Coastal Walks in Pembrokeshire

Walking the whole Coast Path? Start with the planner → — every stage in order, cumulative ascent, and day splits computed for 5, 7, 9 or 12 days.

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

Broad Haven to St Brides Haven via Little Haven

A short stage with the best pub stop on the path a mile in, then quiet cliffs to a cove with a church almost on the beach.

5.5 miles · 3 hours · Moderate

Carew Castle, the Tidal Mill and the Millpond

A flat, waymarked circuit of the millpond with a castle at one end and the only restored tidal mill in Wales at the other.

3 miles · 1½ hours · Easy

Carn Ingli from Newport

Straight up from the town onto a 337m crag covered by an Iron Age hillfort, with the whole of Newport Bay laid out below.

5 miles · 3 hours · Moderate

Ceibwr Bay to Newport

The wildest stage on the north coast: a collapsed sea cave, a long switchback over unfenced cliffs, and almost nobody else on it.

7 miles · 4½–5 hours · Strenuous

Dale to Sandy Haven

A gentle stage along the north shore of the Haven with two tidal stepping-stone crossings that will add four miles to your day if you get them wrong.

7 miles · 3½–4 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

Fishguard to Pwll Deri via Strumble Head

The best cetacean-watching coast in Wales, the place the French invaded in 1797, and a long rough stretch between the two.

13 miles · 7–8 hours · Strenuous

Foel Cwmcerwyn and the Preseli Ridge

The highest ground in Pembrokeshire, with Bronze Age cairns on top and the Stonehenge bluestone outcrops along the ridge to the east.

4.5 miles · 2½–3 hours · Moderate

Freshwater East to Manorbier

A short, sharp stage between two good beaches, taking in a bay you can only reach on foot and finishing under a Norman castle.

4.5 miles · 2½ hours · Moderate

Freshwater West to Stack Rocks (the Castlemartin Range section)

The one stage of the Coast Path most walkers never do on the coast: the cliff route crosses a live firing range and the everyday alternative is inland.

7 miles · 3–3½ hours · Moderate

Llys-y-frân Reservoir Circular

A full circuit of Pembrokeshire's biggest reservoir on woodland and lakeside paths, with a short surfaced section by the dam for easier legs.

7.5 miles · 3½–4 hours · Moderate

Manorbier to Tenby via Skrinkle and Lydstep

Limestone cliffs, a double cove with a rock arch, two military ranges to check, and an arrival into Tenby along South Beach.

7 miles · 3½–4 hours · Moderate

Milford Haven to Pembroke

Up the waterway and across the Cleddau Bridge: Brunel's railway terminus at Neyland, the Royal Dockyard heritage of Pembroke Dock, and a finish beneath the castle where Henry VII was born.

12.5 miles · 5–6 hours · Moderate

Newgale to Broad Haven

Along the top of St Brides Bay past the ruins of a colliery that mined coal out under the sea, with four beaches on the way.

7 miles · 3½–4 hours · Moderate

Newport to Fishguard

A long day linking two towns, over Dinas Head or through the valley behind it, finishing in the harbour where Under Milk Wood was filmed.

12 miles · 6–7 hours · Strenuous

Pembroke Castle and the Mill Pond

A short, level loop round the water beneath one of the great castles of Britain, good for an hour with a pushchair or a dog.

2 miles · 1 hour · Easy

Pembroke to West Angle Bay

The longest and least-walked stage: quiet shores of the Pembroke River, the industrial edge of the waterway, then the birdlife of Angle Bay and the forts at the harbour mouth.

13.5 miles · 6–7 hours · Moderate

Poppit Sands to Ceibwr Bay

The first real test of the path: up over Cemaes Head onto some of the highest sea cliffs of the whole 186 miles, then along a wild, empty top with no way off until Ceibwr.

6 miles · 3–4 hours · Strenuous

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

Porthgain to Whitesands Bay

From an industrial harbour past the Blue Lagoon and round the wild north side of the St Davids peninsula to the county's most popular beach.

8 miles · 4½–5 hours · Moderate

Pwll Deri to Trefin

Ten empty miles of low cliff and storm beach between two of the quietest corners of the coast, with a Victorian railway scheme that never happened.

10 miles · 5½–6½ hours · Strenuous

Sandy Haven to Milford Haven

The path changes character completely: an easy half-day along the north shore of the Milford Haven waterway, timed around the tide at Sandy Haven, ending among the marina and museums of the town.

6 miles · 2½–3 hours · Easy

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 Brides Haven to Dale

The Marloes peninsula in one day: Musselwick Sands, the Skomer boats at Martin's Haven, the mile of Marloes Sands, then round St Ann's Head past the beach where Henry Tudor landed in 1485.

11 miles · 5–6 hours · Moderate

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

St Dogmaels to Poppit Sands

The official start of the Coast Path, and by far its gentlest stage: a flat two and a half miles down the Teifi estuary to a big sandy beach.

2.5 miles · 1–1¼ hours each way · Easy

Stack Rocks to Freshwater East

The showpiece of the south coast — Elegug Stacks, Huntsman's Leap, the chapel in the cliff at St Govan's, Broad Haven South, Barafundle and Stackpole Quay in six and a half miles.

6.5 miles · 3–4 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 Gwaun Valley Woodland Walk

A sheltered walk through ancient oak woodland in a glacial meltwater channel, in a valley that still keeps the old New Year in January.

3.5 miles · 1½–2 hours · Easy

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

Trefin to Porthgain

Two easy miles linking two of the best small stops on the north coast — the ruined mill and beach at Aber Draw to the harbour, brickworks and famous fish and chips at Porthgain.

2 miles · 1 hour each way · Easy

West Angle Bay to Freshwater West

Round the exposed corner where the Haven meets the Atlantic, from a sheltered bay with a café to the wildest surf beach in Wales.

6 miles · 3–3½ hours · Moderate

Whitesands Bay to Solva

Right round the tip of Wales past the Ramsey lifeboat station, Porth Clais and the cathedral's own quarry, finishing in a drowned-valley harbour.

13 miles · 6½–7½ hours · Strenuous

By how hard they are

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.