Tenby

Where to base yourself in Tenby depends mostly on how much you want to be within the old town walls. Staying inside the historic core, on streets such as St Julian's or High Street, puts restaurants, the museum and the harbour on your doorstep, though rooms in these converted Georgian townhouses can be compact and parking is rarely on site. The clifftop hotels along the Esplanade and North Beach trade a slightly longer walk into town for sea views, lifts, and the kind of larger public rooms that suit a longer stay or a special occasion. Families often do better a short distance out, towards South Beach or the villages of Penally and Saundersfoot, where properties tend to have gardens, easier parking and a gentler pace, while still being a short walk or drive from the beaches and harbour.

Tenby's accommodation runs from small, independently run guest houses in converted townhouses to well-established seafront hotels with decades of history as holiday destinations, so it is worth deciding early whether you want to be able to walk everywhere or would rather have a car and a bit more space. Booking ahead matters here more than in many English resort towns: Tenby's summer season is short and intense, driven by school holidays and events such as Ironman Wales in September, and the best-placed rooms with sea views or harbour aspects are usually the first to go. Outside July and August, the same rooms are considerably easier to find and often better value, particularly in spring and early autumn when the coast path is at its best and the town itself is much quieter.

Tenby rewards a slow pace, but there is plenty to fill several days.

• Tenby Harbour is the town's centrepiece, a row of pastel Georgian and Victorian houses above a working slipway, best seen from the lifeboat station or from a boat heading out to sea.
• Caldey Island lies a short boat trip offshore and is home to a working Cistercian monastery; visitors can walk the island, buy monastery-made perfume and chocolate, and see the old priory ruins.
• South Beach is Tenby's longest stretch of sand, backed by dunes and golf links, and usually the quieter option away from the harbour.
• Tenby Museum and Art Gallery, one of the oldest independent museums in Wales, covers the town's maritime, archaeological and artistic history inside the castle grounds on Castle Hill.
• The Tudor Merchant's House, cared for by the National Trust, is a rare surviving fifteenth-century merchant's home with original frescoes and a chimney still intact.
• St Catherine's Island, reachable on foot at low tide, holds a Victorian fort that has recently reopened to visitors after restoration, with sweeping views back over the town.
• The Pembrokeshire Coast Path runs directly through Tenby, and the stretch south towards Giltar Point and Manorbier is one of the finest short walks on the whole route.
• Tenby's town walls and Five Arches gatehouse are worth tracing on foot, giving a clear sense of the medieval town's original defended footprint.

Tenby's food culture leans heavily on what comes off the boats at the harbour and out of Pembrokeshire's fields, with crab, lobster and mackerel appearing on menus around town alongside Pembrokeshire early potatoes and Welsh lamb. The harbourfront and Tudor Square area hold a concentration of seafood restaurants and cafes with views over the water, while Tenby's long-standing family-run fish and chip shops remain a genuine local institution rather than a tourist add-on. St George's Street and the indoor market are good places to find Welsh cakes, laverbread and local produce, and the market itself has traded on the same site for centuries. A handful of independent bakeries and coffee shops cluster around the Old Town's narrow lanes, and several pubs near the harbour serve Welsh ales alongside simple, well-made pub food, making Tenby an easy town to eat well in without needing to plan ahead.

Tenby itself has no campsites within the town walls, but the surrounding countryside within a few miles is well suited to camping, with gently rolling farmland, sheltered valleys and easy access to the beaches and coast path. Most sites sit just inland, around the villages of St Florence, Penally and New Hedges, giving campers a short drive or cycle into Tenby while avoiding the town's summer parking pressure. The terrain is mixed rather than dramatic, low hills and hedged fields rather than exposed clifftop, which makes for reasonably sheltered pitches even when Atlantic weather rolls in off the coast.

Wild camping has no general legal right in Wales, unlike parts of Scotland, so pitching up without permission on open land or beaches around Tenby is not legally protected and is best avoided; established sites are the only reliable option. Weather here follows the wider Pembrokeshire pattern, mild but changeable, with rain arriving on short notice even in summer, so a sturdy tent and good waterproofing matter more than temperature. May, June and early September tend to offer the best balance of settled weather and lower midge and crowd levels, while July and August bring the warmest days but also the fullest sites and busiest roads into Tenby. Many of the area's sites cater well to families with static caravans and glamping options alongside traditional pitches, useful if a spell of Pembrokeshire rain sets in.