With its zigzag of coastline interlaced with golden bays, wind-lashed headlands, remote moors and wildlife-rich offshore islands, Pembrokeshire scores highly for its natural drama. Ripe for adventurous couples, cliff-jumping, coasteering, sea kayaking and dolphin-spotting are all part of the experience, and there’s fizzing surf all year round in Whitesands Bay. Lace up your hiking boots for yomps along the unbroken 186-mile coastal path and up gorsy hills, slipping through kissing gates and stopping for newspaper-wrapped fish and chips in go-slow fishing villages along the way. Visitors should stop off in tiny St David’s – Wales’ patron saint was said to be buried in the cathedral – and mooch around cheerful Tenby, with its string of pretty pastel houses. And while you’re here, make time to explore the staggeringly beautiful Stackpole Estate, a thickly-wooded nature reserve packed with majestic lily ponds, cute otters basking in the river and hard-to-reach Barafundle Bay, one of Britain’s best stretches of sand.
Where to stay: Grove of Narberth ranks among Wales’s smartest country-house hotels, but if you’d prefer to be left completely alone, book The Cable Hut. Lovingly restored by its current owners, this tiny hideaway was originally built to house the very first telephone cables that run along the Atlantic, and it sits in glorious isolation just metres from the coastal path.
