I’ve explored all of Pembrokeshire — these are the best places to stay

Yet if the soul-soaring coast, surf beaches and pipsqueak harbours are similar, it remains a county of heart and authenticity. Largely overlooked by developers, it lacks bland glass-box architecture but excels in stone farmhouses sympathetically zhuzhed up for modern needs. Or occasionally just left as throwbacks to simpler, quieter lifestyles.

So where to go? Villagey St Davids and family-favourite Tenby are terrific, and busy in season. I’d recommend you explore. The north coast is built of tiny harbours between ragged cliffs and mercurial seascapes (walkers take note), yet has increasingly chic stays around Newport. For families, the beaches west of Tenby are unrivalled, presuming you can tear your tots from those around the candy-coloured harbour. Pretty resorts along St Brides Bay are another option.

You’ll find me around Whitesands Bay, Wales’s Land’s End, where surf beaches, granite-ridged hills and tombs of the ancients alchemise into something singular. Something magical. I’m envious of anyone arriving for the first time.

I mention all this because however well you think you know Pembrokeshire, there’s always somewhere new. And here to prove it are 24 of our favourite hotels, B&Bs, pubs with rooms and self-catering stays.

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1. Pembrokeshire’s best luxury stay just got better

Grove of Narberth, Molleston
Not somewhere to rest on its laurels, one of Wales’s flagship hotels has launched new summer menus. Some of the good stuff produced by gardener Gregory Leeson finds its way into seasonal cocktails in the Fernery Restaurant — mine’s a nasturtium vodka with elderflower liqueur, please. And chef Douglas Balish is embracing summer with barbecue menus of local lamb, line-caught fish and homegrown veggies. Otherwise, the Grove appears unchanged — a relaxed stay among bosky hills, which nods to tradition, has faultless staff and where luxury seems effortless. Don’t be deceived: it takes a lot of work to create something this good.
Details B&B doubles from £313 (grovenarberth.co.uk)

2. Easy-going glamour close to Tenby

Penally Abbey, near Tenby
Stay in central Tenby if you want. When it gets busy in high season, I’ll be relaxing in this late-Georgian former rectory at the other end of South Beach. It’s a splendid small hotel created by the Boissevain family — romantic, quietly glamorous, with an almost theatrical flair for public areas plus conversation-killing views to the sea from Rhosyn Restaurant’s dining room. This is a fine spot for breakfasts and good dinners, and now offers an à la carte menu. A flamboyant master suite aside, rooms are calmer: all coastal creams and soft greys to match the sky and sea.
Details B&B doubles from £195 (penally-abbey.com)

3. Almost a private manor at a B&B price

Penrhiw Priory, St Davids
The little sister of St Davids’ Twr y Felin Hotel lacks the sea view but gets my vote. In part, that’s for its intimacy — there are only eight rooms in this spacious 19th-century former priory. Mostly, though, it’s because when staff leave each evening, you get a luxury manor (almost) to yourself. Don’t worry: the team is a phone call away and they return each morning to serve breakfast. Rooms have a sort of decadent modernism to them, with suede wall-coverings, a palette of soothing taupes and art inspired by nature. The treatment room at Twr y Felin is available for guests; central St Davids is a ten-minute walk away.
Details B&B doubles from £125 (penrhiwhotel.com)

4. A spa stay above shifting tides

St Brides Spa Hotel, Saundersfoot
You’ll book for the best spa pool in Wales, a small infinity number which hangs above Saundersfoot Bay, where sands expand and shrink with the tides. Tenby’s a few miles away, but I bet you’ll be happy simply to slip into a white dressing gown and drift from comfy, beachy rooms to bright public areas, then alternate between morning sun loungers on the terrace and afternoon tea … or simply go happily prune-like in that pool. Ninety minutes in the hydrotherapy pool and the spa’s thermal suite are included with a stay. Sea views cost £60 extra.
Details B&B doubles from £210 (stbridesspahotel.com)

