719 walks across Wales

• Bannau Brycheiniog: Black Mountain

  The Black Mountain Pass and Herbert’s Quarry

  Limestone quarries and kilns on an open pass, with the escarpment of Fan Hir running north and one of the best driving roads in Britain crossing it.

  4.3 mi2 hr 40 Demanding
• Tywi Valley and Carmarthen

  Dinas and the Doethie

  Boardwalk and rock scramble round a wooded hill where two rivers meet, in the valley where the red kite survived when it was extinct everywhere else in Britain.

  2.2 mi1 hr 30 Demanding
• Tywi Valley and Carmarthen

  Llyn Brianne

  Remote reservoir in the Cambrian mountains with the tallest dam in Britain, reached by a long single-track road and surrounded by forestry and empty hills.

  5.0 mi2 hr 50 Demanding
• Carmarthenshire Coast

  Kidwelly Castle and the Gwendraeth Marshes

  One of the best preserved castles in Wales above a small town, with saltmarsh and estuary walking below it.

  3.7 mi2 hr Easy
• Tywi Valley and Carmarthen

  Dolaucothi Gold Mines

  The only known Roman gold mine in Britain, in wooded hills above the Cothi, with open-cast workings, aqueducts and later Victorian levels all on the same hillside.

  3.1 mi1 hr 50 Moderate
• Carmarthenshire Coast

  Pendine Sands and the Cliffs

  Seven miles of flat sand where land speed records were set in the 1920s, with a coast path climbing the cliffs at the eastern end for the view along it.

  3.7 mi2 hr Moderate
• Gower

  Burry Holms and Rhossili Bay

  The northern end of the three-mile beach, with a tidal island at the tip carrying a ruined chapel and an Iron Age rampart.

  4.0 mi2 hr 15 Moderate
• Eryri: Ogwen and the Carneddau

  Llyn Ogwen Circuit

  Round the lake below Tryfan on the old road, with the mountains stacked either side and none of the climbing that everyone else in the valley is doing.

  4.3 mi2 hr 20 Moderate
• Eryri: Ogwen and the Carneddau

  Pen yr Ole Wen

  The steepest sustained climb in Eryri from the roadside, straight up the south ridge from Ogwen onto the southern end of the Carneddau.

  3.7 mi4 hr Strenuous
• Eryri: Ogwen and the Carneddau

  Nant Ffrancon

  The old road up a textbook glacial valley, with hanging cwms on both sides and Penrhyn quarry’s terraces at the bottom end. Level walking under serious mountains.

  5.6 mi2 hr 50 Moderate
• Eryri: Yr Wyddfa and Llanberis

  Elidir Fawr

  A long steep climb to the summit above the Dinorwig pumped storage scheme, with a reservoir hidden in the cwm and the whole of the Glyderau to the south.

  6.2 mi5 hr Strenuous
• Eryri: Yr Wyddfa and Llanberis

  Beddgelert and Llyn Dinas

  Easy valley walk from a stone village to a lake under Yr Aran, with the grave of a dog that never existed on the way out.

  5.0 mi2 hr 40 Moderate
• Eryri: Yr Wyddfa and Llanberis

  Yr Aran

  The shapely peak south of Yr Wyddfa that thousands photograph and almost nobody climbs, with the best view of the Snowdon massif from anywhere.

  5.6 mi4 hr 30 Strenuous
• Eryri: Yr Wyddfa and Llanberis

  Llyn Gwynant

  Lake in a green valley with mountains at both ends, popular for open water swimming and one of the most photographed views in Eryri.

  3.1 mi1 hr 40 Moderate
• Eryri: Yr Wyddfa and Llanberis

  Llynnau Mymbyr

  Two lakes with the Snowdon Horseshoe reflected in them, on the walk that produces the single most reproduced view in Wales.

  3.7 mi2 hr Moderate
• Eryri: Cadair Idris and the Mawddach

  Barmouth Panorama Walk

  Short climb behind the town onto a rocky shoulder with the Mawddach estuary and Cadair Idris laid out below. Twenty minutes of climbing buys the whole Mawddach estuary, the bridge, and Cadair Idris behind it.

