Robin Hood's Bay

Robin Hood's Bay makes a memorable short break, whether you're finishing the Coast to Coast walk, hunting fossils on the shore, or just want a few days exploring the North York Moors coast. The old village itself has a limited but characterful stock of accommodation: fishermen's cottages converted for self-catering, many tucked into the steep yards and alleys that give the place its charm, plus a small number of hotels and guesthouses at the top of the bank where cars can actually park. Booking ahead matters here, especially in summer and around the popular Robin Hood's Bay Regatta and other village events, since rooms are limited and the village fills quickly with day trippers and walkers finishing their trek from St Bees.

For more choice of hotels, restaurants and evening entertainment, Whitby is only six miles north and makes a practical base, with Robin Hood's Bay an easy bus, drive or coastal walk away. Scarborough, around fifteen miles south, offers a larger selection again for those wanting a bigger town with more facilities. Wherever you stay, a car (or good bus timing) is useful, since the village's own car parks sit at the top of the bank rather than down among the cottages, and public transport along this stretch of coast, while serviceable, is not especially frequent outside peak season.

Whichever way you approach it, Robin Hood's Bay rewards visitors who stay long enough to explore beyond the view from the top: the tidal shore platform, the Old Coastguard Station, and the quieter stretches of the Cleveland Way in either direction are all best appreciated without a coach-party schedule.

Beyond the view from the top of the bank, the village rewards slow exploration on foot. Highlights include:

• The old village and its ginnels — a network of narrow yards and covered passages built so tightly together that, according to local lore, smugglers could once move contraband from house to house without stepping outside.
• Fossil hunting on the shore — the exposed rock ledges at low tide are one of the best beginner fossil-hunting spots on the Yorkshire coast, with ammonites regularly found among the shale.
• Robin Hood's Bay Museum — housed in the village's former Coroner's Court, with displays on the smuggling trade, shipwrecks and the fishing community that built the place.
• The Old Coastguard Station — a National Trust visitor centre by the slipway, in a building that once housed a lookout post set up specifically to counter the local smuggling trade.
• The end of the Coast to Coast Walk — Alfred Wainwright's 192-mile trail from St Bees in Cumbria finishes here, and walkers traditionally dip a boot in the North Sea and toss a carried pebble into the water to mark the finish.
• Cleveland Way coastal walking — the clifftop path north to Whitby (around six to seven miles) and south towards Ravenscar both give sweeping views back over the bay's red rooftops.
• Boggle Hole — a small cove a mile or so south of the village, reached along the beach at low tide or via the Cleveland Way, with rockpools and a youth hostel set in an old mill.

The Bay Hotel, right on the slipway at the bottom of the village, is the traditional first and last stop for Coast to Coast walkers, with its Wainwright's Bar serving pub food and sea views next to the finishing point of the trail. Hotel Victoria, up at the top of the bank, has Osborne's Restaurant and The Loxley pub for more formal dining alongside a garden bar for alfresco drinks looking out over the bay. Elsewhere in the village you'll find independent tearooms, fish and chip shops, and small cafes tucked into the yards, many geared towards feeding walkers arriving off the Cleveland Way or the Coast to Coast.

Robin Hood's Bay sits within the North York Moors National Park, where heather moorland runs down almost to the cliff edge, and the coastline itself offers some of the most scenic camping and glamping in Yorkshire. As in the rest of England, wild camping without the landowner's permission is illegal, so campers need a proper site, a farm pitch, or a bothy/hostel arrangement rather than pitching up on the clifftops or beach. Fortunately the area around the village and along the coast towards Whitby and Scarborough has a good spread of small campsites and glamping pods, many run by local farms, offering sea views, easy access to the Cleveland Way, and a much quieter alternative to staying in the village itself.

The terrain here is coastal moorland: exposed, breezy, and prone to sudden weather changes even in summer, so a well-pegged tent or a wooden glamping pod with proper insulation makes a real difference to comfort, especially outside the height of summer. The best camping season runs from late spring through to early autumn, when the moors are drier underfoot, the evenings are long enough for a walk down to the shore after pitching up, and the fossil-rich beach is at its most accessible at low tide. July and August bring the warmest weather and the busiest sites, so early booking is essential, while May, June and September often give a better balance of decent weather and available pitches.

Glamping has grown quickly around Robin Hood's Bay in recent years, with shepherd's huts, safari tents and converted farm buildings offering a comfortable base without the need to carry your own kit down the village's notoriously steep bank. Many sites make a point of their sea views or their proximity to the Cleveland Way, letting campers walk straight out onto the coastal path or down to Boggle Hole and the fossil beds without needing a car. Whichever way you camp, a night here under a big, dark, moorland sky, with the sea audible below, is one of the more atmospheric ways to experience this stretch of coast.