Where to Stay in Fishguard and Goodwick: Harbour, Hill or Ferry Port

Fishguard is three places that share a name. Lower Town is the old harbour at the mouth of the Gwaun, a curve of cottages round a tidal quay that played Llareggub in the 1971 Under Milk Wood. Upper Town, on the hill above, is the working town — Market Square, the High Street, the pubs and the shops. And Goodwick, round the bay, is the ferry port: the Stena boats to Rosslare, the railway terminus, the breakwater and a long sandy beach at low tide.

Where you stay decides which of the three you're living in. Everything we hold a record for is on the Fishguard stay lists — B&Bs, campsites — and the Goodwick list.

Upper Town: Market Square and the High Street

The Abergwaun Hotel is on the Market Square, Cartref on the High Street, and the guest houses — Pentower, Morawel on Glyn-y-Mel Road above Lower Town — are on the streets off them. Stay up here and the pubs, the Theatr Gwaun cinema, the Thursday market and the buses are on foot; Lower Town is a steep ten minutes down. Parking is on-street and in the town car park, and easier than the coast towns.

Fishguard's two festivals — the Folk Festival at the end of May and the International Music Festival in July — fill Upper Town's rooms for their weekends.

Lower Town: the harbour

The prettiest part and the smallest. Cottages on the quay and up the lanes behind it, most of them let rather than run as B&Bs, so this is cottage territory; see the Fishguard page for the stays we hold. The Coast Path leaves from here east towards Dinas and Newport.

Goodwick and the ferry

The Fishguard Bay Hotel stands on Quay Road above the port — the grand Edwardian one from the years when Fishguard hoped to be a transatlantic port — and the Seaview and the Tara are on Windy Hall above the town. Goodwick Sands is the beach below. This is where to sleep if you're on the early boat to Ireland or arriving off the late one; the ferry guide has the timings. Fishguard Harbour station is here, at the end of the line from Carmarthen.

The wild bit: Strumble Head and the Pencaer coast

West of Goodwick the road climbs onto the Pencaer peninsula and the coast turns serious: Strumble Head lighthouse, the walk to Pwll Deri, and the Pwll Deri hostel on the cliff above the bay, which is one of the most spectacularly sited beds in Wales. Tregroes on the Manorowen road takes tents, tourers and glamping; the Fishguard Bay Caravan and Camping Park sits above the town on the Dinas side. Strumble is the county's autumn seawatching point and where the porpoises are most reliably seen.

The Gwaun Valley behind

South of the town the Gwaun runs up its wooded valley towards the Preselis, and Gwaun Vale caravan park and the Ddol Isaf and Ddolwen Farm campsites are on the lanes at the bottom of it. Quiet, green, and a different county from the coast.

The honest bit

We haven't stayed in these places and don't score them. The lists are open data with websites where the map has them; the campsites are seasonal and the hotels year-round. For a room on your dates, the Booking.com search on the Fishguard hotel list is a paid link and says so.