art workshops aplenty, along with places that serve traditional Welsh cakes and Welsh rarebit brunches. Better yet, Tenby is the gateway to the south side of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, where walking paths weave through gorse fields and surf spots like Manorbier await.
local tip
Grab a cuppa' from The Stowaway Coffee Co. They have the best beans in town and a swashbuckling location in the old fishing crofts of Tenby harbour.
5 | Barafundle Bay
Barafundle Bay is where Wales manifests just a touch of the Caribbean. Here, the sands are soft and tinted white, and the Celtic Sea takes on a greenish-blue hue. It’s hardly a wonder that shots of the beach, which sits midway along the southern peninsula of Pembroke, are a regular cover to postcards of the region.
The walk down to Barafundle is around half a mile, going through pockets of dunes topped by sea oats and hardy thistles. Then the great reveal: The beach itself, hemmed in by two limestone headlands and dashes of seaweed-covered reef. A west-facing orientation and a Blue Flag award make Barafundle a particularly great place to swim and paddle board. Just be sure to check tide times before you go.
local tip
Saint Govan's Chapel hides in a cleft in the Welsh cliffs just around the coast from Barafundle Bay. It's an old hermit's cave marked by a haunting church and reached by winding stairs.
6 | Three Cliffs Bay
Wow – Three Cliffs Bay is pure drama from one end to the other. It unfolds around the dunes of Pennard on the southern edge of the Gower Peninsula. A half-ruined Norman castle crowns the headland just above, while the bay itself opens into a mile-wide swathe of sand that’s carved up by a wiggling, S-bend river. The whole scene is framed by the eponymous Three Cliffs, which spike straight out of the water at high tide.
The money shot at Three Cliffs Bay is from the path that leads down from the Three Cliffs Bay Holiday Park on the north side. It encompasses the rocky coastline of South Wales, and the dunes below. There’s also a particularly lovely walk that goes through the woods of Parkmill, hopping a small stream before following a river all the way to the beach.
local tip
Do the woodland walk in April or early May. The whole forests are full of wild garlic then, which are awesome for making foraged wild-garlic mayo or pesto.
7 | Crib Goch
Crib Goch arches like the backbone of a sleeping dragon along the north side of Wales’s highest mountain, Yr Wyddfa (formerly known as Snowdon). It’s a knife-edge ridge that stretches for just over 1.5 miles before joining up with the famous Pyg Track, one of the more common routes to the summit. As it goes, it peaks and troughs, jutting to dagger-like highs that do their best impression of the Dolomites.
Believe it or not, Crib Goch is walkable. But it’s certainly not for the vertigo sufferers. The route up goes from the Pen-y-pass carpark and quickly bends steeply onto the ridge itself. There, it becomes a scramble, with sheer drops on both sides and wonderful views of the gleaming Glaslyn lake below.
local tip
The Rhyd Ddu Path offers an alternative route up Yr Wyddfa from the west side, and it's got arguably the best mountain scenery. You can also drop into the cosy Cwellyn Arms after your hike for a proper Welsh pint.
8 | Llyn y Fan Fach & Picws Du
Picking the horseshoe mountain of Picws Du over the highest in the Brecon Beacons, Pen y Fan, is sure to ruffle some local feathers. But there’s just something about this rock-ribbed peak that sets it apart from the crowd. Huddling around the lake of Llyn y Fan Fach on the fringes of the Black Mountain range, it’s a barren and bleak place of rolling heaths and sheep pastures that’s guaranteed to blow the cobwebs away.
The main circuit of Llyn y Fan Fach is a hike of 15km that loops the main ridge and then summits Picws Du. That’s the place to have lunch with a view over Pen y Fan in the distance, before dropping down for a wild swim in the smaller lake of Llyn y Fan Fawr.
local tip
There's a tiny campsite near the trailhead here. Book in to do the hike before anyone else makes it up from nearby Swansea!
9 | Portmeirion
Portmeirion probably isn’t the sort of village you’d expect to find on the wild Welsh coast between Ceredigion Bay and Snowdonia. Instead of hardy miner cottages, it’s got grand Italianate palazzos, faux-Renaissance buildings, and frontispieces that would look right at home in ancient Greece. The truth is, the town is actually a living art gallery, created by local architect-artist Sir Clough Williams-Ellis in the middle of the 1900s.
It’s been the inspiration and muse to musicians and poets over the years. American design revolutionary Frank Lloyd Wright visited in 1956, and Paul McCartney and other Beatles came regularly. Portmeirion’s other claim to fame is as the backdrop to the eerie 1960s dystopian spy drama, The Prisoner.
local tip
Festival Number 6 hosts some fantastic bands in the carnivalesque setting of Portmeirion each year.
10 | Haye-on-Wye
Walk down one road in Haye-on-Wye and you’ll cross the border into England. That’s how close this famous literary hub is to not being in Wales at all. But the centre is, with all the bookshops and antiques emporiums and cosy cafés that come with it. The feel of the place is wonderful – think whitewashed cottages with overhanging eaves and half-timbered façades that date back centuries.
Haye-on-Wye is now firmly on the UK cultural map for the annual Hay Festival. It’s been going since 1988 and hosts regular talks with intellectuals, thinkers, and award-winning authors. Book your tickets early, though, because the most in-demand lectures sell out fast.
local tip
Visit Builth Wells while you're here – it's an enchanting country market village with fantastic real-ale pubs.
