Away from big city lights and overwhelming tourist traps, this country has a wealth of more remote and adventurous holiday destinations. If you’re less of a sit-by-the-pool, cocktail-in-hand person and more of a blow-away-the-cobwebs, wind-through-your-hair kind of traveller, the UK ticks plenty of boxes.
It’s with all that in mind that Go Outdoors compiled its list of the best destinations in the UK in 2023. The company analysed a whole load of data online, including top 50 lists from the likes of The Telegraph and Country Living. Researchers also looked at the number of hiking trails in each location, average cost of transport to each area and used TripAdvisor to source the number of things to do, nature and wildlife tours and the number of bike tours on offer.
Top of the pile came Betwys-y-Coed, an unsuspecting village in the hills of North Wales. Known for being the ‘gateway to Snowdonia’, the village scored 8.40 out of ten for its ‘distinctly magical setting’ and rich offering of walking trails and mountain bike tours. Ambleside in Cumbria followed closely with a score of 8.37 and St Ives in Cambridgeshire (no, not the Cornwall one) placed third.
These are the top ten staycation hotspots in the UK, according to Go Outdoors:
- Betwys-y-coed, Conwy
- Ambleside, Cumbria
- St Ives, Cambridgeshire
- Bakewell, Derbyshire
- Whitby, North Yorkshire
- Matlock, Derbyshire
- Tenby, Pembrokeshire
- Rye, East Sussex
- Padstow, Cornwall
- Braemaer, Aberdeenshire
You can find out more about Go Outdoors’ study on the official site here.
Did you see that these three UK road trips have been named the most romantic in the world?
Plus: this massive holiday home in Edinburgh has been named one of the best in Europe.