The UK’s most famous destinations — the Cotswolds, the Lake District, Edinburgh, Cornwall — are famous for good reasons, but they are also crowded, expensive and, in peak season, somewhat joyless. These eight destinations offer something different: genuine character, lower prices, real local life and the satisfaction of having gone somewhere that most people simply haven’t thought of.
1. Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire
Skomer is a small island off the Pembrokeshire coast that hosts one of the UK’s most significant seabird colonies — over 350,000 Manx shearwaters, alongside puffins, razorbills, guillemots and choughs. Landing trips run from Martin’s Haven from April to October, with numbers strictly controlled. The puffins are present from April to July and are extraordinarily approachable — they nest in burrows across the clifftops and seem entirely unbothered by human visitors who stick to the paths. A handful of overnight places are available through the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales for those who want to experience the extraordinary dusk spectacle of hundreds of thousands of shearwaters returning to their burrows after dark.
2. Island of Tiree, Argyll
Tiree is the most westerly of the Inner Hebrides and one of the sunniest places in the UK — it regularly records more sunshine hours than anywhere else in Scotland. The island is almost entirely flat, ringed by beaches of white shell sand and turquoise water that photograph so well that visitors sometimes assume the images have been colour-enhanced. They haven’t. Tiree is a working crofting community with a resident population of around 650 and a Gaelic-speaking heritage that is still genuinely alive. The island is reached by CalMac ferry from Oban (3.5 hours) or by Loganair flight from Glasgow (45 minutes). It rewards those who want unhurried island time rather than a itinerary of attractions.
Island of Tiree visitor guide →
3. Portmeirion, North Wales
Portmeirion is one of the strangest and most delightful places in the British Isles — an Italianate village built between 1925 and 1975 by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis on a private peninsula on the Dwyryd Estuary in North Wales. The village, inspired by Portofino and the Mediterranean, contains buildings in Baroque, classical and vernacular Welsh styles alongside piazzas, bell towers, painted facades and ornamental gardens. It was the location for the 1960s cult television series The Prisoner. Day visitors are welcome (entry charge applies) but staying overnight in one of the village’s self-catering cottages or hotel rooms allows access to the village before the day-trippers arrive and after they leave — which is when it is at its most extraordinary.
4. Lundy Island, Devon
Lundy is a three-mile granite island in the Bristol Channel, 23 miles off the North Devon coast. It is owned by the National Trust and managed by the Landmark Trust, which maintains a small village of self-catering properties. The island has no cars, limited electricity and extraordinary wildlife — puffins nest here (the name comes from the Old Norse for puffin), and the marine environment around the island is a Marine Conservation Zone with grey seals, basking sharks and underwater kelp forests. The ferry from Bideford or Ilfracombe takes about two hours; a helicopter service also operates. Staying overnight is the proper way to experience it; day visits are possible but limited to a few hours ashore.
5. Blaenau Gwent, South Wales
Blaenau Gwent is the South Wales valleys at their most authentic — a former coal and iron district that has largely been passed over by tourism and is all the better for it. The Blaenavon World Heritage Site, within the county borough, includes the Big Pit National Coal Museum (free entry, extraordinary underground tour with former miners as guides) and the Blaenavon Ironworks, which together tell the story of the Industrial Revolution with more honesty and depth than any theme park could manage. The surrounding landscape of the Brecon Beacons is immediately to the north. This is not a polished visitor destination; it is a real place with a real story, and that is precisely its appeal.
6. Oswestry, Shropshire
Oswestry sits on the Welsh border in northwest Shropshire, a market town with a Norman castle mound, medieval street plan and the remarkable Old Oswestry hillfort immediately to the north — one of the most impressive Iron Age earthworks in Britain, with multiple rings of ramparts commanding views across to the Berwyn Mountains and the Shropshire plain. The town has an excellent weekly market and is a useful base for exploring the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Vale of Llangollen and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) a short drive into Wales. It is one of those border towns — half English, half Welsh in character — that rewards an unhurried stay.
7. Gosport, Hampshire
Gosport faces Portsmouth across the harbour mouth and is most easily reached by the five-minute Gosport Ferry from the Portsmouth Harbour railway station. It is not a conventional tourist destination — which is part of its appeal. The Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower is one of the finest specialist museums in the south of England, covering the history of naval ordnance from gunpowder to the nuclear age. The Royal Navy Submarine Museum is here too, with the world’s only surviving World War One submarine, HMS Alliance, open for visitors to explore. The promenade at Stokes Bay has views across the Solent to the Isle of Wight and is a fine walk on a clear day.
8. The Fylde Coast, Lancashire
The Fylde Coast — the peninsula between the River Ribble and Morecambe Bay — is best known as the hinterland of Blackpool, but there is much more to it than the Illuminations and the tower. Lytham St Annes, at the southern end, is an Edwardian seaside town of considerable elegance with a windmill, a pier, championship golf courses and a beach that was the location for the first golf championship in England. Fleetwood, at the northern tip, is a planned Victorian fishing port with an extraordinary trawler-era heritage. The Lancashire coastal path connects the whole peninsula and offers excellent birdwatching over the Ribble Estuary, one of the UK’s most important estuarine habitats.