Slow East Devon and the Jurassic Coast is the most comprehensive - and only standalone - guide available to this region. With publication timed to coincide with the opening of the Seaton Jurassic Centre, here is insider knowledge which can only be gained by living in the area. Contributions from local experts, and colourful and witty writing combined with the authors' enthusiasm, make this guide as much a pleasure to read as an invaluable companion for exploring. Exeter and the Exe Estuary get a chapter of their own, and parts of Mid Devon, including Tiverton, are covered in detail, along with East Devon's most alluring chunks of countryside and the seaside resorts of Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton and Beer. The chapter on West Dorset describes Lyme Regis and Charmouth along with brief descriptions of other coastal towns. An explanation of the geology of the entire World Heritage Site of the Jurassic Coast links the whole region. With an emphasis on car-free travel - walking, cycling and local buses - the detailed descriptions, historical and folk anecdotes, and personal accounts encourage visitors to explore each locale thoroughly. Hand-picked places to eat and drink, including all the eateries along the main artery of the A3052, are selected by the authors based upon long-standing knowledge of the area.

This new, thoroughly updated third edition of South Devon and Dartmoor is part of Bradt’s distinctive ‘Slow Travel’ series of guides to UK regions, offering in-depth exploration of one of England’s most popular areas. Written by resident experts Hilary Bradt, the late Janice Booth, and Gill and Alistair Campbell, it remains the essential companion to discovering not just the obvious and well-known sites, but also for getting off the beaten track and understanding what makes this gorgeous part of the country tick. Much of the information in Bradt’s South Devon and Dartmoor has appeared in no other guidebook (apart from previous editions of this book) as the authors uncover the lesser-known charms of the region, as well as different aspects of the more popular places (from the English Riviera and South Hams to Salcombe and Dartmoor), together with colourful characters from the past, folk history and literary links from Agatha Christie to Arthur Conan Doyle. The guide has a special emphasis on car-free travel: walking (this edition features a revised selection of routes, including ‘miles without stiles’ – accessible Dartmoor walks), cycling and river boats, as well as local buses (including the new Dartmoor Explorer service) and trains. This edition has a stronger emphasis on local food (both in markets and when eating out), while the authors have updated their hand-picked suggestions for places to eat and drink, and for accommodation (from idyllically located campsites to boutique B&Bs, via caravans, treehouses and haunted coaching inns). Colourful and witty writing, along with the authors’ enthusiasm for their subject, makes the guide a pleasure to read. With Bradt’s South Devon and Dartmoor, discover the region’s award-winning gin distillery and new whisky distillery; learn what really goes on at a wassail gathering; find out what you should do if you're harassed by pixies on Dartmoor; and discover unique local events like the annual Orange Race held in Totnes. Also included are entertaining and informative stories about historical characters and folklore, while small and historic village churches, with their idiosyncratic saints and intriguing carvings, are described in loving detail.

This new, thoroughly updated fourth edition of Dorset (Slow Travel), Bradt’s popular and distinctive guide, offers in-depth exploration of one of England’s most popular counties. Author Alexandra Richards, Dorset born and bred, shares local insights to offer a wider, more personal selection of places to explore than any other guide, including attractions known only to locals, who normally keep the county’s treasures to themselves. The result encourages you to slow down and appreciate why this county deserves repeat visits. Dorset is quintessential rural England: rolling hills, thatched houses, winding lanes and stunning stately homes. Enchanting Dorset landscapes described in Thomas Hardy’s 19th-century novels are largely unchanged and are likely to remain so given that Dorset enjoys England’s highest proportion of conservation areas. The county is trimmed by the spectacular Jurassic Coast (starring locations such as Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove), England’s first natural World Heritage Site, whose cliffs are continuously revealing their prehistoric, fossilised secrets. History buffs, meanwhile, will love innumerable sites of archaeological interest, including Britain’s largest Iron Age hillfort, Maiden Castle. Practical information covers where and what to eat, where and what to see, and how to get around. This fourth edition: integrates recent changes across the county; covers additional villages in north Dorset; celebrates child-friendly activities; introduces local food and drink producers, artisans and community projects; and suggests new walks. Discover Dorset’s award-winning vodka made from milk; discover what really goes on at the Filly Loo Festival; challenge your tastebuds at the Great Dorset Chilli Festival; hunt fossils on beaches featured in the biopic film Ammonite, where Kate Winslet portrays world-famous palaeontologist Mary Anning; learn where never to say the word ‘rabbits’ (and why); discover the Lyme Regis rubber duck race; and get to grips with the fabulous Dorset dialect. Whatever your interest, be it local food, tours of award-winning wineries, horseriding, relaxing on award-winning beaches or spectacular coastal hikes, Dorset (Slow Travel) remains the essential companion guide for both enjoying the obvious sites and getting off the beaten track to understand what really makes this gorgeous, varied county tick.

