Inland gems
Canal across the Deevalley to Chirk, from where the A5 heads south to Shrewsbury, the powerhouse of border country, with steep brick-paved lanes ensnared within a loop of the River Severn.
● Stay: The Red Lion, a former coaching inn in Ellesmere, sympathetically combines new rooms with traditional features. Doubles from £75 with breakfast, redlion-ellesmere.co.uk
RETRO RESORTS
Suffolk’s Heritage Coast is not a place of giddy cliffs and crashing surf, but of whimsical nuggets of forest and heath, marsh and reeds, its seaside towns linked by a meandering road.
Prime among them is the Georgian resort of Southwold, with its pier and the Sailor’s Reading Room, where the day’s tide tables are chalked on a board.
Around 10 miles south lies Thorpeness, which looks like a model village which has mistakenly been built actual size, with an artificial lake at its centre, complete with sailboats for hire.
The former fishing village of Aldeburgh, beyond, has had an arty renaissance thanks to the annual festival started by Benjamin Britten at Snape Maltings, a complex of converted Victorian granaries and malthouses.
After Aldeburgh comes Dunwich, famous for no longer existing, being two-thirds under water thanks to coastal erosion, and finally Orford, a handsome town with its big ‘Ness’ – a 10-mile (and growing) otherworldly spit of shingle, much loved by film makers.
● Stay: Aldeburgh’s boutiquey seafront Brudenell Hotel has doubles from £121, brudenell hotel.co.uk.
ONE TRACK MIND
The North Coast 500, a 500-mile ribbon of narrow tarmac around the coastline of Scotland, starting and finishing in Inverness, has been the UK’S road trip success story of recent years. So much so that other parts of Scotland are following suit – such as the new Heart200.
But the NC500’S west coast scenery is unbeatable, from the Pass of the Cattle on the road to Applecross, with fabulous views across to the Isle of Skye, to the raw peaks of Assynt, piebald with grasslands and peppered with whitewashed croft houses and crisp immaculate beaches.
Ullapool is the most vibrant town on the west coast, with ferries from the Outer Hebrides and young guns fresh off the mountains looking for R&R.
● Stay: The Poolewe Hotel sits on the shores of massive Loch Ewe, with its fascinating wartime history. Doubles with breakfast from £110, poolewehotel.co.uk
PUDDING RUN
The coast is everyone’s safety valve, and this route is loved by Yorkies in search of fresh air – and chips.
First stop is Malton, the market town famous for its foodie weekends and Yorkshire pudding; south of here is the Yorkshire Wolds, that understated rolling landscape recently celebrated by David Hockney, while up north is Pickering, start of the spectacular North York Moors steam railway
(as in the Channel Five TV series).
The sea hoves into sight at Scarborough, with its faded grandeur and broad beaches, after which the road rises as it goes north to run along the back of Robin Hood’s Bay, whose picturesque fishing village is the endpoint of the Coast to Coast walking trail.
Whitby itself, a fishing port shoved into a river-carved cleft in the hills, is famous for its ruined abbey and its Dracula connections. Best known of its dozens of fish restaurants is the Magpie Café, often with long queues.
● Stay: OK, it’s a hostel, but it is also a Grade I listed mansion right up by Whitby Abbey, with magnificent views. Private rooms from £29, yha.org.uk
UP THE TROSSACHS