Yorkshire Dales & Moors

Yorkshire’s two national parks offer very different versions of the north. The Yorkshire Dales are built from limestone valleys, high grassy fells and moorland ridges, divided by thousands of miles of dry-stone walls. Rivers vanish underground, waterfalls emerge from hidden passages and great scars of exposed rock reveal what lies beneath the fields.

To the east, the North York Moors open into broad sweeps of heather, ancient trackways and quiet valleys. The land eventually meets the North Sea along a coast of high cliffs, fishing villages and paths where the next headland always appears slightly farther away than expected.

The walking is equally varied. Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent form the celebrated Yorkshire Three Peaks, while Swaledale, Wharfedale and Wensleydale offer gentler routes between barns, meadows and old mining remains. Across the moors, long trails follow gritstone ridges before descending through wooded valleys towards Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay.

These are working landscapes rather than untouched wilderness. Generations of farmers, quarry workers, miners and drovers have shaped their paths and boundaries. Explore beyond the famous viewpoints and Yorkshire becomes quieter, rougher and considerably bigger than it first appears.