Smitten by Scotland since childhood, travel writer Rebecca Gibson moved to Moray and started exploring her new home region on foot to produce this new title in Bradt’s award-winning series of Slow travel guides to UK regions. Walkers, cyclists, wildlife lovers, families, history and folklore enthusiasts, and foodies are all catered for, with coverage of a wide range of attractions. As the only comprehensive guidebook to North East Scotland in print, it also contains all the practical information you could need to plan and enjoy time in this thrillingly diverse yet largely under-explored part of Britain. This region of mountains and coasts, ancient Caledonian pine forests and salmon-rich rivers harbours much to enthral and surprise. Long famous among hillwalkers, mountaineers and nature lovers, the Cairngorms is the UK’s largest National Park and holds five of its six tallest summits – but also abounds in fairy folklore. Balmoral Estate has been a royal residence since Queen Victoria’s reign, while Aberdeenshire – with its unique language, Doric – has Scotland’s highest density of castles and numerous Pictish stone circles among an astounding 30,000 sites of historical and archaeological interest. Between Inverness and Aberdeen lies the less-familiar region of Moray, which hosts the world’s most northerly population of bottle-nosed dolphins, Scotland’s oldest independent museum, and Forres, where Shakespeare’s Macbeth met the three witches. Here the Scots language and culture are celebrated through gatherings such as fire festivals. This guidebook’s Slow approach to travel fits with a growing ethos of sustainability in this part of Scotland, from Findhorn Ecovillage to a celebration of locally sourced, artisan and organic food alongside the well-known products of whisky, Aberdeen Angus beef and River Dee salmon. Key heritage attractions are described in intimate detail – but so too are opportunities to see some of Scotland’s most special wildlife, from pinewood-dwelling crested tits to high-altitude specialists like ptarmigan. Whether you are keen to visit castles or indulge in whisky-tastings amid Britain’s highest concentration of distilleries, to hike among Cairngorm’s remote mountains or to stride boldly along miles upon miles of coastline, discover North East Scotland with Bradt’s unique Slow guide.

This new, thoroughly updated and expanded second edition of Bradt’s New Forest – part of the award-winning Slow Travel series of guides to UK regions – focuses on this peaceful, enchanting area in Hampshire. Walkers, cyclists, wildlife lovers, families and foodies are all catered for, with coverage of a wide range of attractions. The only comprehensive travel guidebook to this compact, increasingly popular national park barely 90 minutes from London, it contains all the practical information you need to enjoy time here, including accommodation options ranging from fine hotels to campsites where grazing ponies may nose at your tent flap. Such free-roaming animals are integral to both the New Forest’s charm and its suitability for a Slow guide. Here ponies and cows routinely halt traffic, while donkeys peer into shop windows. In a region named one of the world’s top 10 destinations for outdoors enthusiasts in the 2022 TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Awards, truly wild creatures abound too. Sites of Special Scientific Interest cover over half the national park. All the UK’s six native reptile species occur, alongside its largest population of Dartford warblers. Given the region’s name, the landscape varies surprisingly. Wander through ancient, broad-leaved woodlands originally established as hunting grounds for King William I (William the Conqueror), or marvel at towering conifers at Rhinefield Arboretum. Explore miles of heathland, the yachting town of Lymington or the great coastal spit leading to Hurst Castle (where the ghost of King Charles I is said to wander by night). Alternatively, visit distinctive villages from 13th-century Beaulieu, with its abbey, palace and National Motor Museum, to Burley, infamous for witchcraft. Alongside providing practical information with a personal touch, experienced travel writer and local resident Emily Laurence Baker leads visitors behind the scenes to explain the ‘working Forest’, outlining how various organisations manage the land, how grazing animals have shaped it for centuries, and how the ‘commons’ system functions. She further brings the New Forest to life through interviews with local people, from butchers to conservationists, and agisters to verderers, making Bradt’s New Forest the must-have guide for all visitors to this beguiling region.

