Yorkshire itinerary

With 12 days are you wanting to spend all that time in either Yorkshire Dales OR the North York Moors - or are you wanting to split between the two?

Pickering/Helmsely area makes a good base if you are wanting to visit the North York Moors as everywhere is easily reachable from there - and there's lots of good walking to do too! You have a ruined castles in Pickering and Helmsley and there are the ruined abbeys of Rievaulx, Byland, Whitby as well as Mount Grace Priory. There is the tiny church of Kirkdale Minster with its 1000 year old sundail as well as the equally old old St Hilda's Church in Ellerburn (a lovely walk from Thornton le Dale) . Don't miss a trip on the North York Moors railway either!

For the Dales, chooses a base for the Southern Dales (Settle, Grassington, Malham Area) and then one for the Northern area (Hawes, Reeth or Richmond).

The Southern Dales are probably more about scenery and walking, although you have a castle at Skipton and a rather splendid church too with the family tombs from the castle. You have access to the Three Peaks of Whernside, Pen y Ghent and Ingleborough.

Froim a northern base, there are ruined castles at Richmond, Middleham as well as Bolton Castle. There are the waterfalls at Asygarth as well as the impressive Hardraw Force near Hawes.

Hi -

Wasleys beat me to it! I was going to suggest just about everything in their post!

However, on the coast you could check out Robin Hoods Bay, Runswick Bay and Staithes. Avoid the honeypots - tacky ones at that - of the likes of Bridlington and Scarborough.

Helmsley is an excellent base for investigating the east coast and the North Yorkshire Moors. You might visit Ripon, Fountains Abbey and Masham, all of which are near York and are between the Dales and the N. Y. Moors. Wasleys have covered places to stay in the Dales excellently, but as my home dale is Wharfedale it would be remiss of me not to mention the tiny settlements north of Grassington up Upper Wharfedale. Tranquil, excellent walking but not much in the way of castles it has to.be said.

Feel free to ask for more specific details as you try to pin down, or once you’ve established your itinerary. Wherever you go, I’m sure you’ll have a great trip! Weather permitting of course!

Ian

I love Yorkshire. You have some great advice here already. Some of my favourite things in Yorkshire:

-York- Minster, Railway Museum, Jorvik Viking Centre, walking around
-The Dales- Already covered well above
-The coast- There is great walking along the Cleveland Way, particularly between Robin Hood's Bay and Whitby- it's a great way to enter Whitby. Additionally further down you have the Bempton Cliffs RSPB site, which is a great place to see birds tho unfortunately by September the puffins will no longer be around. You can also take a boat from Bridlington to see the cliffs which we really enjoyed last year.
-If you're interested in stately homes at all, there's Castle Howard, which also has beautiful grounds.

Outside Leeds, you also have Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the Coal Mining Museum, and Saltaire- I haven't been to any of these but they are all on my list to visit one day- good luck with your planning!

Saltaire is a good shout - it’s a good spot for a rainy day! You can while away hours in the mill building. But the village is worth a wander round as well. I was going to mention (but forgot!) Haworth if you are in any way interested in the Brontes. It’s a more ‘grittier’ part of the southern dales (some would say not the Dales at all, and they’d probably be right) on the edge of the big Leeds/Bradford conurbation, but if you are a fan, I’d say it’s an essential visit. If you’re not a fan, avoid, because it gets mad busy and probably more so given the recent release of the ‘Wuthering Heights’ movie - even though very little, if any, of it was shot in the environs of Haworth.

Ian

Hi adcallahan, you have gotten some great advice above! I love Yorkshire, although I will admit to a preference for the North Yorkshire Moors over the Dales. It's so beautiful and to me a little bit more "wild" than the Dales. But don't get me wrong, the Dales are pretty nice, too. If you enjoy watching "All Creatures Great and Small" on PBS, you will enjoy seeing some of the towns they use for filming, like Grassington.

Here is a link to my trip report. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/england/wandering-around-england-in-38-days-march-to-april-2024 I spent a little under six weeks in England 2 years ago and while there, I spent a week based outside of Helmsley in the North Yorkshire Moors. It was just such a wonderful time, but you might want to see some of the things that I visited while I was there in case those look good to you.

It's really a beautiful and magical place, but then you can say that about so many places in England. However, I do have a special fondness for North Yorkshire and also the Peak District. 😊

Additionally further down you have the Bempton Cliffs RSPB site, which is a great place to see birds tho unfortunately by September the puffins will no longer be around.

I did this and loved going there. It was so much fun to stand out over these huge cliffs and see all the birds there. Thousands and thousands of them. I was there in April, so there were some puffins there, but even without them, it's a wonderful place. Honestly, just reading your post makes me want to go back to North Yorkshire.

Thank you all! These are great suggestions and give me plenty to start working with.

You can tour Holmfirth, Marsden, Jackson Bridge etc to see filming sites for Last of the Summer Wine. As an aside, the sole writer for all of the show's three-plus decades was recently knighted.

Another suggestion: A narrowboat excursion through Standedge Tunnel. Quite the history there - it is the longest (3.25 miles), highest, and deepest canal tunnel in the United Kingdom.

Castle Howard was one of the highlights of my Yorkshire trip.