This new, thoroughly updated fourth edition of Dorset (Slow Travel), Bradt’s popular and distinctive guide, offers in-depth exploration of one of England’s most popular counties. Author Alexandra Richards, Dorset born and bred, shares local insights to offer a wider, more personal selection of places to explore than any other guide, including attractions known only to locals, who normally keep the county’s treasures to themselves. The result encourages you to slow down and appreciate why this county deserves repeat visits. Dorset is quintessential rural England: rolling hills, thatched houses, winding lanes and stunning stately homes. Enchanting Dorset landscapes described in Thomas Hardy’s 19th-century novels are largely unchanged and are likely to remain so given that Dorset enjoys England’s highest proportion of conservation areas. The county is trimmed by the spectacular Jurassic Coast (starring locations such as Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove), England’s first natural World Heritage Site, whose cliffs are continuously revealing their prehistoric, fossilised secrets. History buffs, meanwhile, will love innumerable sites of archaeological interest, including Britain’s largest Iron Age hillfort, Maiden Castle. Practical information covers where and what to eat, where and what to see, and how to get around. This fourth edition: integrates recent changes across the county; covers additional villages in north Dorset; celebrates child-friendly activities; introduces local food and drink producers, artisans and community projects; and suggests new walks. Discover Dorset’s award-winning vodka made from milk; discover what really goes on at the Filly Loo Festival; challenge your tastebuds at the Great Dorset Chilli Festival; hunt fossils on beaches featured in the biopic film Ammonite, where Kate Winslet portrays world-famous palaeontologist Mary Anning; learn where never to say the word ‘rabbits’ (and why); discover the Lyme Regis rubber duck race; and get to grips with the fabulous Dorset dialect. Whatever your interest, be it local food, tours of award-winning wineries, horseriding, relaxing on award-winning beaches or spectacular coastal hikes, Dorset (Slow Travel) remains the essential companion guide for both enjoying the obvious sites and getting off the beaten track to understand what really makes this gorgeous, varied county tick.

Dorset is quintessential rural England: rolling hills, thatched houses, narrow, winding lanes and stunning stately homes and gardens. The author takes you on a personal journey through the county introducing some of Dorset's best kept secrets and hidden delights

This new, thoroughly updated and expanded second edition of Bradt’s New Forest – part of the award-winning Slow Travel series of guides to UK regions – focuses on this peaceful, enchanting area in Hampshire. Walkers, cyclists, wildlife lovers, families and foodies are all catered for, with coverage of a wide range of attractions. The only comprehensive travel guidebook to this compact, increasingly popular national park barely 90 minutes from London, it contains all the practical information you need to enjoy time here, including accommodation options ranging from fine hotels to campsites where grazing ponies may nose at your tent flap. Such free-roaming animals are integral to both the New Forest’s charm and its suitability for a Slow guide. Here ponies and cows routinely halt traffic, while donkeys peer into shop windows. In a region named one of the world’s top 10 destinations for outdoors enthusiasts in the 2022 TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Awards, truly wild creatures abound too. Sites of Special Scientific Interest cover over half the national park. All the UK’s six native reptile species occur, alongside its largest population of Dartford warblers. Given the region’s name, the landscape varies surprisingly. Wander through ancient, broad-leaved woodlands originally established as hunting grounds for King William I (William the Conqueror), or marvel at towering conifers at Rhinefield Arboretum. Explore miles of heathland, the yachting town of Lymington or the great coastal spit leading to Hurst Castle (where the ghost of King Charles I is said to wander by night). Alternatively, visit distinctive villages from 13th-century Beaulieu, with its abbey, palace and National Motor Museum, to Burley, infamous for witchcraft. Alongside providing practical information with a personal touch, experienced travel writer and local resident Emily Laurence Baker leads visitors behind the scenes to explain the ‘working Forest’, outlining how various organisations manage the land, how grazing animals have shaped it for centuries, and how the ‘commons’ system functions. She further brings the New Forest to life through interviews with local people, from butchers to conservationists, and agisters to verderers, making Bradt’s New Forest the must-have guide for all visitors to this beguiling region.

Besides the renowned sun, sea and sand, the Mascarene Islands offer outdoor opportunities aplenty, such as cycling, mountain hiking and watersports, as well as beautiful wildlife and national parks. The guide offers information on what to see and do region-by-region

This new, thoroughly updated third edition of South Devon and Dartmoor is part of Bradt’s distinctive ‘Slow Travel’ series of guides to UK regions, offering in-depth exploration of one of England’s most popular areas. Written by resident experts Hilary Bradt, the late Janice Booth, and Gill and Alistair Campbell, it remains the essential companion to discovering not just the obvious and well-known sites, but also for getting off the beaten track and understanding what makes this gorgeous part of the country tick. Much of the information in Bradt’s South Devon and Dartmoor has appeared in no other guidebook (apart from previous editions of this book) as the authors uncover the lesser-known charms of the region, as well as different aspects of the more popular places (from the English Riviera and South Hams to Salcombe and Dartmoor), together with colourful characters from the past, folk history and literary links from Agatha Christie to Arthur Conan Doyle. The guide has a special emphasis on car-free travel: walking (this edition features a revised selection of routes, including ‘miles without stiles’ – accessible Dartmoor walks), cycling and river boats, as well as local buses (including the new Dartmoor Explorer service) and trains. This edition has a stronger emphasis on local food (both in markets and when eating out), while the authors have updated their hand-picked suggestions for places to eat and drink, and for accommodation (from idyllically located campsites to boutique B&Bs, via caravans, treehouses and haunted coaching inns). Colourful and witty writing, along with the authors’ enthusiasm for their subject, makes the guide a pleasure to read. With Bradt’s South Devon and Dartmoor, discover the region’s award-winning gin distillery and new whisky distillery; learn what really goes on at a wassail gathering; find out what you should do if you're harassed by pixies on Dartmoor; and discover unique local events like the annual Orange Race held in Totnes. Also included are entertaining and informative stories about historical characters and folklore, while small and historic village churches, with their idiosyncratic saints and intriguing carvings, are described in loving detail.

