Wales, from Cardiff Bay to the top of Yr Wyddfa.
Which Yr Wyddfa path needs a guide and which does not. Whether the canoe over Pontcysyllte lives up to the photographs. What a castle day costs once the driving is included. Tours the length of Wales, with prices and traveller ratings.
The six days most Wales trips are built around.
Castles by the hundred, the highest ground in the country, a canal that crosses a river thirty-eight metres up, an island reached by a bridge worth stopping on, and a capital that stood in for most of the universe. The best way to book each.
Cardiff is small, walkable, and hides its best hours behind doors.
The castle sits in the middle of the traffic, the Victorian arcades run between the shopping streets like a second city laid over the first, and the bay a mile south used to ship more coal than anywhere on earth. Two days is enough. Three is better.
Wales counts more castles than any country its size. Start with three days.
All Welsh castle tours →
Edward I ringed the north coast with them in the 1280s; the Marcher lords held the border with more. A castle day is really a driving day, so the question is which stretch of Wales you want in the window between stops.
- 1Portmeirion, Castles and Snowdonia Tourfrom $90
- 2Snowdonia & The 3 Castles Tourfrom $90
- 3Gin Tour at Hensol Castle Distilleryfrom $34
Caernarfon, Conwy and Beaumaris
Three of the four castles that share a single World Heritage listing, taken along the coast road in one day, with Snowdonia filling the windscreen between them.
Chepstow, Tintern Abbey and Roman Caerleon
The Wye valley end of Wales: a Norman keep above the river at Chepstow, a roofless abbey in the bend below it, and a Roman amphitheatre still cut into the grass at Caerleon.
Cliffs, beaches and keeps in the south
South Wales does castles with sea air attached — limestone cliffs, a beach the tide walks a long way out of, and a keep or two on the road back in.
What everyone books in Wales.
Every Wales review →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what makes each one worth the day it costs.
1
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct Canoe Tours in Llangollen
Paddle across Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in a small English-speaking group. Expect a safety brief, a paddle lesson, and big views for 2.5 hours.
From · $90
Read our review →
2
Whitewater Rafting on the River Dee in Llangollen
from $90
3
White Water Rafting Experience in River Dee in Llangollen
from $97
4
The Wandering Bard’s Valley Tour or the Swansea Bay Tour.
from $124
5
Cardiff Bay Boat Tour
from $17
6
Portmeirion, Castles and Snowdonia Tour
from $90
7
Snowdonia & The 3 Castles Tour
from $90
8
Gin Tour at Hensol Castle Distillery
from $34
Cardiff to Llandudno, the way the road actually goes.
North Wales puts the mountains and the castles in the same hour.
Llandudno on its bay, Conwy behind its walls, Caernarfon across the water from Anglesey, and Yr Wyddfa an hour inland from any of them. Nothing up here is far from anything else, which is why one day can hold both a summit and a keep.
In Eryri the weather decides. Book the guide anyway.
Six paths go up Yr Wyddfa and they are not equal: the Llanberis path is a long walk, Crib Goch is a scramble with drops on both sides. Cloud sits on the summit most days of the year, the railway stops when the wind gets up, and a guide is the difference between a walk and a retreat.
- 1Portmeirion, Castles and Snowdonia Tourfrom $90
- 2Snowdonia & The 3 Castles Tourfrom $90
- 3Hike to the summit of Snowdon!from $74
What a day out in Wales actually costs.
Three price bands, and what each one buys. The cheap end is not the thin end here — some of the best hours in Wales cost less than lunch.
Audio walks, a boat across Cardiff Bay, an hour of archery, the open-top bus around the Great Orme.
- 1Cardiff Bay Boat Tourfrom $17
- 2Gin Tour at Hensol Castle Distilleryfrom $34
- 3Guided Cycle Tours of Cardifffrom $34
The standard Welsh day: a guided summit, the canoe over the aqueduct, rafting the Dee, a castle run with the driving done for you.
Private guides and whole-day charters, where the car, the route and the stops are yours to change.
