Car-free holidays in The Lake DistrictCumbria
The Lake District may not sound like an area that would be easy to explore by public transport, but in fact you can arrive on a speedy train (much faster than driving) and then get around on an excellent network of buses. Even better, the buses are often double decker and open-topped, giving you unbeatable views over the lakes and mountains.
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How to get to the Lake District and how to get around without a car
Arrive by train and explore by bus, bike, boat or on foot.
- How to get to the Lake District without a car: The railway is a great way to arrive for car-free adventures in the Lakes. Avanti West Coast runs fast trains to Penrith from Glasgow (just over two hours) and London Euston (three hours – about half the time it would take in a car).
- Trains on the branch line for Windermere leave from Oxenholme regularly. And the scenic Cumbrian coastal railway from Carlisle to Lancaster opens up some more remote areas, away from the Lake District’s tourist hot spots.
- How to get around the Lakes without a car: A great network of buses connects the major sights and a range of dayrider and explorer tickets that offer you hop-on-hop-off freedom. You can also buy a Bus and Boat ticket, which combines one day’s unlimited bus travel in a specified area with a boat ride on one of four lovely lakes.
- There are bikes to hire at Windermere station and some spectacular walks across the area from gentle stream-side strolls to hiking in the mountains. There’s even a special Rambler Ticket on the bus for groups doing linear walks.
- The Dales Way, the famous Coast to Coast, the Cumbria Way and a host of other routes criss cross the county. And new sections of the England Coast Path have recently opened too.
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Where to base yourself for a car-free holiday in the Lake District
With waterside walks and literary connections, moors and mountains, flowering woods or wildlife-rich dunes, the Lake District national park is heaving with great places to visit. Scroll down for more details about stunning staycations in each of these Cumbrian towns and villages.
- Make Windermere your base and you’re at the heart of the action, by England’s largest lake with boat rides, bike rides, and a stylish boat museum on the doorstep and scenic buses from the door to Wordsworth Grasmere.
- Stay in Penrith, just outside the national park, to reach tranquil Ullswater and head west to Keswick with its fell walks, cultural venues, and links to Whinlatter Forest.
- For a totally different kind of Cumbrian holiday, Ravenglass near the coast is close to steam railways, sandy beaches and some of the less touristed western lakes.
Keep reading for more about memorable car-free holidays in each of these places.
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Windermere
At the end of little a branch line from Oxenholme on the fast West Coast Main Line from London to Glasgow, the lakeside town of Windermere is in easy reach of Cumbria’s most famous attractions. Add PlusBus to your Windermere train ticket and you can travel as far as Grasmere, including on the open-top buses.
- Wordsworth Grasmere is just half an hour’s beautiful ride away from Windermere station on bus 599 or bus 555. The buses here are often open-topped and have epic views across the lakes and mountains. To get there, follow Good Journey’s directions and get 35% off when you arrive by bus.
- The poet William Wordsworth lived, with his family, in little whitewashed Dove Cottage from 1799 to 1808. Wordsworth Grasmere reopened after a £6.5 million makeover: Dove Cottage now recreates the sights, sounds and even smells of the Wordsworths’ life and writing here and lies at the heart of a cultural hub with museums, gardens and a café.
- Back in Windermere, there are more great attractions to visit. Windermere Jetty Museum opened in March 2019 and houses a varied collection of Lakeland craft: Beatrix Potter’s sturdy rowing boat, elegant varnished teak steam launches and Miss Windermere IV hydroplane. To get to the museum follow Good Journey’s directions.
- Take a boat from Bowness or Ambleside Pier and cruise around Windermere. For bespoke guided tours of the area, check out Hidden Lakeland.
- For more suggestions of things to do in the area, see our car-free guide to Windermere.
- Stay at YHA Ambleside, which is right by the water and has private rooms. It’s five miles north of the station, an easy bus ride on the 599 or 555. Bus 505 stops nearby too. Get off at the stops called Pier or Waterhead Hotel. Alternatively, keep going one more stop to the bus station for the cheerful, comfortable Ambleside Inn B&B, which recently had a transformational revamp. There are popular dinners in the restaurant and doubles. For an even fancier option, Grasmere’s country-house-style Wordsworth Hotel has views of village or fells from the chandelier-hung bedrooms and of the garden from the jacuzzi.
