Plymouth

Where to stay in Plymouth largely depends on whether you want sea views, old-town character, or straightforward convenience. Plymouth Hoe carries the city's grandest hotel address, a run of Victorian and Edwardian buildings set back from the clifftop promenade with views across the Sound; it suits visitors who want to be a short walk from Tinside Lido and the Barbican while still having some distance from the busiest streets in the evening. The Barbican itself, tucked below the Hoe around Sutton Harbour, has a smaller number of boutique hotels and guest houses among its cobbled lanes, putting restaurants, galleries and the old fish market on the doorstep for anyone building a short break around walking rather than driving.

Royal William Yard, on Plymouth's western waterfront, offers a genuinely different stay: restored naval warehouses now hold serviced apartments and self-catering flats rather than conventional hotel rooms, with waterfront restaurants below and a passenger ferry connecting back to the Barbican. It suits couples and small groups who want more space than a hotel room and don't mind being a short taxi or ferry ride from the main sights. The city centre, around Armada Way and Drake Circus, has the broadest spread of larger hotels at more moderate rates, useful for business travellers and anyone arriving by train who wants to be close to the station and shops rather than the seafront.

Plymouth's hotel prices are noticeably steadier through the year than in the smaller resort towns further along the coast, since the city's naval, business and university trade keeps demand fairly constant outside the height of summer. The British Firework Championships each August and any weekend tied to Plymouth Argyle fixtures or graduation at the university can still push up rates and availability on the Hoe and in the centre, so it is worth booking ahead for those dates specifically. Outside those periods, and particularly in winter, even the grander Hoe hotels can offer good value for a city break with the waterfront largely to yourself.

Plymouth's sights are spread between the waterfront, the Barbican and the wider city, with most of the central attractions within easy walking distance of each other.

• Plymouth Hoe is the city's great open space, a clifftop promenade with views across the Sound, home to Smeaton's Tower, war memorials and the art deco Tinside Lido tucked below the cliff at its western end.
• The Barbican preserves Plymouth's old town, a maze of cobbled streets, independent shops and galleries around Sutton Harbour, where the Mayflower Steps and a working fish market still recall the area's seafaring past.
• The National Marine Aquarium, Britain's largest, sits on Sutton Harbour and takes visitors from Devon rock pools through to a deep ocean tank with sharks and rays.
• The Box, Plymouth's museum, gallery and archive, opened in a striking converted school building near the station and holds the city's art, history and natural science collections under one roof, including a large collection of figureheads.
• Royal William Yard, a former Royal Navy victualling yard on the western waterfront, has been converted into restaurants, bars and apartments within its original granite warehouses, with a passenger ferry linking it to the Barbican.
• Black Friars Distillery, home to Plymouth Gin since 1793, is the oldest working gin distillery in England and runs tours and tastings through its historic monastery building near the Barbican.
• Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, reached by a short ferry across the Sound from the Barbican, offers formal gardens, deer parkland and coastal walking on the Cornish side of the water.
• Dartmoor National Park begins around twenty minutes' drive north of the city, offering high open moorland, granite tors and villages such as Yelverton and Princetown for a change of pace from the coast.

As a fishing port, Plymouth's food scene leans heavily on what comes off its own boats, with Sutton Harbour's fish market supplying restaurants around the Barbican with crab, scallops and whatever else has been landed that morning. The Barbican itself has a good concentration of independent restaurants and pubs, from long-standing seafood spots to newer openings making the most of the harbourside setting, while Royal William Yard has developed its own cluster of waterfront restaurants and bars within the old naval buildings. Black Friars Distillery, tucked among the Barbican's oldest streets, has been distilling Plymouth Gin since the eighteenth century and remains the one spirit that carries the city's name onto bars and shelves well beyond Devon. Plymouth City Market, in the city centre, brings together butchers, fishmongers and local producers under one roof and is a good stop for picking up Devon cheeses, pasties and baked goods rather than eating out. Devon's wider culinary traditions show up throughout the city too, from cream teas served with clotted cream and jam in cafes around the Hoe to ales from breweries in the surrounding countryside, giving Plymouth's food and drink scene a strong regional identity alongside its seafood.

Plymouth is a working city rather than a rural retreat, so there is no camping within the built-up area itself, but the countryside opens up quickly on every side, from the wooded Plym Valley just north of the city to the coastal villages of the South Hams and the wilder ground of Dartmoor a short drive further out. That variety means visitors can choose a site to suit the kind of holiday they want, whether that is a base close enough to walk into the city or a quieter spot nearer the coast path and the moor.

The sites within easiest reach of Plymouth tend to sit just a few miles out, along the Plym Valley or around the coastal villages to the south-east, and range from simple touring parks geared towards caravans and motorhomes to family holiday parks with pools and static accommodation as well as pitches. A little further out, towards Dartmoor and the South Hams, sites take on a quieter, more rural character, better suited to visitors planning walking or cycling days away from the city rather than using camping purely as a base for sightseeing.

Devon's coastal and moorland weather can turn quickly, so a well-pitched tent and warm layers are worth having even in summer, particularly at sites nearer the coast or the exposed edges of Dartmoor. The most reliable camping season around Plymouth runs from April through to September, when most sites are fully open and the surrounding coast path and beaches are at their best; several of the smaller touring parks reduce their opening hours or close altogether over the winter months, so it is worth checking ahead before planning a visit outside the main season.