Exbury

Hotels around Exbury are concentrated in the neighbouring village of Beaulieu, just a few miles up the river, where the Montagu Arms Hotel offers country house comfort in a 17th-century coaching inn at the heart of the village, complete with an AA-Rosette restaurant and a more relaxed inn for pub food. Beaulieu also has smaller bed and breakfasts and guesthouses tucked among its estate cottages, many run by locals with a deep knowledge of the surrounding New Forest and Solent coastline. Further afield, Lymington offers a broader range of hotels, from boutique townhouse conversions to well-known chains, all within a comfortable drive of Exbury and with the added bonus of a working harbour, a Saturday market and easy ferry links to the Isle of Wight.

For those who prefer to stay a little further inland, Brockenhurst and Lyndhurst both sit within the New Forest National Park and offer a wide choice of hotels and inns geared towards walkers, cyclists and families exploring the forest, with regular bus and rail connections back towards Beaulieu and the Waterside villages near Exbury. Wherever you choose to base yourself, it is worth booking ahead in spring, particularly around the peak rhododendron season at Exbury Gardens, when accommodation across this part of Hampshire fills up quickly with visitors timing their trip to catch the flowers at their best.

Exbury repays a full day out, and most visits are built around the gardens, but there is more to the area than a single attraction.

• Exbury Gardens - The centrepiece of any visit: 200 acres of woodland garden created by Lionel de Rothschild from 1919 onwards, home to the Rothschild collection of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and rare trees, with different areas coming into their own through spring and into summer.
• Exbury Steam Railway - A narrow-gauge miniature railway within the gardens, built at the instigation of Leopold de Rothschild and opened in 2001, running a twenty-minute round trip from a replica Victorian station through woodland, over a bridge and past the Dragonfly Pond.
• Beaulieu River - The tidal river that forms Exbury's western boundary, lined with saltmarsh and mudflats that are excellent for birdwatching, with the river itself a popular route for sailors heading down to the Solent.
• Lepe Country Park - A short drive from the village, this stretch of shingle beach and coastal heath was a major embarkation point for Mulberry Harbour construction ahead of the D-Day landings, and today offers a waymarked coastal walk, a cafe and views across to the Isle of Wight.
• The Lepe Loop - A roughly five-mile circular walk linking the coast at Lepe with the inland woods and farmland around Exbury, taking in a good cross-section of this quiet corner of the New Forest.
• Beaulieu village and the National Motor Museum - A few miles upriver, Beaulieu combines a handsome estate village with the National Motor Museum, Palace House and the ruins of Beaulieu Abbey, all easily combined with a day around Exbury.
• Solent birdwatching and sailing - The mix of tidal river, saltmarsh and open water makes this stretch of coast a draw for both birdwatchers and small-boat sailors, with dinghies and yachts a constant feature on the Beaulieu River.

Exbury Gardens has its own tearoom and cafe for visitors, serving light lunches, cream teas and cake in a garden setting, which for many is as much a part of the day out as the planting itself. For a proper meal, the nearby village of Beaulieu is the obvious next stop, home to the Montagu Arms Hotel, whose Terrace Restaurant has long held an AA Rosette for its modern British cooking, alongside the hotel's more relaxed Monty's Inn for pub classics and forest-sourced dishes. The Pavilion Arms in Beaulieu offers a further gastropub option with a good range of Butcombe beers and a pleasant beer garden. Down at Lepe Country Park a small cafe serves drinks, snacks and simple meals with sea views, ideal after a walk along the shingle, while Fawley and the surrounding villages have a scattering of further pubs for those exploring the wider Waterside area between the New Forest and Southampton Water.

Exbury sits within the New Forest National Park, and as with anywhere else in England, wild camping without the landowner's permission is against the law here, whether on Forestry England land, the open forest or the private estate land around Exbury Gardens itself. The New Forest is a working, grazed landscape managed under ancient commoning rights, and unauthorised camping causes real damage to the ground-nesting birds, ponies and livestock that depend on it, so anyone wanting to sleep out under the stars needs to use one of the recognised campsites in the area rather than pitching up on the heath or riverbank.

Fortunately, this stretch of the New Forest coast is well served by campsites that make the most of its position between woodland and water. Sites around Beaulieu and the Waterside villages offer easy access both to Exbury Gardens and to the shingle beach and coastal paths at Lepe, while others further into the forest interior put you closer to the open heath and grazing ponies that define the New Forest landscape. The mix of terrain here, from soft river valleys and saltmarsh to drier heathland further inland, means conditions can vary considerably between sites, so it is worth checking ground conditions and shelter from the prevailing south-westerly winds off the Solent before booking, particularly outside the summer months.

Spring and early summer are the classic seasons to camp near Exbury, coinciding with the peak flowering at the gardens and with long, pleasant evenings for walks along the Beaulieu River or the Lepe Loop. Summer brings the warmest weather for beach days at Lepe and boat-watching on the river, though sites near the coast can get busy and are worth booking well ahead. For those who want the outdoor feel of the New Forest without pitching a tent, glamping options in the area, including safari tents, shepherd's huts and pods, are increasingly common, offering a comfortable base from which to explore Exbury, Beaulieu and the wider Waterside countryside.