5. Cracking foodie stay that’s all heart

Llys Meddyg, Newport
Ed and Louise Sykes pioneered the boutique stay with this restaurant-with-rooms — art on inky walls, traditional woven bed-throws, slipper baths — when it opened in a former Georgian coaching inn more than 20 years ago. For all that, it remains about heart and soul — as the smiley staff can attest. A Pembrokeshire farmer’s son, Ed championed excellent local food when everyone else was copying imported concepts. In recent years they’ve built a rustic-glam dining room and sacrificed Louise’s treasured flowerbeds to create the Secret Garden dining space, with its splendid cabin-like bar. For the next few weeks it’ll be at its absolute peak.
Details B&B doubles from £126 (llysmeddyg.com)

6. Style and sea views at good-value prices

Manor Town House, Fishguard
Fishguard’s misfortune is to be associated with the Rosslare ferry rather than Lower Town, its candy-bright original harbour, where a sign outside the Ship Inn reads: “Muddy boots welcome.” The sea glints through the windows of four of the six rooms at Helen and Chris Sheldon’s fine B&B. There are no duds, though — decor is universally elegant, the cleaning faultless — but the Town Side rooms do get some traffic noise. Right now, you’ll breakfast on the terrace, with changing homemade menus. Or pre-order a hamper for a lie-in, then sally forth to one of the loveliest parts of the Welsh coast. At this price it’s a steal.
Details B&B doubles from £140 (manortownhouse.com)

7. Coast and countryside in a wildlife-focused retreat

Hen Ffermdy, Castlemorris
Here’s a best of both worlds in a new(ish) B&B: a vale that feels like deep countryside; the wild coast around Abermawr two miles away. Adrian and Sue Thornberry jacked in city careers to restore this farmhouse in Adrian’s boyhood home. It’s a stay that’s all heart: slate floors in the kitchen, cream panelling and antique beds, generous fireside sofas, warm hospitality throughout. Ask and Adrian will point out the owls nesting in a five-acre site managed for wildlife. He’ll also nudge you towards his stream-fed, slate-walled plunge pool. No excuses — it’s good for you.
Details B&B doubles from £120 (escapetopembrokeshire.com)

8. The best pub stay in Pembrokeshire

The Stackpole Inn, Stackpole
I’m a fan of pub rooms for weekenders. Why provision when you can let someone else take care of cooking? So there’s not much I need to tell you about the Stackpole. It’s a low-beamed beauty tousled in ivy in a pretty village near Stackpole Quay (terrific for swimmers) and Barafundle Bay beach (terrific for everyone). It hasn’t striven for overly fancy. Rooms in the annexe are spacious. King-size beds are comfy. There are sofas for a cuppa after the beach. Finally, the restaurant is excellent; whatever fish is on, order it. I think that about covers it.
Details B&B doubles from £140 (stackpoleinn.co.uk)

9. A clifftop fort in the best bit of Pembrokeshire

West Blockhouse, St Ann’s Head
Show me the child who can resist a fort during their holiday stay. Back in the day, 35 soldiers manned this chunky battery on the tip of Marloes Peninsula. From its roof — still with slots for cannons — is a mercurial panorama of coast and sea. Within are surprisingly cosy interiors, with wood panelling and leather armchairs before the fire. It’s how I picture a Victorian officers’ mess. Nearby is one of the last best bits of Pembrokeshire: swims off adjacent Watwick Bay beach, wild Marloes Sands (go at low tide), birdlife on Skomer Island and fish and chips at the Griffin, in Dale.
Details Four nights’ self-catering for eight from £628 (landmarktrust.org.uk)

10. Rural cabin retreat for artists and digital-detoxers

Y Caban, Lower Hill
It’s a great plan: get back to basics in a remote woodsman’s cabin. The flaw? No home comforts. This new stay is what said woodsman would build if he subscribed to Wallpaper* magazine. As remote as our list gets, it was built by its artist owners as a retreat. Don’t forget your paints or a guitar. Equally, come for escapism — there’s no phone signal. Instead, there’s beautiful woody minimalism inside, wicker chairs on the porch and wildflower meadows and wooded hills buzzing with life beyond. Also night skies boiling with stars. Pure #CabinPorn.
Details One night’s self-catering for two from £128 (canopyandstars.co.uk)

