Wild coasts

A few hardy souls have traversed the entire 870 miles non-stop. But most people tend to walk and savour this amazing coastal path in sections — bit by bit — in half day walks, day walks, on weekends and holidays

Beginning on the Dee estuary near Chester, the long distance Wales Coast Path traces the North Wales Coast, passing ancient Flint and Conwy Castles and the spectacular Great Orme with its trams, rare blue butterflies and feral goats, to run along the Menai Strait.

Having circled the lovely Isle of Anglesey — much of which is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (or AONB) — the Path skips past Caernarfon Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site, to round the remote Llŷn Peninsula with sacred Bardsey Island (The ‘Island of 20,000 saints’) at its tip. From Porthmadog, the Wales Coast Path pushes south, past the Italianate fantasy village of Portmeirion, along the coastal fringe of the mountainous Snowdonia National Park with its half-wild estuaries, and on through Ceredigion and the long sweep of Cardigan Bay

On around Wales

The Wales Coast Path then rounds Pembrokeshire — Britain’s only coastal National Park — on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Striding through Carmarthenshire with its wonderful estuaries, coastal forests and dune systems, the Welsh coastal path loops around the Gower Peninsula (another worthy AONB) into Swansea Bay.

Beyond the photogenic limestone cliffs of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, the Path runs on to Cardiff, proud capital of Wales. From there, it’s only a short hike down the wide Severn estuary to the Georgian market town of Chepstow on the Welsh-English border.

Ready to walk? Along the way you’ll experience the very best of Wales: stunning scenery, stirring history, ancient Welsh culture and language, and wildlife in abundance. If you tackle only one big walk in your life, make it this one.

It really is unmissable.