Pembrokeshire is a walking county with one great asset and one quiet one. The great asset is the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, roughly 190 miles of clifftop running the whole length of the county’s coastline, and generally reckoned to be the finest long-distance coastal walk in Britain. The quiet one is the interior — the Preseli Hills in the north, which almost no visitor climbs and which hold more prehistory per square kilometre than almost anywhere in Wales.
Most of the coast is inside the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, established in 1952 and the only British national park designated primarily for its coastline.
This guide works round the county from south to north.
The National Trust’s Stackpole Estate is the best introduction to Pembrokeshire walking. The Bosherston Lily Ponds — flooded limestone valleys with lilies in June and otters if you are lucky — run down to Broad Haven South, a beach with Church Rock standing offshore in the middle of it. Barafundle Bay, round the corner from Stackpole Quay, is regularly named among the best beaches in Britain and is reachable only on foot.
A circuit of the ponds, Broad Haven South, Barafundle and Stackpole Quay is about ten kilometres, mostly level, and is the single best day’s walking in the county for effort against reward. See our Broad Haven page.
St Govan’s Chapel is built into a cleft in the limestone cliff, twenty feet by twelve, reached by a flight of worn steps from the clifftop. It is thirteenth-century in its present form and older in origin, and there is nothing else like it in Britain. See our St Govan’s page.
West of it, the Green Bridge of Wales is a huge natural limestone arch, and the Elegug Stacks are pillars of rock covered in guillemots in the breeding season.
An important practical point: much of this coast is the Castlemartin military firing range, and the coast path and the road to St Govan’s are closed when firing is taking place. Check the range times before you set out; they are published locally and posted at the access points.
Marloes Sands is a wide beach backed by dramatically folded rock strata, reached by a walk from the National Trust car park. The Marloes Peninsula circuit takes in Gateholm Island, the Deer Park and views to Skomer and Skokholm across Jack Sound.
Martin’s Haven, at the end of the peninsula, is where the Skomer boats leave from — our islands guide covers those.
Further north, St Bride’s Bay runs from Little Haven and Broad Haven past Druidston and Nolton Haven to Newgale, a two-mile shingle and sand beach that is one of the best surf spots in Wales.
St Davids Head, beyond Whitesands, is one of the finest short walks in Wales: an Iron Age promontory fort, a neolithic burial chamber at Coetan Arthur, and views to Ramsey Island across the Sound. Around six kilometres from Whitesands car park.
Whitesands Bay itself is a Blue Flag beach two miles west of St Davids and the main surf beach on the peninsula.
St Non’s Chapel and Well, on the cliff south of the city, marks the traditional birthplace of St David.
Abereiddi and the Blue Lagoon — a flooded slate quarry connected to the sea, startlingly blue and now used for coasteering and diving competitions — are ten kilometres north-east, with the old quarry village of Porthgain beyond.
Strumble Head, with its lighthouse on an island reached by a footbridge, is the best place in Wales for watching seabirds and porpoises, and a good spot for seals in autumn.
The Preseli Hills rise to 536 metres at Foel Cwmcerwyn and are the county’s only real high ground. The Golden Road ridge path runs along the tops past bronze age cairns and stone circles, and it was from these hills that the bluestones of Stonehenge were quarried — a fact that has been argued over for a century and is now well established.
Castell Henllys, on the northern side, is an Iron Age village reconstructed on its own excavated foundations, which is unusual and worth the visit.
Almost nobody walks up here. It is open, boggy in places, and the views run from Snowdonia to the Gower on a clear day.
The Daugleddau — the drowned river valley that becomes Milford Haven — is Pembrokeshire’s hidden landscape: wooded creeks, quiet villages like Lawrenny, and almost no visitors. The waterway walks around Lawrenny, Landshipping and Cresswell are a complete contrast to the cliffs.
The Coast Path is waymarked with the acorn symbol and is well maintained, but it is not flat: the cumulative ascent over its full length is greater than Everest. Day sections are the sensible approach, with the coastal bus services — the Puffin Shuttle, the Strumble Shuttle, the Poppit Rocket and the Coastal Cruiser — designed specifically to get walkers back to their cars.
Firing ranges. Castlemartin in the south and Manorbier both close sections of coast at times. Check.
Cliff edges are unfenced and the rock is undercut in places. Keep back.
Seasons. April to July for seabirds and wildflowers; September and October for seals pupping and the clearest air; winter for empty paths and big seas.
Buses are better than in most rural counties, with a network of coastal services in season, but check timetables — they thin out considerably in winter.
If you have come to walk the Pembrokeshire Coast Path end to end, a few things are worth knowing before you start. It runs from Amroth in the south-east to St Dogmaels on the Teifi in the north, and most people take between ten and fifteen days. The cumulative ascent over the full route is greater than the height of Everest, which surprises people who look at a map of a coastal path and assume it is flat.
Walking north to south puts the prevailing wind behind you and the sun in front for the views; walking south to north starts you on the gentler ground and saves the wilder north coast for when your legs are used to it. Both are defensible.
Accommodation is the constraint. There are long stretches — the Castlemartin coast, parts of the north — with nothing at all, and the villages that do have beds fill in summer. Book ahead, and use the coastal buses to get to and from a fixed base if you would rather not move every night. Baggage transfer services operate along the route.
More than most coastal paths anywhere. Seabirds crowd the cliffs from April to July — guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, fulmars and, on the islands, puffins and shearwaters. Choughs, the red-billed crow that has vanished from most of Britain, are common here. Grey seals pup on the beaches below the cliffs from late August into the autumn, and the pups are white and very visible from above. Porpoises and dolphins work the tide races off Strumble and Ramsey.
The clifftop grassland is exceptional for flowers in May and June — thrift, sea campion, spring squill and, on the limestone in the south, orchids.
Two Pembrokeshire-specific points. The Castlemartin and Manorbier military ranges close sections of the coast path when firing, and the closures are absolute — check the published times before setting out for St Govan’s or the Green Bridge.
And the cliffs here are high, unfenced and undercut in places, with the path running close to the edge in stretches. In wind, on wet clay, or with a dog off the lead, that matters.
Around 190 miles from Amroth in the south to St Dogmaels in the north, usually walked in ten to fifteen days.
Stackpole to Barafundle for a half day; St Davids Head for the best short walk; the Marloes Peninsula for islands and geology.
Yes — sections at Castlemartin and Manorbier close when the military ranges are firing. Times are published locally.
The Preseli Hills in the north and the Daugleddau estuary in the middle of the county, both far quieter than the coast.
Yes. The seasonal coastal bus services are designed for walkers and link most of the trailheads.