The best spring road trips in Wales, with seaside villages, wildlife and castles

With the promise of spring in the air, daffodils gilding hedgerows and the first tentative rays of sunshine lighting up richly green meadows, moors and sheep-bobbled hills, St David’s Day is a great opportunity to sing Wales’ praises in more ways than one.

Odd downpour aside, there’s no finer season for road tripping. The 20mph speed limit that now applies to built-up areas in Wales hardly matters when you’re there to enjoy the journey. With stray sheep and tractors on every single-track bend, this nation is made for going slow anyway. Now is the time for walks in bluebell woods chiming with cuckoos, rambles on coastal paths, castle climbs and nature-focused sleeps. You’ll find this and much more on these four road trips, all of which are full of the joys of spring.

Vale of Ewyas

It’s only 35 miles long, but the old mountain road threading through this silent, steep-sided valley from Abergavenny to Hay-on-Wye of literary festival fame is full of history, mystery and beauty. The single-track unspools along the banks of the River Honddu, against the backdrop of the gold-green chequerboard of the Black Mountains, then rises to heathery moors where red kites wheel on the breeze. This is the Wales so eloquently captured in Bruce Chatwin’s 1982 novel On the Black Hill.

The unmissable stop is Llanthony Priory, a free-to-visit 12th century Augustinian abbey that Turner painted in his signature stormy style back in 1794. Break from the wheel to explore the cloisters and have lunch in the original prior’s cellar. A couple of miles north, keep an eye out for whitewashed Capel-y-ffin (St Mary’s Chapel). Topped off with a lopsided bellcote, it’s one of Britain’s littlest churches.

For more information, see the South and Mid Wales OS Tour Map.

Great heights

The drive’s climax is the Gospel Pass, which is Wales’ highest mountain pass at 549 metres. Here, the road steepens and narrows to whip through open moors. Pause for soul-stirring views of Hay Bluff, Twmpa (cheekily nicknamed Lord Hereford’s Knob) and the Wye Valley. Dorothy and William Wordsworth loved to stroll here.

Stay the night

Book into a safari tent among the treetops at the off-grid By the Wye in Hay-on-Wye. Spring days here are brightened by firepits, woody adventures with resident arboriculturist Dan, and riverside picnics (order a hamper jam-packed with local goodies). Safari tents from £145. bythewye.uk

Cambrian Mountains

Lovely though they are, the Cambrian Mountains are one of Wales’ greatest unknowns. Rippling across the heart of the nation, the so-called “Desert of Wales” is a vast, near-empty wilderness of high moors, lonely ridges, forests and glacier-scoured llyns (lakes). When the rain holds off, spring here is gorgeous, with swollen brooks and waterfalls, brilliant green meadows, daffodils lighting up hedgerows and bluebells misting ancient woods. You can forge your own route, but this 32-mile drive from the former droving town of Llandovery to Abergwesyn Common is an overture to what’s out there.

Swing north to pootle along the Upper Tywi Valley to RSPB Dinas Nature Reserve, carpeted with bluebells and echoing to spring’s cuckoo call. The drama notches up when the route heads north to fjord-like Llyn Brianne, Britain’s highest dam, and on the single-track navigating the giddy hairpin bends on the Devil’s Staircase. The road drops down to heavenly Abergwesyn Common, where pristine moors, mountains and wild swims in the River Irfon await.

For more information, see the South and Mid Wales OS Tour Map.

Great heights

The Cambrian Mountains dazzle with some of Britain’s darkest skies. Hook onto the 50-mile, self-guided Cambrian Mountains Astro Trail on a clear night to spot major constellations, planets and the Milky Way with the simplest pair of pocket binoculars.

Stay the night

Welsh Glamping is in Abergwesy, in one of Wales’ most peaceful valleys. The built-from-scratch log cabins have firepits and outdoor hot tubs. There are walks to bluebell woods and waterfalls on the doorstep. Two-night stay from £220. welshglamping.com

Coastal Way

As the weather warms and the days lengthen and lighten, the tug of the coast is strong. And the 180-mile Coastal Way, taking in the full sweep of Cardigan Bay, is a fabulous way to spend a week in Wales’ surf-pounded, bay-scalloped west. Allow more time for day trips to wildlife-rich islands (puffins return to Skomer in April) and spring walks along the coast path wrapping around gorse-clad cliff, cove and flower-freckled meadow.

Taking you from cathedral-crowned St Davids in Pembrokeshire to Aberdaron at the western tip of the Llŷn Peninsula, the go-slow route features hillforts, castles, beaches and fishing villages. It’s worth bookmarking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, seaside university city Aberystwyth (home to the National Library), Unesco-listed Harlech Castle and the Dyfi Unesco Biosphere Reserve (where you can find osprey at the Ynyslas dunes) and bluebells at RSPB Ynys-hir in spring.

For more information, see: cadw.gov.wales/coastal-way

Great heights

Chuck on boots for a coastal walk. Real beauties include the four-mile clifftop stomp from Whitesands to St David’s Head, and the three-mile circular walk at Dinas Head, passing smuggler’s coves, cliffs clouded with white blackthorn blossom and lookouts where you might glimpse a puffin, porpoise or dolphin.

Stay the night

The chicly converted Georgian coaching inn Llys Meddyg in set in the seaside honeypot of Newport, Pembrokeshire. Foraging and fire characterise its menu. Try home-smoked salmon and mains such as barbecued confit lamb with beetroot and goat’s curd in the art-covered dining room or secret garden. Owner Ed Syes leads seashore and hedgerow foraging courses (in spring you might find sea beets, kale and razor clams). B&B doubles from £153. llysmeddyg.com

Wye Valley

You could easily devote a long weekend to the 50-mile stunner of a road trip through the Wye Valley, from castle-topped Chepstow to Ross-on-Wye. Hugging the English-Welsh border, this river-woven valley is never more glorious than in its spring cloak of daffodils and bluebells. Turner, Coleridge, Wordsworth and countless other artists and poets have raved about its deep ravines, knife-edge cliffs, ancient broadleaf woods and ruined abbeys and castles.

Chepstow Castle is a 11th century fortress that delivers a shot of history. From here, push on north to discover such wonders as Tintern, with its riveting Gothic abbey, and cliff-edge Devil’s Pulpit, where myth has it the devil once lured monks away from their order. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village of Trellech is home to a lost medieval city, Bronze Age standing stones and a miracle well once beloved of pilgrims. Then it’s on to the handsome Georgian market town of Monmouth and Symonds Yat and the atmospheric ruins of Norman Goodrich Castle. Ross-on-Wye is a great base for tagging on a canoe trip along the river.

Great heights

Hoof it up 365 steps to the Eagle’s Nest in Wyndcliff for far-reaching views across the Wye to the Cotswolds and Mendip Hills. Trails clamber up to Symonds Yat Rock, with uplifting views of the Wye Valley and regular sightings of peregrine falcons.

Stay the night

The Hop Garden is enveloped by greenery above Tintern. Cosy cabins and converted horseboxes come with wood-burning stoves, firepits and wood-fired hot tubs in pretty gardens. Pick up real ales from the on-site Kingstone Brewery. Two-night stay from £240. thehopgarden.co.uk