Routes

Best Walks In Pembrokeshire | 10 Mapped Routes

OM's Will Renwick and Stephen Jones pick out their favourite walks in Pembrokeshire. This Welsh paradise is home to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, offering up seaside saunters to trips around historic towns.

The county of Pembrokeshire is a walker’s paradise. Home to the only national park within Britain that is primarily designated for its coastal landscape, it’s a place of remarkable natural beauty. You’ll find golden beaches, tucked-away coves, woodland-flanked estuaries, towering sea cliffs, hundreds of islands of all sizes and a sea that can change from a mediterranean blue one day to a white frenzy the next.

The best walks in Pembrokeshire aren’t just found on the coast however. There’s beauty to be found inland as well, particularly within the Preseli Hills, where the wild upland, neolithic sites to uncover and views of the county’s three coastlines make for some epic hillwalking country.

Undoubtedly the best way to explore Pembrokeshire’s coast is via the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, a long-distance trail that winds its way around this ‘peninsula of a thousand peninsulas’, running 186 miles from Amroth on the south coast to Cardigan over on the northern side.

Not quite down for at least two weeks of continuous walking? Don’t worry, you could just explore each side of the national park using the excellent coastal path shuttle buses that Pembrokeshire council operate. These are all super regular in the summer – when there’s no pandemic going on, that is.

Walking Holidays In Pembrokeshire: Where To Stay

There are plenty of options when it comes to accommodation in Pembrokeshire. First of all, there are campsites galore here with popular spots including Whitesands Camping in St David’s, Newgale Camping near Haverfordwest and Gupton Farm by Freshwater West. If you prefer a solid roof over your head, you’ll find many a cosy tucked away cottage on accommodation websites like westwalesholidaycottages.co.uk and, of course, Airbnb. Looking for a basecamp in a town? Newport, Fishguard, Tenby and St David’s are good places to start your search but there are plenty more options throughout the national park and further within the county too.

Best Walks In Pembrokeshire: The Top 10

The routes below are all mapped out on komoot ready to be followed on the komoot app. If you’re new to komoot, for a free regional bundle (worth £8.99) simply follow this link to komoot.com and create your free account today.

Mynydd Carningli
St David’s Peninsula
Foel Cwmcerwyn and The Preseli Hills
Strumble Head Circular
Abereiddy Circular
Caldey Island
Saundersfoot Beach to Tenby Beach
Dale Circular
The Stackpole Estate
Marloes Peninsula Circular

All the walks in this list have been chosen by Will Renwick and Stephen Jones. Will, who’s president of Ramblers Cymru and editor of this very website, has close ties to north Pembrokeshire, particularly the town of Newport. Staff Writer Stephen, on the other hand, was born and raised in Tenby and therefore knows all of the secrets of south Pembrokeshire.

Together Will and Stephen have forged a north-south alliance to bring you the best walks in Pembrokeshire. They think it will act as the perfect guide to walking on Wales’s paradisiacal Pembrokeshire coast and the stunning interior of the county as well.

Walk 1: Mynydd Carningli

Carningli Mountain isn’t actually a mountain, far from it actually if you consider the fact it’s 264m off meeting the 609m qualifier. It’s still fair to say, however, that this hill has the look and feel of a fully fledged mountain. A craggy, boulder-piled summit, a darkened north face, vast moorland surroundings and a general air of wildness, you could plonk this peak in Snowdonia and it would fit right in with the locals.

Related: Best Walks In Snowdonia

As well as that pocket rocket charm, another likeable aspect of this hill-mountain is its setting. It perches right alongside the edge of Cardigan Bay, leaning over a glorious stretch of Welsh coastline.

This walk starts in Newport, a little town with some excellent pubs, the quaintist of cottages imaginable and a wide beach at the mouth of a wildlife-rich estuary. It then heads straight uphill onto Carningli Mountain and its moorland to take in the coast and country views then drops down to seek out Cwm yr Eglwys, a little cove that’s home to the picturesque ruins of a church that was destroyed in the nineteenth century by a vicious storm. The route then returns back to Newport via a sawtoothed section of coastline, riding high along the clifftops.

