Planning a First Visit to a Land of Dragons
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
When I first went to Wales on a day trip a few months after I had moved to England, I did so after consulting a guidebook from the Rough Guides series. Without that act of book perusal, the day in question might not have been the success that it became. Many a Scottish escapade was informed by the web, so my having gone non-digital for that first Welsh incursion may come as a surprise, especially when you get to peruse the websites that I have collected below.
The same themes seem to recur for a visit to any place: what to see, what to do and where to stay. This bunch below should help with those needs and I can vouch that Wales does have a lot of to offer, and it somehow manages to evade the attentions of other parts of the U.K. so quiet spots away from both the beaten track and the madding crowds are there aplenty, especially if you keep away from the epicentres of attention in its National Parks. As it happens, I am continuing my exploring, so that may allow me to keep adding to what you already find here.
Practicalities
In Britain these days, it seems insufficient to title yourself as a tourist board or agency, so monikers like "Visit x" or "Enjoy y" pop up all over the place; the practice may have started in Scotland and spread from there. This was formerly known as the Wales Tourist Board, so that should give the general idea as to what you might find here. It's just as well that it is probably as good a place to start as any if you are picking somewhere to see in Wales, especially since satellite sites dealing with hill walking and other outdoor pursuits are also featured. Not only that, but the site has regional sections too.
Founded in 1998 when country directories were commonplace, and I found a good few of them on the web for Scotland, this is mainly a visitor information source these days. Hotels and other forms of accommodation are very prominent on the front page, but there is a lot more here, even if the breadth of subjects is on offer looks a bit higgledy-piggledy these days when a hint of specialisation tidies many an appearance. The presence of sections on jobs, businesses and others like them may appear incongruous, but there is a lot here, with towns and visitor attractions having their own spots for you to survey. It even might change you from being a visitor to being a resident in fact. What must have begun small in Conwy must have grown.
This has been around for a good while now, and descriptions of various towns around Wales are what is on offer, with good reading to be found too. During 2013, there was an attempt to overhaul some of the entries and that remains in progress for places like Brecon and Dolgellau has lost its own entry, with Barmouth's one not mentioning the place either when the link takes you there. All in all, this is a labour of love that is worth frequenting and that, I hope, will continue past the rebuilding stage.
The second of these was the one that I spotted first, and it then appeared to cover all of Wales except for its northern areas. Both now provide the expected information on places to stay and things to see and do, even if everything appears on a website with the Visit Mid-Wales moniker.
There is more to North Wales than Snowdonia though that probably draws most visitors to the area. For hill country enthusiasts, there are plenty of other areas that are much quieter. For instance, the northeast has the Clwydian and Berwyn hills that are often overlooked by many on their way west. The coast too is a major lure with a whole array of resorts to be found along the coast and then there is the island of Anglesey with its quieter corners. In short, there is much here, so it is handy that North Wales Tourism has created this online portal with all the information needed for planning a visit.
Here is a varied selection of websites collecting up a wide range of visitor accommodation in Wales. Everything from holiday cottages to hotels is included, so you surely must find a place to stay on a visit somewhere among them.
Attractions
This is an agency of the Welsh Assembly Government that manages many heritage sites around the principality. That makes it a good port of call on the web when it comes to finding places to see on a visit to Wales. For instance, they manage Valle Crucis Abbey near Llangollen and the ruin is well-kept with a charge for entry in the high season and access free of charge at other times. Of course, there's much more than this, and a leaflet that I picked up in Swansea over the summer revealed that there are numerous sites in the south of Wales alone.
Wales has its share of monastic sites and here is a list of them. The website expresses an opinion that Welsh monastic ruins are not as well known in other countries, like nearby England. However, I can name Valle Crucis near Llangollen and Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire from the top of my head, and there are many others to survey.
