the gower was the first place in the uk to be designated an area of outstanding natural beauty, back in 1956. it's a thumb of land sticking out of swansea, sixteen miles end to end, with cliffs and dunes and tidal islands and a couple of decent pubs. you can do it in a week and barely scratch it. you can also do it in two nights, and most of our guests do.
this is the version i'd send you out with if you had a friday afternoon, a sunday evening, and one of our vans.
friday — the long way in.
leave us late morning. the m4 gets you to swansea in two hours, the gower roads add another forty minutes — the b4271 over cefn bryn is the scenic option and it's worth the time. you'll be at rhossili by mid-afternoon.
park at the national trust car park at the end of the village (sa3 1pr — pay-and-display, free for nt members). walk the village footpath out to the coastguard lookout above worm's head. tide tables are posted there. the worm is a tidal island accessible roughly two and a half hours either side of low water — verify the day's tide on the noticeboard before you commit. people get cut off. dylan thomas famously did, in 1933, and had to spend the night on the rock.
supper at the worm's head hotel — for the view and the half pint, not the cooking. the bay below you turns from gold to grey to indigo in twenty minutes. drive ten minutes inland to reynoldston for a proper meal at the king arthur — log fires, gower brewery on the bar, a village green you can park on if you've made a friend at the bar. that or hillend campsite at llangennith, ten minutes round the headland, dunes-and-surf vibe, basic.
saturday — ridge, beach, pub.
morning walk: rhossili down ridge. up from the village, north along the spine of the down, bronze-age cairns to your right and the bay falling away to your left. seven kilometres if you do the full loop back via the beach; pick up shells, get sand in your boots, be back at the van by lunch.
drive east to penmaen for three cliffs bay. it's the iconic gower view — the three pointed cliffs, the river snaking across the sand — and it's a proper walk down (no road access, no car park at the beach itself). there are rip currents at the river mouth. swim left of it. or don't swim, lie in the sun, eat sandwiches.
there are rip currents at the river mouth. swim left of it. or don't swim.
afternoon coffee at three cliffs coffee, southgate, on the cliff above. evening pub: the joiners arms in bishopston — proper local, swansea brewery on the pump. or the pilot inn at mumbles if you want to drive back into town for the evening — small bar, gower brewery, sea air through the door.
sunday — cold water then home.
morning swim. the choice is yours, but i'd send you to caswell bay — easy access, lifeguarded in season, café in the car park doing breakfasts. or langland if you want surfers and edwardian beach huts. the langland brasserie does a serious breakfast and opens early.
if you've got an extra hour, the walk down through bishopston valley to pwll du bay is worth it — a quiet pebble cove with no road, no car park, no facilities, no other people. that's why we send you there.
drive home in time for sunday dinner. send us a photo.
small print.
- tide tables for worm's head: the coastguard lookout has them current. or the metoffice / mumbles tide gauge online.
- rhossili in summer is busy. it's never empty. low season is the gift here.
- the b4271 over cefn bryn is closed occasionally for events — check before you commit if you're chasing daylight.
- if you're in debbie or boris, you can run a hot shower at hillend or the king arthur car park. you'll be the most popular vehicle in either.