Walk 2: St David’s Peninsula

Protected by both the National Trust and Pembrokeshire National Park Authority, this part of the Pembrokeshire coast, particularly the strait between Ramsey Island and the mainland, is a real haven for coastal creatures. You’d be very unlucky to come away from a walk here without spotting something exciting, with dolphins, porpoises, seals, puffins, razorbills and plenty more all regular visitors to the area.

The route starts at St David’s, a cathedral city that’s actually smaller than most market towns. After leaving the city, the route follows a glorious stretch of Pembrokeshire’s coastline, visiting tucked away coves along the way – including the photogenic lifeboat house at St Justinian’s. It then stops by at the popular surf spot of Whitesands beach. You’ll eventually finish up back in the bright lights of the small city, where, if you still have some energy, it’s worth having a look around the cathedral and the ruins of the adjacent monastery. If you don’t have energy, well, there are plenty of pubs to reload in.

Walk 3: Preseli Hills

Ah, the wild and wonderful Preseli Hills. Home to some excellent time-forgotten pubs, walking trails you’ll have all to yourself, and the original site of Stonehenge. That’s right, not only were the famous stones originally quarried from these hills, but recent evidence suggests that they stood in some kind of formation here before being transported, somehow, to Salisbury Plain. There are plenty of other neolithic relics to be found here too, with burial chambers and standing stones abounding in every direction. There’s even a path along the hilltops, known as the Golden Road, which is believed to have been part of a ‘trade superhighway’ on which gold mined in Ireland was carried to the southeast of England.

The route starts in the outpost-like village of Rosebush and will get your legs working immediately, taking you high up to the top of Foel Cwmcerwyn, the highest point in the Preseli Hills. From here, on a good clear day you might be able to see as far as Snowdon, Lundy Island at the mouth of the Bristol Channel and even the Wicklow mountains in Ireland. The route then links up with a stretch of the aforementioned Golden Road, taking you along the wide, grassy ridgeline before cutting back to Rosebush with a descent through forestry. You can then finish up at the Zinc Tafarn, a community-owned pub that’s one of the last few sawdust-on-the-floor types of places you’ll find in Wales, perhaps even Britain.

Walk 4: Strumble Head Circular

There’s some excellent coastal walking to be had around Strumble Head and the Pencaer Peninsula. You’ll see towering sea cliffs, wave-torn mini islands beyond a boulder-filled shoreline, a whitewashed lighthouse with its suspension bridge and then the ‘mini mountain’ of Garn Fawr.

The summit of Garn Fawr makes for the highest point of this route which circumnavigates the peninsula’s jagged coastline. You can tailor things to suit the distance you’d want to take on but if you’re up for a fairly big day out it’s worth following the coast right round as far as Carregwastad Point. It’s here that you’ll find the place where in 1797 a French army landed before eventually being successfully repelled in what is now referred to as the last invasion of Britain. Local legend has it that it was a group of local women who led the defence, armed only with pitchforks.

Bring some binoculars on this walk as there’s plenty of coastal life to scout out. At certain times of year the area is visited by all kinds of birdlife, including soft plumage petrels, shearwaters, razorbills and puffins.

Walk 5: Abereiddy Circular

You’ll know you’re near the blue lagoon just from the sounds you’ll hear as you approach it. At nearly any time of year, there are shrieks and splashes echoing as people dare themselves to take the leap from the old quarry ruins into the amazingly turquoise waters below. Once a year, the eyes of the world in fact turn to the secluded bay here for the Red Bull Cliff Diving Championships, where competitors from 18 different nations plunge from a staggering height of 28m.