In this new, thoroughly updated third edition of Bradt’s The Cotswolds, part of Bradt’s distinctive ‘Slow Travel’ series of guides to UK regions, local resident and experienced travel writer Caroline Mills shares her favourite places in a region that remains as popular as ever. Drawing on more than 50 years’ living in the Cotswolds, and combining engaging first-person narrative with authoritative advice, Mills slows readers down and helps them delve deeply into a range of regions: the Cotswolds National Landscape Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB); the Cotswold escarpment, hills and valleys; the Wiltshire Cotswolds and the area known as the Four Shires; three Cotswold 'gateways' (Stratford-upon-Avon, Bath and Oxford); the lesser-known 'hidden' fringes of the Cotswolds, including the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, which follow much of the youthful Thames Valley, and the Cotswold Way National Trail. The Cotswolds’ rich manmade heritage includes Oxford University (the world’s oldest); many famous castles and country houses (including Blenheim Palace and Sudeley Castle), well-known abbeys such as Prinknash; and estates including Westonbirt Arboretum and Highgrove (the private home of King Charles III and the Queen Consort). Roman history is covered too, notably in Bath and Cirencester, together with the Fosse Way, one of the UK’s most important Roman roads. The guide adds colour through interviews with local residents who bring character to the region; activities to try with children; handpicked places to eat, drink and stay (from glamping and country-house hotels to B&Bs on working farms); coverage of the Arts & Crafts movement; numerous options for car-free travel; and quirky events such Gloucestershire’s annual cheese-rolling competition and Tetbury’s Woolsack Races. With a harmonious combination of quintessentially English villages, charming provincial market towns, appealing countryside and a wealth of local food-and-drink producers,the Cotswolds is an all-year-round destination, whether for a day trip, a quiet weekend away or a multi-week holiday. Whether your interests comprise formal gardens or crafts, historic buildings or horseriding, walking or gastronomy, Bradt’s Cotswolds (Slow Travel) is your perfect guide to facilitate in-depth exploration and intense enjoyment.

This new, thoroughly updated edition of Bradt's award-winning North Devon & Exmoor remains the only dedicated general guide to this compelling area. North Devon's relative inaccessibility has been a deterrent to ugly development, and Exmoor National Park is one of the smallest, least well known, and utterly delightful of all national parks. The rugged western cliffs around Hartland Point are the most dramatic in Devon and the cliff-top walking some of the best. New to this edition are several nature reserves which didn't make it into the first edition and more in-depth descriptions of the far western part of Devon abutting the Cornish border. Also included are the Gnome Reserve and the Bakelite Museum - just two of several quirky places in the region - and expanded information on the island of Lundy in the Bristol Channel, as well as unique coverage of the whole of Exmoor National Park straddling Devon and Somerset. Particularly intriguing are the many descriptions of country churches, 'the storerooms of history'. The North Devon and Exmoor region is arguably the most scenic in the southwest. No other has this blend of wild rugged coastline, deep river valleys, heather-covered moorland, family-friendly sandy beaches, great surfing and enchanting villages. Some of the prettiest villages in the southwest are found here, with cream teas aplenty. Much information is unique to this guidebook, blending descriptions of little-known places and country pursuits with portraits of local characters, past and present. The guide also places special emphasis on car-free travel, walking, local food, pubs and unusual or special accommodation. Whether you like to spend time exploring National Trust properties, discovering gardens, wildlife watching (Exmoor is home to Britain's largest mammal, the red deer), or indulging in more active pursuits such as coasteering, kayaking or just a gentle pony trek, Bradt's North Devon & Exmoor is the ideal companion for a successful visit.