Sykehouse

Hotels are thin on the ground in Sykehouse itself, reflecting its size as a scattered farming village rather than a tourist town, so most visitors looking for a proper bed for the night base themselves a short drive away in Doncaster, Goole or Snaith. Doncaster offers the widest range, from budget chain hotels near the town centre and Lakeside to a scatter of guest houses and larger business hotels serving the racecourse and Doncaster Sheffield Airport. Goole, on the Humber estuary a similar distance north-east, has a smaller choice of inns and budget hotels handy for the docks and the surrounding levels.

Snaith, just to the north of Sykehouse, is a useful alternative with a handful of pubs offering rooms, and makes a good base for exploring the New Junction Canal and Trans Pennine Trail on foot or by bike. Wherever you stay, the flat, well-connected roads around the Humberhead Levels mean nowhere in the area is more than twenty or thirty minutes from Sykehouse itself, so it is easy to combine a comfortable hotel stay with day trips out to the village, the surrounding moors and nature reserves, or further afield to Doncaster and Yorkshire Wildlife Park. Booking ahead is worthwhile around the first Sunday in August, when the long-running Sykehouse Show draws extra visitors to the area.

There is not much in the way of visitor attractions in the village itself, so most days out mean a short drive into the surrounding Humberhead Levels or into Doncaster and Goole.

• Thorne and Hatfield Moors (Humberhead Peatlands NNR) — a vast lowland raised bog reserve a few miles south-east of the village, internationally important for breeding nightjars and one of the largest surviving areas of this habitat in England.
• New Junction Canal and the Trans Pennine Trail — the canal towpath runs right past Sykehouse, giving flat, easy walking and cycling routes towards Askern, Kirk Bramwith and the wider canal network.
• Sykehouse Arena — a local equestrian centre in the village hosting dressage, showjumping and riding clinics through the year.
• Yorkshire Wildlife Park — the well-known conservation park at Branton, on the southern edge of Doncaster, home to polar bears, lions, giraffes and rescued big cats, around a 25-minute drive away.
• Fishlake and its ponds — a neighbouring village with quiet fishing waters, popular with anglers looking for a peaceful day by the water.
• Park Lodge Shooting School — a clay pigeon shooting ground at East Cowick, near Snaith, with a cafe on site.
• Doncaster town centre — around nine miles south-west, with its markets, Doncaster Minster, and the Lakeside leisure complex including Doncaster Dome.

The Old George Inn is the village's own pub, offering food, drink and a beer garden alongside its camping pitches, and is the natural hub for visitors passing through. Beyond the village, Askern, Snaith and Goole all have a reasonable spread of pubs, cafes and takeaways, while Doncaster town centre offers the fullest choice of restaurants and chain dining in the area.

Sykehouse and the surrounding Humberhead Levels are proper flat-country camping territory: big skies, quiet lanes and canal-side pitches rather than dramatic scenery, which suits anyone looking for a peaceful, unhurried break. As in the rest of England, wild camping here is illegal without the landowner's permission, so stick to licensed sites — the good news is that Sykehouse has one of its own, a small camping and touring pitch behind the Old George Inn, right on the New Junction Canal and the Trans Pennine Trail, with the pub's food, drink and beer garden on the doorstep.

The terrain around the village is entirely level, drained farmland criss-crossed by dykes and the canal, so it suits tents, campervans and caravans equally well, with none of the steep pitches or rough ground you would find further into the Pennines or the Dales. It is also excellent walking and cycling country: the Trans Pennine Trail towpath runs flat and traffic-free for miles in both directions, and nearby Thorne and Hatfield Moors add some genuinely wild-feeling raised bog scenery for those wanting a longer day out from camp.

Late spring to early autumn is the best window to camp here, when the ground is driest and the evenings are long enough to make the most of canal-side pitches; the levels can get damp and misty over winter, and some of the smaller sites close or scale back outside the main season. For those who prefer a roof over their head without giving up the outdoor feel, a small but growing number of glamping options — shepherd's huts and similar — have started appearing across South Yorkshire and the wider Goole and Doncaster area, offering a comfortable alternative within easy reach of Sykehouse and the surrounding countryside.