Coastal Walks in Pembrokeshire
The Pembrokeshire Coast Path runs 186 miles from St Dogmaels in the north to Amroth in the south, and almost all of it is inside the national park. You don't have to walk the lot. Most of the best days out here are three to six miles, start and finish at a car park, and end at a pub.
These are the walks we'd point someone at first. Each one has the distance, rough timing, how hard it actually is, where to park, and what's near the finish — the pubs, the beaches and the places to stay, pulled from the rest of the site.
Two things to know before you go. Tides matter on several of these routes, and a couple of beaches cut off completely. And the Castlemartin firing range closes the path around Stack Rocks and St Govan's when the red flags are up, which is often.
Abereiddi to Porthgain and the Blue Lagoon
A short, spectacular cliff walk between two abandoned quarry harbours, past the flooded slate pit everyone photographs.
3 miles · 1½ hours each way · Easy
Amroth to Tenby
The first stage of the Coast Path, through old coal country and tunnels cut for a tramway, ending inside Tenby's town walls.
7 miles · 3½–4 hours · Moderate
Barafundle Bay and the Bosherston Lily Ponds
The best short walk in south Pembrokeshire: a cliff path to Barafundle, then inland along three flooded limestone valleys full of lilies.
5 miles · 2½–3½ hours · Moderate
Dinas Island Head
A short, steep circuit of a headland that isn't quite an island, with the ruin of a storm-wrecked church at one end and a beach pub at the other.
3 miles · 1½–2 hours · Moderate
Poppit Sands to Cemaes Head
The northern end of the Coast Path, and its highest cliffs. Hard work, few people, and dolphins offshore more often than not.
4 miles · 2½ hours each way · Strenuous
Solva to Newgale
A relentlessly up-and-down stage between a drowned-valley harbour and a two-mile shingle beach. Short on paper, hard on the legs.
5 miles · 3 hours · Strenuous
St Davids Head from Whitesands Bay
Round the headland at the far west of Wales, past an Iron Age fort and a 5,000-year-old burial chamber, with Ramsey Island offshore.
4 miles · 2–3 hours · Moderate
Stack Rocks, the Green Bridge of Wales and St Govan's Chapel
Flat clifftop limestone at the southern tip of Wales, with the best sea arch in the country and a 13th-century chapel wedged in a cleft.
4 miles · 2 hours each way · Easy
The Dale Peninsula and St Ann's Head
A full-day circuit of the peninsula that guards the mouth of the Milford Haven waterway, past a lighthouse, three forts and the beach where Henry Tudor landed.
8 miles · 4–5 hours · Moderate
The Marloes Peninsula and Deer Park
Round the tip of the peninsula from one of Wales's best beaches to the boat slip for Skomer, with seals in the coves below.
6 miles · 3–4 hours · Moderate
By how hard they are
Easy
Moderate
Strenuous
Distances and times are approximate and rounded — they are for planning, not navigation. Take an OS map or the national park’s route notes with you.