Aberystwyth

Where to base yourself in Aberystwyth comes down to how much time you plan to spend on the seafront versus using the town as a springboard into the surrounding countryside. Marine Terrace and the promenade put you within a few minutes of the castle, harbour and pier, with sea views from most front-facing rooms and the whole town within walking distance; this is the obvious choice for a classic seaside break, and it is where most of Aberystwyth's guest houses and larger hotels cluster. North Beach, at the quieter end near Constitution Hill, offers the same coastal setting a short walk further from the busiest part of the promenade, useful if you want sea air without quite so much passing traffic in summer.

Visitors attending events at the National Library, the university or the arts centre may prefer to stay closer to Penglais Hill, though it involves a steeper walk down to the seafront and shops. For something quieter still, a clutch of country house hotels and farmhouse guest houses sit a few miles out in the Ceredigion countryside around Chancery, Capel Bangor and Bow Street, generally set in their own grounds and better suited to travellers with a car who want peace in the evenings and easy access to Devil's Bridge, the Rheidol valley and the wider hills rather than a five-minute walk to the beach. Rooms across the town range from simple, good-value guest house doubles to four-star hotels and a couple of genuinely grand country houses, so budget and appetite for a view both play into the choice as much as location does. Booking ahead is worth doing for July and August, and around any of the town's festivals or university open days, when the closest options to the seafront sell out first.

The town and its immediate surroundings offer more than a single day allows, from Victorian engineering to open coastline.

• Aberystwyth Cliff Railway hauls passengers up Constitution Hill on the longest electric cliff railway in Britain, a ride that has run since 1896 and ends at sweeping views over Cardigan Bay and the Rheidol valley.
• Aberystwyth Castle is a 13th-century ruin on the headland between the two beaches, free to wander at any time and one of the best spots in town to watch the sun go down over the sea.
• The Vale of Rheidol Railway is a narrow-gauge steam line that climbs twelve miles inland to Devil's Bridge, threading the wooded Rheidol valley on a journey that takes about an hour each way.
• Devil's Bridge Falls, reached by the steam railway or by car on the A4120, is a dramatic gorge where three bridges are stacked on top of one another above a series of waterfalls.
• The National Library of Wales, perched on Penglais Hill above the town, holds one of the world's great collections of Welsh material and stages free exhibitions in a suitably grand Edwardian building.
• Aberystwyth Arts Centre, on the university campus, is the largest arts venue in Wales, with galleries, theatre, cinema and concerts running through the year.
• The promenade and pier make for the classic Aberystwyth evening: a walk along Marine Terrace past the bandstand and war memorial, finishing with chips eaten looking out at the bay.
• Ceredigion Museum, housed in the former Coliseum theatre on Terrace Road, tells the story of the county in a wonderfully preserved Edwardian auditorium.

Cardigan Bay's fishing boats still land crab and lobster at Aberystwyth harbour, and the seafood shows up on menus across town, alongside Welsh staples like laverbread and Welsh cakes sold hot off the griddle at the Saturday market on Great Darkgate Street. A handful of independent delis and wine bars, serving Welsh cheeses and cured meats alongside imported Spanish and French produce, have become fixtures of the town centre in recent years, reflecting a food scene that has grown well beyond traditional seaside fare.

The harbour end of town and the streets running back from the prom hold most of the independent cafés and restaurants, from daytime coffee shops to evening bistros serving Welsh lamb and Cardigan Bay fish. Traditional pubs serving Welsh real ale sit within a few streets of each other in the town centre, while the old railway station building now houses a large pub of its own, a useful stop for arriving or departing travellers. For a treat, the seafront's boutique hotel restaurant is generally reckoned the best formal dining in town, worth booking ahead for a Cardigan Bay seafood dinner with a sea view.

The country around Aberystwyth is well suited to camping without being classic tent-and-rucksack wilderness: rolling farmland and wooded river valleys rather than high mountains, with the Cambrian Mountains rising more seriously a few miles further inland. Sites within easy reach of the town range from small touring parks on the edge of Aberystwyth itself to larger holiday parks with pools and entertainment at Clarach Bay, and quieter, more rural touring and camping parks up the Rheidol valley towards Devil's Bridge. Most combine grass touring pitches with hardstanding for caravans and motorhomes, and a growing number offer glamping pods or static options for visitors who want the setting without bringing their own kit.

Wild camping has no general legal right in Wales as it does in Scotland, so pitching a tent on open hillside or common land around Aberystwyth without the landowner's permission is technically trespass, even though enforcement in the quieter hills is rare; anyone wanting to camp away from a formal site should seek permission first, or look at the handful of farms in the area that now offer informal pitches. Weather off the Irish Sea can turn quickly even in summer, with squally showers common, so a well-pitched tent and decent waterproofs matter more here than in drier parts of the country. The most reliable months for camping are May to September, when daylight is longest and the worst of the Atlantic weather has generally passed; June and September tend to combine good weather with quieter sites, before and after the school-holiday peak of late July and August.