11. A tranquil stay close — but not too close — to Tenby

Leeward Cottage, Cosheston
This was the owner’s childhood cottage. Since then, she has got the builders in, added large picture windows in the gables and removed walls to open the place up a bit. The result is a homely, stylish weekender beside the Cleddau. One of Pembrokeshire’s loveliest rivers glints when you open curtains in the four bedrooms. Kayakers slip past beyond your hot tub, in a wooded corner, and the barbecue area behind the house. There’s a tranquillity that belies the 10 miles to Tenby. This area is criminally overlooked, which perhaps explains the price — for a family of eight this is a steal.
Details Three nights’ self-catering for eight from £426 (sawdays.co.uk)

12. Cottage life in an epic location

Tower Hill, St Davids
The Landmark Trust made an exception when it restored this property. It’s a 1960s cottage with all the heritage appeal of next-door’s new extension by the trust’s standards. What a location, though. Within the historic precinct of St Davids Cathedral, you wake to jackdaws cackling from the tower and sip early aperitifs as bells toll pilgrims to evensong. (They quieten at night. I can’t speak for the pilgrims.) The cathedral is framed by the sitting-room windows. Although refurbished in 2022, accommodation in three bedrooms (one double, one twin, one with bunkbeds) remains homely: an old farm kitchen table, granny’s armchairs, pine beds and antique brown chests of drawers. Book for a balm for the soul that keeps St Davids close at hand.
Details Four nights’ self-catering for six from £520 (landmarktrust.org.uk)

13. A hideaway for Scandi style and coastal cool

Huckleberry, near Newport
All the elements of a stylish hideaway combine on this farm estate, beautifully restored over five years. Pared-back, Scandi-rustic bedrooms, all en suite; deep velveteen sofas in a lounge; a Swedish hot tub, outdoor kitchen and fire-pit in a site cocooned among trees. It could define what the Welsh know as a cwtch – something so comforting it feels like a hug. There’s a similarly restored barn property just adjacent, if you can persuade four pals along. The ultimate hideaway for Welsh coastal cool, then, yet just three miles from the shops and beaches of Newport.
Details Four nights’ self-catering for eight from £2,650 (uniquehomestays.com)

14. Easygoing budget surf lodge for you and your tribe

Gupton Farm Surf Lodge, Freshwater West
I could tell you that accommodation in this former farmhouse is basic — that there are three small bathrooms between ten guests, and that you’d better be good pals to squeeze into the lounge together. I might mention the lack of TV and wi-fi. Still, you won’t care. Half a mile away is Freshwater West, the best surf beach in Wales; book lessons with Outer Reef (outerreefsurfschool.com). When not catching waves or romping along a wild beach of stonking beauty, you’ll be outdoors at the lodge, sipping after-surf beers, perhaps firing up the barbecue. Just the job for adventurous pals or a two-family break.
Details Three nights’ self-catering for ten from £454 (nationaltrust.org.uk)

15. Twelve acres of garden beside the sea

Ty Perci Penrhiw, Cwm Yr Eglwys
Have you heard of Cwm Yr Eglwys? It’s a pretty hamlet tucked into walkers’ favourite Dinas Head peninsula and just one reason to book this four-bedroom coastal house. Others include that it’s a bright, newly restored place with the essentials for family holidays. Smart, homely decor? Check. Spacious, well-appointed kitchen? Check. Twelve acres beside the sea on which to kick a ball and let the dog run? Check again. And Cwm Yr Eglwys cove? That’s a few hundred metres from the front door, the sort of place you usually see in sepia, with a scattering of cottages around a beach that’s perfect for paddleboards.
Details Seven nights’ self-catering for eight from £801 (coastalcottages.co.uk)