  3.1 mi1 hr 50 Moderate
• Eryri: Rhinogydd and Harlech

  Rhinog Fawr

  Possibly the roughest walking in Wales: heather to the knee, boulders under it, and no paths worth the name. Empty in a way almost nowhere else is.

  5.6 mi5 hr Strenuous
• Eryri: Rhinogydd and Harlech

  Harlech Castle and the Dunes

  From a castle that once had the sea at its foot, down through dunes to a vast beach, with Eryri filling the skyline behind.

  3.7 mi2 hr 5 Moderate
• Eryri: Cadair Idris and the Mawddach

  Coed y Brenin

  Waymarked walking trails through a large forest of river gorges and old gold workings, with a good centre and enough shelter to make it a wet weather standby.

  4.3 mi2 hr 20 Moderate
• Eryri: Ffestiniog and the Moelwynion

  The Cob at Porthmadog

  A mile-long embankment across the Glaslyn estuary, built to reclaim land and now carrying a road, a railway and a level path with mountains at the end of it.

  3.1 mi1 hr 35 Easy
• Eryri: Ffestiniog and the Moelwynion

  Moel y Gest

  The rocky little hill behind Porthmadog, all of 262 metres, with a summit view that takes in Eryri, the Llŷn, Cardigan Bay and the whole of the Glaslyn estuary.

  3.1 mi1 hr 50 Moderate
• Llŷn Peninsula

  Nant Gwrtheyrn

  A quarrying village abandoned in the 1950s, rebuilt as a Welsh language centre, in a valley so steep it can only be reached down a hairpin road or on foot.

  3.1 mi2 hr Demanding
• Llŷn Peninsula

  Porth Neigwl and Llanengan

  Hell’s Mouth, a four-mile crescent of beach open to the south-west, with a medieval church inland that was built on the wealth of a lead mine.

  4.3 mi2 hr 20 Moderate
• Anglesey

  Holyhead Breakwater and Quarry

  The longest breakwater in Britain, nearly a mile and a half of it, with a country park in the quarry that supplied the stone and coast path north to North Stack.

  3.7 mi2 hr Moderate
• Anglesey

  Beaumaris to Penmon Point

  Along the Menai Strait from Edward I’s last and most perfect castle to a lighthouse looking across at Puffin Island, with a priory and a dovecote on the way.

  5.0 mi2 hr 40 Moderate
• Anglesey

  Cemaes and Llanbadrig

  The northernmost stretch of Welsh coast, with a church on a headland founded by St Patrick after a shipwreck, and cliffs of extraordinarily contorted rock.

  4.3 mi2 hr 20 Moderate
• Clwydian Range and Vale of Clwyd

  Llyn Brenig Circuit

  Full circuit of a large reservoir on the Denbigh moors, on good tracks the whole way, with a Bronze Age barrow cemetery on the eastern shore.

  9.3 mi4 hr Moderate
• Dee Valley and Llangollen

  Velvet Hill and Valle Crucis

  A grassy cone above the Horseshoe Pass with a Cistercian abbey below it and the Pillar of Eliseg, a ninth-century cross shaft, in the field alongside.

  3.1 mi1 hr 50 Moderate
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Central Beacons

  Corn Du from Storey Arms

  The shorter northern route onto the second highest peak in the Bannau, with the option of continuing to Pen y Fan a few minutes further on.

  3.7 mi2 hr 30 Strenuous
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Central Beacons

  The Beacons Horseshoe

  Pen y Fan, Corn Du and Cribyn linked into a ridge walk, with the escarpment dropping away on your left the whole way round.

  6.8 mi4 hr 30 Strenuous
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Black Mountains

  Mynydd Llangorse

  The ridge east of the lake, quieter than Mynydd Troed opposite, with the whole Usk valley and the central Bannau laid out from the top.

  3.7 mi2 hr 10 Demanding
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Black Mountains

  Grwyne Fawr Reservoir

  A long track up a remote valley to a small reservoir under Waun Fach, in one of the emptiest corners of the Black Mountains.

  5.6 mi3 hr 10 Demanding
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Black Mountains

  Pen y Gadair Fawr

  The shapeliest summit in the Black Mountains and the second highest, reached through forestry and out onto a long ridge with almost nobody on it.