Slow East Devon and the Jurassic Coast is the most comprehensive - and only standalone - guide available to this region. With publication timed to coincide with the opening of the Seaton Jurassic Centre, here is insider knowledge which can only be gained by living in the area. Contributions from local experts, and colourful and witty writing combined with the authors' enthusiasm, make this guide as much a pleasure to read as an invaluable companion for exploring. Exeter and the Exe Estuary get a chapter of their own, and parts of Mid Devon, including Tiverton, are covered in detail, along with East Devon's most alluring chunks of countryside and the seaside resorts of Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton and Beer. The chapter on West Dorset describes Lyme Regis and Charmouth along with brief descriptions of other coastal towns. An explanation of the geology of the entire World Heritage Site of the Jurassic Coast links the whole region. With an emphasis on car-free travel - walking, cycling and local buses - the detailed descriptions, historical and folk anecdotes, and personal accounts encourage visitors to explore each locale thoroughly. Hand-picked places to eat and drink, including all the eateries along the main artery of the A3052, are selected by the authors based upon long-standing knowledge of the area.

In this new, thoroughly updated third edition of Bradt’s The Cotswolds, part of Bradt’s distinctive ‘Slow Travel’ series of guides to UK regions, local resident and experienced travel writer Caroline Mills shares her favourite places in a region that remains as popular as ever. Drawing on more than 50 years’ living in the Cotswolds, and combining engaging first-person narrative with authoritative advice, Mills slows readers down and helps them delve deeply into a range of regions: the Cotswolds National Landscape Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB); the Cotswold escarpment, hills and valleys; the Wiltshire Cotswolds and the area known as the Four Shires; three Cotswold 'gateways' (Stratford-upon-Avon, Bath and Oxford); the lesser-known 'hidden' fringes of the Cotswolds, including the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, which follow much of the youthful Thames Valley, and the Cotswold Way National Trail. The Cotswolds’ rich manmade heritage includes Oxford University (the world’s oldest); many famous castles and country houses (including Blenheim Palace and Sudeley Castle), well-known abbeys such as Prinknash; and estates including Westonbirt Arboretum and Highgrove (the private home of King Charles III and the Queen Consort). Roman history is covered too, notably in Bath and Cirencester, together with the Fosse Way, one of the UK’s most important Roman roads. The guide adds colour through interviews with local residents who bring character to the region; activities to try with children; handpicked places to eat, drink and stay (from glamping and country-house hotels to B&Bs on working farms); coverage of the Arts & Crafts movement; numerous options for car-free travel; and quirky events such Gloucestershire’s annual cheese-rolling competition and Tetbury’s Woolsack Races. With a harmonious combination of quintessentially English villages, charming provincial market towns, appealing countryside and a wealth of local food-and-drink producers,the Cotswolds is an all-year-round destination, whether for a day trip, a quiet weekend away or a multi-week holiday. Whether your interests comprise formal gardens or crafts, historic buildings or horseriding, walking or gastronomy, Bradt’s Cotswolds (Slow Travel) is your perfect guide to facilitate in-depth exploration and intense enjoyment.

It is widely recognized that travel and tourism can have a high environmental impact and make a major contribution to climate change. It is therefore vital that ways to reduce these impacts are developed and implemented. 'Slow travel' provides such a concept, drawing on ideas from the 'slow food' movement with a concern for locality, ecology and quality of life. The aim of this book is to define slow travel and to discuss how some underlining values are likely to pervade new forms of sustainable development. It also aims to provide insights into the travel experience; these are explored in several chapters which bring new knowledge about sustainable transport tourism from across the world. In order to do this the book explores the concept of slow travel and sets out its core ingredients, comparing it with related frameworks such as low-carbon tourism and sustainable tourism development. The authors explain slow travel as holiday travel where air and car transport is rejected in favour of more environmentally benign forms of overland transport, which generally take much longer and become incorporated as part of the holiday experience. The book critically examines the key trends in tourism transport and recent climate change debates, setting out the main issues facing tourism planners. It reviews the potential for new consumption patterns, as well as current business models that facilitate hyper-mobility. This provides a cutting edge critique of the 'upstream' drivers to unsustainable tourism. Finally, the authors illustrate their approach through a series of case studies from around the world, featuring travel by train, bus, cycling and walking. Examples are drawn from Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. Cases include the Eurostar train (as an alternative to air travel), walking in the Appalachian Trail (US), the Euro-Velo network of long-distance cycling routes, canoe tours on the Gudena River in Denmark, sea kayaking in British Columbia (Canada) and the Oz Bus Europe to Australia.

Special interest tourism is growing rapidly due to a discerning and heterogeneous travel market and the demand for more focused activity or interest-based tourism experiences. This book approaches the topic from the perspective of both supply and demand, and addresses the complexities now inherent in this area of tourism. It presents a contextualised overview of contemporary academic research, concepts, principles and industry-based practice insights, and also considers the future of special interest tourism in light of the emergence of ethical consumerism. Sometimes referred to as niche or contemporary tourism, this book provides a complete introduction to the study of special interest tourism for students.

Secret Christchurch explores the lesser-known history of the town of Christchurch through a fascinating selection of stories, unusual facts and attractive photographs.