16. Interior-magazine style, hotel-style facilities

Ty Fforest, Cilgerran
Think of this as a private boutique hotel on the 200-acre estate of Fforest, the game-changing outdoor retreat on the Pembrokeshire-Ceredigion border. Imagine a storybook-pretty, five-bedroom restored farmhouse that mixes interior-magazine rustic cool with Scandi ski lodge, and you’re close: old wood and stone, woven blankets draped over Eames armchairs, art prints on walls. Outside is Fforest’s bohemian Arcadia: a sauna and cold plunge in a wood and canoe trips on the magical River Teifi, among other delights. There are bound to be drinks in a lamp-lit cottage pub. Good luck returning to reality.
Details Two nights’ self-catering for 14 from £1,300 (coldatnight.co.uk)

17. A mountain hideaway with a sauna and plunge pool

Y Felin, Preseli Hills
The Preseli Hills are where the ancients came to meet their gods, their summits littered with standing stones and hill forts, and crossed by trails — walkers and mountain-bikers take note. Buried deep within this shockingly overlooked region is new hideaway Y Felin. It’s a former mill of stone walls, old beams and woody charm on the ten-acre smallholding of artist couple Yoshie and Robin. Their sauna is available for use for a small fee, but I expect you’ll be as happy to sally forth on nearby trails, then fire up a woodburner on the porch as the mountains sink into dusk. Magic.
Details Four nights’ self-catering for two from £412 (underthethatch.co.uk)

18. Tenby family beach holidays made easy

Chart House, Tenby
Finding the dream stay for a family seaside holiday isn’t so complicated. Base yourself in Tenby, where the beaches beg for buckets and spades and the old town is a toddler’s fantasy of candy floss and shrimping nets. Next rent a bay-windowed grade II listed house in the old town, less than 80m from Castle Beach. Has it been luxuriously restored with adults in mind but provides an upstairs snug with a TV and games console for the kids? Are there bodyboards and beach toys in the shed? Crucially, does it provide parking permits? This good-value place has the lot.
Details Seven nights’ self-catering for six from £1,127 (ruralretreats.co.uk)

19. Rural luxury for two in a restored barn

Nantwen, near Newport
This is one for romantics and young families, a former barn in glorious isolation among meadows three miles from Newport. Clever design has transformed it into a stay of rustic luxury. Downstairs are a bespoke kitchen and farm table, sofas before a woodburner and armchairs for books on the mezzanine. Upstairs is a clawfoot bath and white bathrobes in a spacious bedroom. What more do you need? To go outside, actually. Through those meadows is a fire area sunken down among trees — just the job for toasting marshmallows at night. Or a last whisky nightcap.
Details One night’s self-catering for two from £135 (kiphideaways.com)

20. As close to the sea as it gets

Carreg Samson, Abercastle
What do you do with a 19th-century ships’ grain store on one of the cutest harbours of north Pembrokeshire? Create a holiday stay, obviously. The smell of the sea wafts in when you open the terrace doors, mainly because it’s just beyond. This family-friendly place is bright and modern; all stone walls, pale wood and cheerful coastal colour schemes. Start days with a swim, then explore a cracking section of coast. My advice? A three-mile walk to Porthgain for a pint in the Sloop Inn and fish and chips at the Shed.
Details Seven nights’ self-catering for seven from £1,365 (coastalcottages.co.uk)

21. Recreate simple childhood beach holidays

Seaside House, Little Haven
I expect many of us treasure childhood memories of simple beach holidays. An uncommercialised village, rock-pooling at low tide, ice creams from the shop. That sort of thing. They still exist, but they’ve shifted north of Cornwall to Little Haven, tucked away from the main Pembrokeshire honeypots, at the south end of St Brides Bay. This place is spacious, comfy and has a piano so granny can do singalongs, plus sea views aplenty: from most of the five bedrooms, from a terrace and even from a hot tub. In short, it has all the stuff you need to create treasured memories for your kids.
Details Seven nights’ self-catering for ten from £1,351 (classic.co.uk)

