Guide · 6 min read
Getting there without a car
A handful of the best places in Britain are easier to reach by train, bus or boat than most people assume. Here is how each one actually works.
Almost every campsite listing in Britain quietly assumes a car. Directions start from a motorway junction, the postcode drops you in a lay-by, and nobody mentions whether the last bus is at six. It is a fair assumption most of the time — and completely wrong for a few of the best places on our list.
The one where a car is useless
Troytown Farm on St Agnes is the clearest case, because there are no cars on the island at all. You get to Scilly by ferry from Penzance or by plane to St Mary's, then take the inter-island launch. Your luggage goes on a trailer. This sounds like friction, and it is exactly what keeps the place the way it is.
Plan for the boat times rather than the campsite. Everything else follows from them.
Straightforward by train
Glen Nevis sits below Ben Nevis about two and a half miles from Fort William, which has a station on the West Highland Line — arguably the best railway journey in Britain, and one that makes the travelling part of the holiday rather than the cost of it. There is a seasonal bus up the glen, and the walk is flat if you have packed sensibly.
Graig Wen is near Morfa Mawddach on the Cambrian Coast line, and the site has private paths onto the Mawddach Trail. If you would rather cycle than walk, the trail runs to Dolgellau in one direction and across the estuary bridge to Barmouth in the other.
Bus, but a good one
Great Langdale is reachable on the 516 from Ambleside, itself reachable from Windermere station. It is one of the few genuinely mountainous places in England you can get to on a timetable. Check the last service before you settle in at the pub next door.
The constraint is the point. Places that are hard to drive to tend to stay worth arriving at.
Half measures
Comrie Croft is on the Crieff–Perth bus route, and once you are there the woodland pitches are car-free anyway — you barrow your kit in through the trees. It is the rare site where arriving without a car puts you at no disadvantage whatsoever, because nobody else gets to drive to their pitch either.
For everywhere else on the list, be honest with yourself about the last mile. A rural Highland or Cornish site that is technically nine miles from a station is a taxi you should book in advance, not a walk you should discover at dusk.
