If this is your first visit to Lakeland, this short orientation guide is for you! First, congratulations on choosing this stunning location for your holiday. You’ve chosen well! Lakeland has been capturing the imagination of travelers, poets, artists, and ramblers for hundreds of years.
The first thing to know is that there’s a lot of variety in the Lakes. You could create a vacation focused on dining at Michelin-quality restaurants, staying in posh lakeside hotels, and touring historic manors and gardens. Or you could focus your trip on hiking and spend all your time bagging peaks and visiting pubs. There are coastal beach villages, busy market towns, remote valleys, and working farms. You can picnic by fresh mountain streams in the spring and curl up by a cozy coal fire in the autumn. I find that I considering all these options and planning out my trip is almost as much fun as the trip itself.
In general, the North Lakes are more outdoorsy, and the South Lakes are more foodie-oriented. Grasmere is in the Central Lakes and offers good access to both North and South. The Eastern Lakes tend to be more heavily touristed, especially around Windermere and Ullswater. The Western Lakes are a little harder to get to, especially by bus, and tend to be emptier.
My favorite bustling market towns are Keswick and Ambleside, each of which make a good base for lots of different activities. Both have lots of pubs, shops, connecting roads, and bus routes to other parts of the Lakes. Of the two, Keswick has more of an outdoorsy vibe, while Ambleside is more attuned to shopping and dining.
My favorite smaller town is Grasmere, which is totally charming; it has better food than Keswick, but feels more “in the hills” than Ambleside. There’s lots of accommodation, restaurant options, and cultural sites to visit. While it can get overwhelmed with tourists during the day (particularly in July and August), the tourists generally head home in the evenings, leaving you in peace and quiet!
If you are looking for something quieter, you have lots of options. My favorite quiet valleys are Little Langdale, Borrowdale, Elterwater, and Troutbeck (the one by Windermere), which are all reasonably accessible by car, and to some degree by bus (and the area does have a fantastic bus service, if you’d prefer not to drive).
If you want more dramatic, wilder mountain scenery and a feeling of remoteness, I’d recommend either go to Wasdale or to Great Langdale. The Back o’ Skiddaw area north of Keswick also feels wonderfully desolate in a very different way.
What I tell most people making their first trip to the Lakes is find a place to stay in Grasmere and use it as a base. It’s centrally located, and offers good bus routes to other towns. There will also be some fabulous walks and hikes that leave right from your doorstep. Grasmere also offers a great variety of food and lots of non-hiking activities if the weather is truly awful, or if hiking just is not your thing.
If you’re looking for a town that’s a bit bigger, with some cheaper options of lodging and food, then I would recommend Keswick, where you can do some really wonderful hikes, and also easily drive or bus to some of the more remote areas.
Be sure to check out more information on hikes for beginners, weather, maps, the gear you need for hiking, and getting to and around the area. Have a great time!