  6.8 mi4 hr 30 Strenuous
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Fforest Fawr and the Waterfalls

  Sgwd Gwladus

  The Lady Falls, a broad curtain of water half an hour up a riverside path from the village, and the gentlest introduction to waterfall country.

  2.5 mi1 hr 25 Moderate
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Fforest Fawr and the Waterfalls

  Sgwd yr Eira

  The waterfall you can walk behind, on a shorter route than the full four falls circuit, with a steep stepped descent into the gorge.

  3.1 mi2 hr Demanding
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Fforest Fawr and the Waterfalls

  Fan Nedd

  Whaleback of grass and limestone in the middle of Fforest Fawr, with a standing stone below it and views over the whole range.

  3.7 mi2 hr 20 Demanding
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Fforest Fawr and the Waterfalls

  Garwnant Forest

  Waymarked forest trails above the Llwyn-on reservoir, with waterfalls in the side streams and a good centre at the bottom.

  3.1 mi1 hr 40 Moderate
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Black Mountain

  Fan Brycheiniog and the Black Mountain Ridge

  The highest point in the western Bannau, on an escarpment above two glacial lakes, in country that feels a long way from anywhere.

  7.5 mi4 hr 40 Strenuous
• Bannau Brycheiniog: Black Mountain

  Garn Goch

  One of the largest Iron Age hillforts in Wales, on a ridge above the Tywi, with ramparts you can walk for the best part of a mile.

  5.0 mi2 hr 55 Demanding
• Usk Valley and Abergavenny

  Crickhowell and the Canal

  Across the old bridge to Llangattock, along the Mon and Brec canal and back by the Usk, with Table Mountain above the whole way.

  3.7 mi1 hr 55 Easy
• Usk Valley and Abergavenny

  Abergavenny and the Usk

  Level riverside loop from the castle, with the Blorenge, the Sugar Loaf and the Skirrid all visible from the meadows.

  3.1 mi1 hr 35 Easy
• Usk Valley and Abergavenny

  Clydach Gorge

  Steep wooded gorge packed with industrial remains, tramroads, limekilns and an ironworks, with the river running through the middle of it.

  3.7 mi2 hr 10 Demanding
• Caerphilly and the Eastern Valleys

  Pontypool Park and the Folly

  Up through a landscaped park to a tower on the hill, past a shell grotto that is one of the oddest buildings in Wales.

  3.1 mi1 hr 50 Moderate
• Caerphilly and the Eastern Valleys

  Cwmcarn Forest

  Waymarked forest walks on the valley side below Twmbarlwm, with viewpoints over the Ebbw valley and the Severn beyond.

  3.7 mi2 hr 5 Moderate
• Caerphilly and the Eastern Valleys

  Parc Cwm Darran

  Country park built on the site of Ogilvie colliery, with a lake, surfaced paths and woodland where the spoil tips used to be.

  3.1 mi1 hr 40 Easy
• Rhondda and the Western Valleys

  The Rhondda Ridges from Bwlch y Clawdd

  The pass between the Rhondda and the Afan valley, with ridge walking in both directions and the whole coalfield spread out below.

  4.3 mi2 hr 30 Demanding
• Rhondda and the Western Valleys

  Afan Forest Park

  Forest walking in a steep valley that was solid coal a century ago, with a mining museum at the centre and trails through the regrowth.

  4.3 mi2 hr 20 Moderate
• Rhondda and the Western Valleys

  Margam Park

  Deer park, a ruined abbey, a Victorian mansion and an eighteenth-century orangery, with hill paths climbing to an Iron Age fort above.

  3.7 mi2 hr 5 Moderate
• Cardiff and the Vale

  Porthkerry Park and the Cliffs

  Wooded valley running down to a pebble beach under a huge railway viaduct, with cliff path east towards Barry.

  3.7 mi2 hr Moderate
• Cardiff and the Vale

  Ogmore Castle and Merthyr Mawr

  Stepping stones across the Ewenny to a castle ruin, and a dune system behind it that is one of the largest in Europe.

  3.7 mi2 hr 5 Moderate

These are route guides, not turn-by-turn directions. Take the relevant OS Explorer map, check the weather, and tell someone where you are going.