22. The last heritage cottage on Pembrokeshire’s best headland

Treleddyd Fawr Cottage, near Whitesands Bay
Perhaps only the National Trust could offer this. It’s one of the last unaltered farmer’s cottages in Pembrokeshire, dating from the 1700s. The trust has knocked it into one of the only rentals at Wales’s tip, a snug one-bedder two miles from St Davids that’s still simple but has rustic charm by the cart-load … so long as you’re under six foot. You’re booking, however, for the location. There’s friendly surf on stellar Whitesands Bay, two miles away, and excellent walking here at the Land’s End of Wales. The sunsets from the summit of Carn Llidi are the best in the country, too.
Details Two nights’ self-catering for two from £384 (nationaltrust.org.uk)

23. Interior design with charm

Carreg Wen, Solva
Solva: cute harbour village conveniently located between St Davids and Newgale surf beach; lousy traffic on the A487. The trick is to find somewhere off-road like this converted malthouse. Former farmers wouldn’t recognise the old place. Underfloor heating keeps slate floors toasty in a living room of whitewashed walls. Rugs skim wooden floors in three bedrooms. Family heirlooms sit easily alongside local art. It’s interior design with charm. Behind the clifftop garden, St Bride’s Bay shimmers like lamé and the Pembrokeshire Coast Path goes direct to central Solva in ten minutes. It’s a stiff return uphill but you’re here to walk, right?
Details Seven nights’ self-catering for six from £1,090 (sawdays.co.uk)

24. Escape modern life in a quirky off-grid stay

Penrhyn, Strumble Head
Not for all, this remote off-grid cottage on Strumble Head. The owners put in new windows fairly recently, otherwise it has barely changed in decades. It’s a two-star stay of teenage nightmares — no electricity (light is by oil lamps and candles), no heating except for a Rayburn, coal fire and woodburner — where granny-chic sofas, traditional kitchen dressers and woven bed-blankets are so anti-interior-trends they appear almost styled. So why do repeat-bookers adore it? To decompress from life. Outside the back door are soul-soaring walks on crinkle-cut sea cliffs. Board games, books and a piano entertain within.
Details Seven nights’ self-catering for six from £503 (coastalcottages.co.uk)

What’s new in Pembrokeshire

Here’s a blessing for self-caterers in south Pembrokeshire. Haverfordwest café/restaurant The Box now offers oven-ready restaurant-quality meals to deliver. Pre-order, pop open a bottle, then once the nice delivery person arrives (included in the price), cook dishes like slow-braised beef brisket in a red wine jus. Local ingredients star. We salute the biodegradable packaging (mains from £13; theboxbybengobbi.co.uk).

Is there any limit to the team behind the Grove of Narberth hotel? Not content with two hotels and two restaurants, they’ve launched Lan y Môr, a chic, glass-walled restaurant on Saundersfoot’s Coppet Hall beach. The former Grove head chef Gerwyn Jones mans the stoves working menus of Welsh flavours. I’ll have the Saundersfoot lobster, please (mains from £14; lanymorsaundersfoot.co.uk).

Also at Saundersfoot is a new Welcome Centre behind the harbour. So what? Well, it’s designed as a lifesize schooner to suit its displays on coal-ship heritage and piratical skulduggery. Did you know James Cook’s HMS Endeavour and Captain Bligh’s HMS Bounty were former Saundersfoot colliery ships? Me neither. Your little pirates will be there solely to race around decks doing Pirates of the Caribbean impressions (adults £7, children £4; saundersfootharbour.co.uk)

Hidden Routes, the Newport-based outfit that reveals the mysteries of the Preseli Hills on e-mountain biking trips, has launched a guided half-day tour called Hidden Immersion. The “Hidden” bit is the network of trails you ride. The “Immersion” refers to the beach where there’s a sauna and a swim, not to mention a bowl of seaweed soup and a rum hot chocolate (from £100pp; hiddenroutes.co.uk).

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