Rowan Tree Travel has crafted a new walking holiday to encompass walking trails along the dramatic Pembrokeshire coastline along with interior footpaths through the green and sometimes wild interior of Wales. We will take in picturesque towns, quaint fishing villages, grand cathedrals and impressive coastal vistas. Our centralized location in Cardigan, Wales (how appropriate is that for us knitters?) will allow us to appreciate the special beauty and variety of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park from high cliff tops and secret coves to sweeping estuaries and wide sandy beaches. We will follow a historic trail along the Golden Road, the spine of the Preseli Mountains, with its sweeping vistas, ancient monuments and burial places, cairns and rocky tors. For a spectacular finish to the week, we’ll take a boat ride to an internationally important seabird island off the coast and enjoy a walk among nesting puffins.

We’ll incorporate a visit to the National Wool Museum and tour their dye garden, along with a visit to a special woolen mill where they design beautiful Welsh wool blankets and throws that you’ll become familiar with since these items are used to keep us cozy in our initial hotel rooms in Cardigan. We are very fortunate our fiber ambassador, Liz, has trekked many miles/km in this region for her own personal enjoyment and is a certified walking guide. We plan to cover between 5 and 10 miles per day with up to 1500’ net elevation gain.

We will enjoy two unique lodging experiences, both operated and managed by the same hotelier. Our first stay will be in a small, recently updated riverfront hotel preserving the maritime heritage of Cardigan; also home to Garthenor Organic mill, which we’ll visit. This accommodation allows for use of their guest lounge for evening knit sessions. 

Next, we’ll move to a glamping experience set a short distance inland in the heart of the Welsh  countryside. After our days walking and discovering fantastic scenery, we can then leisurely experience the nearby nature reserve, maybe have a bonfire, stargaze or settle into the sauna. 

We will make use of two different accommodations on this property; one is a re-built Georgian farmhouse with bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms; the other are glamping accommodations coined Garden Shacs overlooking their raised bed garden with sheltered outside terraces. Each shac has three bedrooms with the showers and toilets in the building adjacent - just a short stroll away with exclusive use of allocated facilities accessed by key.

When our week has ended, we’ll all depart feeling energized and inspired by this unique walking holiday. 

Tour Activity Level
We would describe this trip as an Expedition.  Elevation gain as noted in the itinerary is the total elevation gain across the whole walk not the amount gained in one ascent.  So, climbing two hills that are 500’ is a 1000’ elevation gain.

Mobility Comfort Level = 5+

We will be on coastal paths that are well-trodden, occasionally rocky with steep descents, such as to secret coves, and ascents to clifftops that can be narrow. 

We will also walk through fields and along tracks which are unpaved, uneven and hilly country paths.

In the Presseli Mountains we will be on closely-grazed, exposed, well-trodden paths. If you suffer from vertigo, you will not be comfortable while walking along the coastal clifftops.

If you'd like to review our trip activity and mobility comfort levels, take a look here.

This trip needs at least 10 participants in order to proceed (i.e. the trip is "guaranteed"). We strongly advise you to wait to purchase your flights until the trip is guaranteed by us to go forward.

Unless otherwise stated, our regular Terms and Conditions for an Exclusive Use Property apply to this trip and for any cancellations (click here to see our Terms and Conditions).

Travel Insurance
Rowan Tree Travel highly recommends purchasing travel insurance. You may purchase through our preferred partner Arch RoamRight by clicking here or through your own provider.

Arranging Your Flights
In order to gather easily for the tour, we provide an arrival and departure "window" at a major transportation hub - typically an international airport at your destination country. Flights scheduled outside the provided windows may result in additional transportation costs and missed tour activities. For this reason, we greatly appreciate your cooperation in booking travel that accommodates our specifications. Please do not purchase airfare until the tour is guaranteed by RTTF to go forward.

Please Note the Following
Rowan Tree Travel reserves the right to alter any part of this itinerary in order to address weather conditions, unforeseen circumstances or to improve the participant experience.

Have questions? Please contact us at info@rowantreetravel.com

CARDIFF

Welcome to Wales! Travelers self-transport to our opening hotel, Hotel Indigo.  We’ll have an introductory meeting and a lovely dinner in the City Center. 

CARDIGAN

We start our journey to the Pembrokeshire Coast with a stop at the National Wales Botanical Gardens to stretch our legs and take in the fresh Welsh air amongst the gardens and greenhouses and multiple cafes offering refreshments. Then we’ll journey to Cardigan, drop our bags and take our first walk to Mwnt Beach, rated one of the finest in Europe. We might get lucky spotting dolphins, gulls (of course) and other seabirds while on our walk to “the little white chapel” - a medieval sailor’s chapel of ease...  

