Where to Stay in Trefin: The North Coast Village a Field from the Path

Trefin is the north coast's village: a working, Welsh-speaking place on the road between St Davids and Fishguard, a field's width from the Coast Path, with a pub, a café, a hostel and a campsite. Below it, Aber Draw is a rocky cove with a ruined corn mill on the shore; along the path in one direction is Porthgain, the old quarry harbour with the Sloop Inn, and in the other Abercastle, the sheltered kayak harbour. This is the stretch of coast people come back to once they've done Tenby and St Davids, and it has a fraction of the beds.

The village

Trefin's own beds are honest ones. The Ship Inn is the pub, Caffi y Ragna the café, the Old School Hostel the cheapest roof on this coast, and Trefin Campsite the field on the edge of the village with Torbant the caravan park nearby. Everything is walkable in five minutes, and the Coast Path is at the end of the lane.

Two cottages we've hand-picked are in the village. One has a sun room with bi-fold doors for the sunsets, a wood burner, a double and a twin, a galleried loft and an enclosed lawn with sea views, with the pub, café and path all walking distance and Aberfelin's cove a mile down the lanes. The other, for four, has a boot room with a tumble dryer for wet kit, a wood burner between two leather sofas, an enclosed front patio and parking for two, with the pub half a mile and Porthgain two and a half.

Four more are now written up, all within half a mile of the village. Caerau Bach is an eco-built upside-down house — living space upstairs so the sea view is where you sit — with a wood burner and room for four, but no dogs. Preswylfa is a traditional stone cottage in the village itself, four beds and a dog welcome, with the Coast Path from the door and an enclosed courtyard, though parking is on the road and the lanes are narrow. Ty Gladys and Ty Eufron sit next door to each other just outside: six and eight, two dogs allowed in either, sea views from both, a wood burner in Ty Gladys, and they book together for a party of fourteen.

Porthgain and Square and Compass: the same coast, a mile or two along

Porthgain is the harbour Trefin walks to — brick hoppers over the quay, the Sloop Inn from 1743, the Shed for fish — and the Trefin to Porthgain path is the evening stroll, with Abereiddi to Porthgain and the Blue Lagoon the other way. We've hand-picked a former quarry worker's cottage for two in the row at Porthgain, a short walk from the harbour and the pub, and a detached house for six beside the chapel with the coast from all three bedrooms. Inland at Square and Compass, a couple of miles up the lane, the Square and Compass Inn is the other pub and there's a single-storey farm barn for four with a wet room and level living, beach, shop and pub within half a mile.

Between Trefin and Fishguard the coast goes quieter still: Abermawr's pebble bank and the woollen mill at Tregwynt, and a three-bedroom cottage we've written up at Llangloffan that puts both within a couple of miles.

Hotels and B&Bs

There's no hotel on this stretch. Garn Isaf at Abercastle is the guest house; the hostel is the village's other bed. Booking.com's search for Trefin lands on a single property rather than a list, so we don't give you a Trefin search — the honest alternative is the St Davids search, eight miles west, where the country-house hotels and the Nun Street guest houses are. Fishguard, the other way, has the hotels above the ferry port.

Beaches from here

None of the beaches on this coast is a bucket-and-spade beach with a café, and that's the point. Aber Draw below the village is boulders, ledges and the mill. Abercastle is the kayak and crab-line harbour with a small free car park. Traeth Llyfn, between Porthgain and Abereiddi, is the big sandy cove reached down a steel staircase bolted to the cliff, cut off at high tide, no road access. Abereiddi has the Blue Lagoon and the coasteering. Dogs are welcome all year on all of them. For sand with lifeguards and a car park, Whitesands is twenty minutes' drive.

Without a car

The Strumble Shuttle, the summer coastal bus, runs between Fishguard and St Davids around Strumble Head and through Trefin and Porthgain, which is how walkers do Pwll Deri to Trefin and Porthgain to Whitesands one way. See Pembrokeshire's coastal buses. Outside the season, check that guide for what still runs; it's a car for most people.

The honest bit

We haven't stayed in any of these places and we don't score them. The cottages above are written up from the providers' own listings and nothing else; the pubs, hostel and campsites are from open data with websites where the map has them. The Booking.com link is a paid one and is labelled as such. For the peninsula proper, our St Davids guide is the companion to this one.