Mourne Mountains

Where to base yourself in the Mournes depends on how much time you plan to spend on the hills and how much on the coast. Newcastle carries the widest range of accommodation by far, from resort hotels with spas and golf arrangements through to modest guest houses on the roads leading up towards Tollymore and Donard Wood, and it puts the beach, the promenade and the start of most walking routes within a short stroll or drive. Staying here suits visitors who want to combine a couple of days on the mountains with easy access to restaurants, shops and Royal County Down without needing a car for every outing.

Kilkeel and the villages along the southern coast road offer a different pace, closer to the working harbours and the approach to Silent Valley, and tend to have smaller, family-run hotels and inns rather than large resorts; these suit visitors who want quiet evenings and don't mind a short drive to reach the busier attractions. Newry, at the western edge of the range, gives a livelier town base with more choice of restaurants and shops, useful for anyone splitting a trip between the Mournes and a wider tour of south Down or a crossing into the Republic, and its hotels tend to be geared towards both business and leisure guests with larger spa and event facilities. Warrenpoint sits between the two, a compact seaside town on Carlingford Lough with its own small hotels and a shorter drive to Rostrevor and Kilbroney Park than from Newcastle.

Booking ahead matters more than visitors sometimes expect, particularly in Newcastle around the summer holidays and any weekend when Royal County Down is hosting an event, when the town's limited hotel stock fills quickly. Outside peak season, rates drop noticeably and it becomes easy to find a room with mountain or sea views at short notice, making spring and autumn a good compromise between price and weather for a walking-focused trip.

The range rewards both committed hillwalkers and visitors who prefer to stay closer to sea level, with plenty to fill several days.

• Slieve Donard — the classic route climbs from Newcastle through Donard Wood and along the Glen River before joining the Mourne Wall for the final pull to Northern Ireland's highest summit.
• Tollymore Forest Park — 630 hectares of mixed woodland at the foot of the mountains, with stone bridges, grottoes and follies from its eighteenth-century estate days, plus the River Shimna running through it; sections were used as filming locations for Game of Thrones.
• Castlewellan Forest Park — home to the National Arboretum, a large lake ideal for an easy circular walk, and the Peace Maze, one of the largest permanent hedge mazes in the world.
• The Mourne Wall — the 22-mile drystone wall built between 1904 and 1922 to enclose Belfast's water catchment; the stretch over Slieve Binnian and the Hare's Gap is a favourite half-day route.
• Silent Valley Mountain Park — a reservoir valley enclosed by the wall, with an information centre, sculpture trail and gentle paths suitable for families, deep in the heart of the range.
• Royal County Down Golf Club — regularly ranked among the best golf links in the world, laid out on dunes beneath Slieve Donard at Newcastle.
• Murlough National Nature Reserve — Ireland's oldest nature reserve, a system of sand dunes and heath along Dundrum Bay with boardwalks and a long sandy beach.
• Kilbroney Park and Cloughmore Stone — above Rostrevor, a forest park leading to a viewpoint over Carlingford Lough and the huge granite boulder known locally as the Big Stone.

Kilkeel remains one of Northern Ireland's most important fishing ports, and prawns, scallops and whiting landed there turn up on menus the length of the coast, often simply prepared to let the seafood carry the dish. Annalong and Kilkeel both hold small local markets and farm shops selling Mourne lamb, a product of the hardy sheep that graze the mountain commons, alongside soda and potato bread from local bakeries. Newcastle's promenade has an established run of seafood restaurants and traditional pubs serving Ulster fries and stews, while both the Slieve Donard Resort and Marina and the Burrendale Hotel run kitchens that draw on the surrounding farms and coastline for their menus. Craft beer has a foothold too, with small Northern Irish breweries regularly on tap in Newcastle and Warrenpoint bars, and a Saturday farmers' market in Newry brings together produce from across south Down, including cheese, fruit and vegetables grown at the foot of the mountains.

Camping in the Mournes means pitching within sight of genuine mountain terrain rather than gentle countryside, and the best sites reflect that: several sit directly at trailheads used for the Mourne Wall and the Hare's Gap, with granite peaks filling the view from the tent door. The ground is largely open hill sheep-grazing above the treeline, cut through by forest plantations lower down, and weather can change quickly even when the coast below looks settled, so anyone camping at altitude or heading onto the ridge from a low-level site should pack for wind and rain regardless of the season.

Wild camping is tolerated in parts of the open mountain above the enclosed farmland, particularly around the higher Mourne Wall sections, but land access is a patchwork of private farms and the water authority's gathering grounds around the reservoirs, so it is not a blanket right and campers are expected to pitch discreetly, arrive late and leave early, carry out all litter, and avoid the immediate catchment areas that feed Belfast's water supply. Given that uncertainty, most visitors use one of the established campsites and day-walk into the hills instead, which avoids any question over land access and gives a hot shower at the end of a wet day on the ridge.

May, June and September tend to give the most reliable camping weather, with long daylight for evening walks in early summer and quieter sites once the school holidays finish in September. July and August are busiest, especially around Newcastle and the forest parks, and sites close to the coast fill fastest. Whatever the month, midge activity on still, humid evenings near the forest plantations is worth being ready for, and a pitch with some exposure to a breeze is generally more comfortable than one tucked into thick woodland.