As well as stopping by at this spot, this circular route visits Porthgain, one of Pembrokeshire’s most quintessential seaside harbour villages and home to one of the finest pubs in the county, the Sloop. Then there’s Traeth Llyfn, a sandy beach wrapped right around by tall cliffs. Only accessed on foot, and at least a kilometre from the nearest space to park, it’s the kind of beach that you’ll never have to share with a crowd.

Church Rock at Broad Haven South. Photo: Will Renwick

Walk 6: Caldey Island

Step forth to the colourful harbour of Tenby and find many a boat waiting to take you to the nearby Caldey Island, which is just a few miles off the coast from the seaside town. This is an intriguing place to visit for a number of reasons. For one, it’s home to a picturesque monastery that’s inhabited by monks of the Cistercian Order. Better yet, these monks make and sell chocolate.

This recommended route will take you directly through the sands of Priory Beach as you delve further into Caldey Island and make your way to the waymarked cliff path. At this point, the lighthouse will come into view and present a bird’s-eye view of the entire island. A vantage point that allows you to fully appreciate the island’s unique terrain, all-the-while getting a sharp intake of sea air.

This route will allow you to get the whole picture of Caldey Island. At just 3.5 miles, it shouldn’t take more than two hours, giving you plenty of time to explore the religious buildings and other shops that help support the community here.

Walk 7: Saundersfoot Beach to Tenby Beach

It’s no secret that the seaside towns of Saundersfoot and Tenby are home to some of the finest Blue Flag beaches the country has to offer and linking the two places in a point-to-point route will provide you with an unforgettable slice of the Pembrokeshire coastline.

Starting from Saundersfoot, you’ll be greeted with exhilarating clifftop paths and their stunning views over the Bristol Channel. On the approach to Tenby the walk passes through woodland before finishing up at picture perfect Tenby Harbour, a place with an array of coloured houses that merge with the surf to have you in awe.

“As a Tenby native myself, I’m biased,” says Stephen, “but when you take one look at the area, you’ll see I have every right to be. This walk will already be known to thousands. It’s something you just have to do when visiting the area of South Pembrokeshire.”

Walk 8: Dale Circular

Watwick Bay near Dale is home to a divine stretch of beach that’s wrapped by red sandstone cliffs and that tends to be peaceful throughout the year.

The only way of accessing this beach is from the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path so you won’t find the flurry of crowds here – you can take in the tranquility one sandy footstep at a time. Views of Skokholm Island and Grassholm Island can be seen from the Watwick Bay Loop and there are rock pools and caves for exploring.

Walk 9: The Stackpole Estate

This walk really is a cracker. It starts out on woodland trails that wind you around the beautiful lily ponds of the Stackpole estate, an area that’s rich in wildlife with otters to watch out for, rare species of butterfly and pike that lurk in the shadows of the lily pads.

Eventually you arrive at Broad Haven bay with its off-the-beaten-track (though still popular) beach, its marram grass-filled dunes and normally calm waters to plunge into. The route then climbs onto the clifftops where you can take in the views out to Church Rock, a sharp spire-shaped island that reaches up high from the sea’s surface. A bit further around the coast, there’s the final reward on this walk; the tucked away sandy beach at Barafundle Bay, often regarded as one of the finest beaches in the UK.

Bear in mind that there are some great pubs in the villages of Bosherston and Stackpole – good places to round off this excellent walk.

Walk 10: Marloes Peninsula Circular

This is another circular walk around a stunning headland, one that provides views over an archipelago of islands, including Skomer, Skokholm which are both home to important colonies of puffins, manx shearwaters and storm petrels. Since 2003, much of the peninsula here has been returned from farmland to heathland, making the area a place of real natural beauty.

Along the way, the route visits Marloes sands – yet another spectacular beach on this list – a place where golden sand contrasts with boulders and the wrapping red cliffs above. It’s worth considering expanding this route to take in St Brides Haven, where there’s a little cove that’s a popular spot for swimming, snorkeling and rock pooling.

Main image: Marloes Sands by Phillip Roberts