Three things you can only do in Wales.
Mountains and old stone turn up all over Britain. A canal in mid-air, six hundred castles inside one small country and a capital city playing the rest of the universe belong to Wales alone.
The Aqueduct Crossing
Thomas Telford and William Jessop carried the Llangollen canal across the River Dee in a cast-iron trough thirty-eight metres up, and it still works. Narrowboats use it, and so do canoes: the trough is one boat wide, the towpath has a railing on one side only, and the drop to the water is the whole point. It has been a World Heritage Site since 2009.
- 1Pontcysyllte Aqueduct Canoe Tours in Llangollen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,229 reviews
- 2Whitewater Rafting on the River Dee in Llangollen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 939 reviews
- 3White Water Rafting Experience in River Dee in Llangollen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 465 reviews
The Cardiff Doubles
Doctor Who came back in 2005 with its production base in Cardiff, and the city has been standing in for the rest of the universe ever since. The plaza outside the Millennium Centre is the one every fan recognises; Bute Park, the old docks and half the Victorian streets behind the bay have all played somewhere else entirely.
- 1Doctor Who Cardiff City Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 78 reviews
- 2Complete Cardiff Doctor Who Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 26 reviews
- 3Private Tour: Doctor Who TV Locations and Tour of Cardiff★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 15 reviews
The Castle Count
Wales holds more than six hundred castle sites in a country you can drive end to end in an afternoon. About a hundred still stand well enough to walk into. Caernarfon, Conwy, Beaumaris and Harlech — Edward I’s ring around Gwynedd — share one World Heritage listing between them.
- 1Portmeirion, Castles and Snowdonia Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 383 reviews
- 2Snowdonia & The 3 Castles Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 325 reviews
- 3Gin Tour at Hensol Castle Distillery★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 263 reviews
The River Dee runs whitewater most of the year.
All Llangollen activities →Pontcysyllte Aqueduct Canoe Tours in Llangollen
Read our review →
Coasteering (Cliff Jumping, Scrambling, Wild Swimming) on Anglesey
Read our review →
Book these before you drive into Wales.
Most of Wales can be arranged the night before from a pub with signal. These cannot — they run on tides, daylight, group caps and whatever the mountain is doing that morning.
- 01Pontcysyllte Aqueduct Canoe Tours in LlangollenThe trough is one boat wide, so departures go in small groups spaced through the day.
- 02Snowdon via Crib GochA scramble with exposure on both sides, run in small guided parties and called off when the wind gets up.
- 03Snowdon Sunrise HikeA start in the dark on a fixed departure — there is no second slot later that morning.
- 04Coasteering (Cliff Jumping, Scrambling, Wild Swimming) on AngleseyCoasteering runs to the tide table rather than the clock, so the usable window moves every day.
It rains on Wales. Book the day that does not mind.
The high ground in Snowdonia takes over four metres of rain a year, and the forecast turns over inside an hour. The days that hold up are the ones already wet — rafting the Dee, a gorge walk, a canoe under grey sky — plus the castle keeps and the audio walks that start and finish under a roof.
By region — wherever you are based
Cardiff47 tours
Llandudno & the north coast22 tours- Snowdonia17 tours
Anglesey9 tours
Llangollen & the Dee11 tours
Brecon Beacons4 tours- Off the ship at Holyhead4 tours
- Every tour in Wales →
By day — mountain, castle, water or city?
Recently added across Wales.
Everything, newest first →
Private Guided Tour of Southern Coast of Isle of Anglesey
Read our review →
Wye Valley and Tintern Abbey Escape from Cardiff – Private Tour
Read our review →
Private Doctor Who Tour of Cardiff and South Wales
Read our review →
Private Snowdonia Essentials Hollyhead Shore Excursion
Read our review →
Llanberis, Conwy and Caernarfon Castle: A Self-Guided Driving Tour of Snowdonia
Read our review →
Snowdonia’s Mountains Lakes & Mines Private Tour
Read our review →
Llandudno Gateway: Snowdonia, Castles & Portmeirion Day Tour
Read our review →