South West England
in England

Have you ever been to Cornwall? If not, you absolutely should. And if you have? Well, you should definitely go back. Tucked away on England's southwest coast, this gorgeous, rugged county should be on your bucket list. 

The only county in England with two separate coastlines, which already tells you something about its ambitions. The north coast faces the Bristol Channel with steep cliffs, long surf beaches, and the kind of weather that arrives sideways; Croyde and Saunton are serious breaks with serious devotees. The south coast is softer, the Salcombe estuary sliding into the sea between green hills, the South Hams villages tucked into valleys where the lanes are too narrow to pass anything larger than mild anxiety. Dartmoor sits in the middle, a granite moorland of tors, ponies, and bogs that the weather uses as a testing ground. Exeter has a fine cathedral and a food scene that has quietly got very good. The cream tea debate, jam first or cream first, remains technically unresolved and entirely worth having on the correct side of the county border.

Dorset is Somerset’s quiet neighbour. There isn’t a single city in this county best known for its rugged Jurassic coastline where Mary Anning discovered the plesiosaur; just a handful of big towns, thatched villages and a hard-working English farmer’s attitude.  

There is a penalty that comes with nestling in between the cool-crowd’s Somerset in one direction, and the shiny Cotswolds in the other: an inevitable overshadowing. But there, perhaps, lies south Wiltshire’s secret. To the west of the sky-high spire of Salisbury Cathedral, and south of hazy Salisbury Plain is the Nadder Valley: a pocket of the West Country where sleepy thatched cottages dot amongst the chalk downland and water meadows.