Canterbury

Canterbury is small enough that almost anywhere inside the ring road counts as central, so the real question is not how far you will be from the cathedral but what kind of stay you want. The walled city itself - the Precincts, Burgate, the High Street and the Kings Mile - puts the cathedral, the Marlowe Theatre and the best restaurants on your doorstep, and staying there means you can leave the car behind entirely. The trade-off is price, and at weekends a certain amount of late-night noise drifting up from the bars.

Step outside the Westgate into St Dunstan's and the character shifts. This was the old approach road for pilgrims coming from London, and the Georgian and Victorian houses along it have made unusually good conversions into guest houses and small boutique hotels. You are still five minutes from the centre on foot and three from Canterbury West station, and parking becomes a realistic proposition rather than a daily negotiation. Several of the city's most characterful independent places sit on this short stretch.

Drivers and families often do better on New Dover Road, where larger villas standing in their own grounds offer parking, gardens and more space for the money, with a fifteen-minute walk into town past the Kent county cricket ground. Wincheap, on the opposite side, is where the budget chains cluster; it is unlovely but convenient for the A2 and sits beside the largest park and ride.

Book well ahead for the Canterbury Festival in October, university graduation weeks in the summer, and the run-up to Christmas, when the city fills quickly. If everything central looks gone or overpriced, widen the search to Whitstable, Herne Bay, Chilham or Bridge, all within twenty minutes and all served by bus or train, where the inns and bed and breakfasts are often better value than their city equivalents. Whichever you choose, confirm the parking arrangement before you arrive, because many historic properties offer nothing more than a resident permit scheme or directions to the nearest car park.

Almost everything worth seeing sits inside the walls or just beyond them, which makes planning refreshingly simple.

• Canterbury Cathedral - the mother church of the Anglican Communion and the centrepiece of the city's UNESCO World Heritage Site. Allow at least two hours for the nave, the Romanesque crypt, the Trinity Chapel and the spot in the north-west transept where Becket was killed.
• St Augustine's Abbey - the ruined Benedictine monastery founded in 597 and now cared for by English Heritage. The excavated foundations and the small museum explain how Christianity took hold in Anglo-Saxon England.
• St Martin's Church - the third element of the World Heritage Site and arguably the most extraordinary: a working parish church in continuous use since before Augustine arrived, with reused Roman brick still visible in its walls.
• Westgate Towers and Gardens - the largest surviving city gate in England, with a museum inside and a rampart walk above the road. The riverside gardens below are the prettiest green space in the centre.
• A river trip on the Great Stour - guided punt and rowing-boat tours slip beneath the old weavers' houses and behind the city walls, offering a view of Canterbury you simply cannot get on foot.
• The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge - the free museum, library and gallery on the High Street, mixing local archaeology and natural history with a respectable painting collection and changing exhibitions.
• Canterbury Roman Museum - built underground around an in-situ mosaic floor and hypocaust uncovered after wartime bombing, several feet below the modern pavement.
• Howletts Wild Animal Park - three miles out at Bekesbourne, a conservation-led park known for its gorillas, elephants and big cats, and an easy half-day with children.

Kent calls itself the Garden of England and Canterbury eats accordingly. Whitstable oysters appear on menus all year, Kentish lamb and Romney Marsh mutton in season, and local orchards supply cherries, plums and cobnuts from late summer into autumn. Gypsy tart, a treacly and unapologetically sweet school-dinner pudding, is a real Kentish speciality and still turns up in cafes and pubs. Wine is the newer story: vineyards along the North Downs now produce sparkling wine that features on most decent local lists.

The Goods Shed, in a Victorian railway building beside Canterbury West station, is the city's single best food destination - a permanent farmers' market with butchers, bakers, fishmongers and greengrocers, plus a restaurant on the mezzanine that cooks whatever the stalls have brought in that morning. For dinner, The Ambrette on Beer Cart Lane serves refined modern Indian cooking built on Kentish ingredients, and Cafe des Amis near the Westgate has been feeding Canterbury Mexican food for decades. Three miles out at Fordwich, the Fordwich Arms holds a Michelin star and is worth the taxi fare.

On the drinking side, Shepherd Neame of Faversham, Britain's oldest brewer, supplies much of the city, and the Millers Arms by the river is a dependable place to work through its ales. The Parrot on Church Lane occupies a building put up in 1370, the Old Buttermarket stands directly opposite Christ Church Gate, and the Foundry Brew Pub on White Horse Lane brews on the premises and distils its own gin. For coffee and cake, the independents along the Kings Mile and Palace Street are consistently better than the chains on the High Street.

There is no campsite inside the city walls, which is hardly a surprise in a place this densely built, but there are good sites within a few miles in every direction and the local geography treats campers kindly. Canterbury sits in the Stour valley with the chalk of the Kent Downs rising to the south and a flatter coastal fringe running north towards Whitstable and Herne Bay. That gives a genuine choice of terrain: sheltered, gently rolling downland pitches on the Petham and Bridge side, or breezier, more open ground nearer the sea, where a windbreak earns its keep.

The soil south of the city is mostly well-drained chalk and light loam, so pitches dry out quickly after rain and pegs go in easily, except in high summer when the chalk bakes hard and steel pegs become essential. Sites closer to the coast sit on heavier ground and can hold water after a wet spell. East Kent is one of the driest and sunniest corners of Britain, with noticeably less rainfall than the national average, but it is also exposed to easterlies coming off the North Sea, which can make an April or October night considerably colder than the forecast suggests.

The main season runs from March to the end of October, and the sweet spot is late May to mid-September. July and August are warm and busy, and anything within striking distance of the beaches books out well in advance, particularly across bank holidays. May, June and early September deliver long days, thinner crowds and lower pitch rates.

Wild camping is not legal in England without the landowner's permission, and Kent is no exception - there is no Scottish-style right to roam here, and the Kent Downs National Landscape does not change that. Pitch on a proper site, or ask a farmer directly and expect to pay. The practical advantage of camping around Canterbury is that most sites sit on a bus route or within an easy cycle of the centre, so you can leave the car on the pitch and come into the city for the evening.