Mileage: 3 miles

Elevation gain: 700’

NEW QUAY

Again, to the coast we will go, to enjoy a morning walk with time to explore the seaside town of New Quay. After lunch in town, we return to Cardigan and meet with our friends Sally Davies and Jonny King.  Sally started Garthenor Organic to promote organic handspun yarn and when Jonny joined her, they rapidly grew the business beyond handspun and really made a name for themselves beyond the Welsh wool markets. They are now building the first organic woolen mill for yarn production in Wales! Our dinner tonight will be oh-so-unique: pizza in a tipi!

Mileage: 5.5 + miles

Elevation gain:  900’

PRESELI MOUNTAINS

Today, we’ll treat you to a walk along the spine of the Preseli Mountains. Should the weather gods be kind, we might see views west as far as Ireland, and north to Snowdonia and we might be able to spot Red Kites soaring above the fields below. Among the historical treasures abound on this trek are a Bronze Age burial cairn and the rocky tor of Carn Bica which overlooks a ring of stones in the shape of an eye.  This ring of stones is one of many places recorded by antiquity as the grave of King Arthur. After the trek, we’ll stop to explore Castell Henllys, the reconstruction of an Iron Age fort. For many years it was believed that the bluestones in the inner circle at Stonehenge were quarried here. 

After this grand walk, we might just find ourselves at a nearby pub for some refreshments to toast our day’s explorations.

Mileage: 7-9+ miles

Elevation gain: 1250’

ST. DAVIDS

The tiny town of St. Davids provides the setting for a tour of the majestic St. Davids Cathedral, an important stop for a medieval pilgrim back in the day. After the tour and with springtime in the air, we will enjoy a walk around St. David’s Head from Whitesands Bay. There’s sure to be a profusion of wildflowers along the rugged coast, cliff edge, fields and hills of this region. At the end of the day we’ll find ourselves at our glamping accommodations; our luggage will have been transferred and the warm welcome from the staff includes tea and cake as we settle into our new dwellings for the remainder of the week. 

Mileage: 7-9 miles

Elevation gain: 1500’

ABERAERON

Today our coastal experience includes strolling amongst the shops and cafes and colorful Georgian and Victorian homes overlooking the harbor of Aberaeron. We continue from town to walk and visit Llanerchaeron, an elegant Georgian villa and its organic gardens, part of the National Trust, with a unique project to help maintain habitat for a rare butterfly found on the coast of Wales.

Mileage: 5  miles

Elevation gain: 500’

WOOLEN  MILLS

As we enjoy a visit to the National Wool Museum of Wales, we will tour their dye garden and learn a bit about natural dyeing. We have a few other woolen mills we can add in on this undemanding walking day.

We will find a path to stroll along the River Teifi in the afternoon. We’ll have dinner out before heading back to glamp.

Mileage:  miles

Elevation gain:

SKOMER ISLAND

Now, for our nature-filled grande finale; we’ll savor a short boat ride that takes us to a very special marine island just off the coast where we survey nesting puffins and other sea creatures. There are basic services on the island and we’ll have a packed lunch to help us circumnavigate this remarkable island. When we return to our lodging, we’ll enjoy a group dinner, possibly a bonfire, or even a sauna as we share stories from the week. 

Mileage: 4 miles

Elevation gain: 630’

CARDIFF 

We’ll stretch our legs and get a walk in the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park mountain range on our drive back to Cardiff and have a good time at our final farewell dinner in the city center.

Homeward Bound

Homeward we go, energized from our adventures. A fond Hwyl Fawr goodbye to all. 

Colleen Troy joins RTT as Domestic Tour Development and Fiber Ambassador as well as Bookkeeper. She’s knitting multiple projects right now, spinning hand-blended fibers on her Lendrum DT, and has found it difficult but not impossible to knit and watch a South Korean show on Netflix with subtitles at the same time. She is curious about makers' stories of the lineage and evolution of their craft and where to find truly awesome pie.  Her professional background in outdoor tour guiding and small business ownership makes a great match with RTT. Colleen loves to drive a convertible, swim in natural waters and hula hoops. Does she talk to her plants? That’s what her friends want to know.

Liz lives with her family on a smallholding in the Cambrian mountains in Wales.  A keen knitter since childhood, she remembers watching her mother spin yarn from the family sheep, and she now keeps her own small flock of Shetland sheep to indulge her passion for all things woolly. Liz is also a keen hill walker, and loves to escape to her beloved mountains, seeking inspiration amongst the colours and textures of the wild upland landscape of mid-Wales. A linguist and Latin America specialist by training, Liz previously spent many years studying and travelling in southern Chile, where she was bewitched by the alchemy that rural women could perform with some roughly-spun wool and a few leaves in a dye pot over a wood fire. It was here that Liz learnt to weave, and now settled back home in Wales, she teaches weaving, whilst also running wildwoven, a woolly fair trade business, providing opportunities for rural women in Chile to supply highly-textured, hand spun yarns to discerning weavers and fibre artists.