Hotels in Suffolk

Suffolk is wider than it looks on a map and the driving is slower than the mileage suggests, so the single most useful decision you can make is where to put your base. The county effectively splits into a coastal half and a wool-town half, and moving between them eats an hour and a half of a day each way. Pick one, and treat the other as a single day trip if at all.

Couples generally do best on the coast between Aldeburgh and Orford. This is the quieter, more grown-up end of the seaside, with concert programmes at Snape, serious cooking and shingle walks that clear of people by mid-morning. Aldeburgh carries the highest room rates in the county, and the June festival pushes them further still.

Families tend to want Southwold, Lowestoft or Felixstowe, where there is a beach you can actually spread out on, a pier or a promenade, and enough on hand to fill a wet afternoon. Southwold is the prettiest and priciest of the three.

Walkers and birdwatchers should look at Walberswick, Dunwich and the villages around Minsmere, where you can start from the door rather than driving to a car park. Anyone interested in architecture, antiques or the Stour valley should stay west, around Lavenham, Long Melford or Bury St Edmunds, where a timber-framed inn costs noticeably less than an equivalent room by the sea.

Woodbridge is the best compromise for a first visit. It has a railway station, Sutton Hoo ten minutes away, a tidal river, decent restaurants and rates well below the coastal towns. Ipswich is cheaper again and has the best transport links, though it is a place to sleep rather than a place to linger.

Book early for July and August, for any weekend of the Aldeburgh Festival, and for the Latitude weekend at Henham Park, when everything within twenty miles of Southwold fills. Outside those windows, and particularly from October to March, the same rooms can drop by a third or more, and midweek stays in shoulder season are often the best value in the county.