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Penrith
The pretty market town of Penrith, just north of the National Park, makes a great hub for car-free visitors to the Lake District. Fast Avanti West Coast trains from London Euston and Glasgow take about half the time of driving. Book in advance for much cheaper tickets. Once you’ve got here, there are regular buses to Ullswater, Keswick and beyond.
- Ullswater, the Lake District’s second largest lake, is just twenty minutes’ bus ride south of Penrith. Here, you can stroll through the woods where Wordsworth saw his dancing daffs or catch a boat to Aira Force waterfall. Ullswater Steamers leave from Pooley Bridge, at the Penrith end of the lake, several times a day even in winter. See Good Journey’s directions.
- For more information about this and other trips from Penrith, see our car-free guide.
- Buses X4 and X5 set off hourly from Penrith (more in summer) for a scenic journey along the north edge of the Lake District to Keswick. Here you can visit Castlerigg Stone Circle or Keswick museum, take in a show at the Theatre by the Lake or a boat trip over tranquil Derwentwater.
- There are all kinds of Wordsworth-related sights in this area too. Our blogger, Phoebe, followed in the poet’s footsteps for this Guardian feature.
- From Keswick, you can take a bus to Whinlatter Forest, the only true mountain forest in England. Just follow Good Journey’s directions.
- If you’re thinking of catching a few buses, you can buy good value day tickets: a Penrith and Ullswater day rider or an Explorer ticket for the whole of the North West. There are bus/boat combo tickets too. To hire bikes, book ahead at Arragon’s cycle hire, two minutes’ walk from Penrith bus station.
- For a great base in Penrith with a popular restaurant and swimming pool, check out the North Lakes hotel and spa, just ten minutes’ walk from the station. Or if you’d rather be based in the fell-ringed towns further west, YHA Keswick is close to the bus stop for the X4/X5 from Penrith and was nicely refurbished after storms and floods in 2015.
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Ravenglass
Surrounded by salt marsh where the wide River Esk meets the sea, Ravenglass is a totally different kind of Lake District base. Sixteen million visitors a year arrive in Cumbria’s crowded hotspots, but the long sandy coast is often overlooked and full of hidden gems. Ravenglass is part of the UNESCO-listed Lake District landscape and the national park and it’s also part of the World Heritage site that includes Hadrian’s Wall: Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
- Change trains in Lancaster or Carlisle to take the slower coastal railway that meanders past green crags, foggy marshland, shining sands and looming fells.
- Half a mile from Ravenglass station, there’s a ruined Roman bathhouse, once part of a second-century fort.
- Muncaster Castle is a pleasant mile’s walk from Ravenglass. There are huge gardens outside, carved wood and tapestries inside, a Hawk and Owl centre, and miles of spring-flowering rhododendrons.
- The Ravenglass and Eskdale railway or “La’al Ratty” as the local narrow-gauge steam railway is nicknamed runs inland to the foot of England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike (see Good Journey’s directions). From the far end of this little railway, you can hike over tarn-topped moorland or amble round the Dalegarth Falls, a series of ferny, fairy-tale cascades. Eskdale Mill is just a ten-minute stroll down country lanes from Boot station.
- In the summer, there is a free shuttle bus to Wasdale Head for walks in the fells and around Wastwater, England’s deepest lake. Two buses run through in the morning from near Ravenglass station and back in the evening so you can access this beautiful valley car-free and keep it peaceful.
- One stop north of Ravenglass on the regular coastal railway, the thousand acres of dunes near Drigg are full of interesting plants and birds: white burnet roses, marram grass, stone chats and sand martins.
- Six stops (half an hour) north on this train brings you to Whitehaven, a post-industrial town with Georgian architecture. From here you can access one of the new stretches of coast path. Or, in wet weather, head for the town’s interesting museums.
- The Rum Story winds through a series of original cellars and warehouses to explore both grim and cheerful aspects of the “dark spirit of Whitehaven”. The waterside Beacon museum traces the area’s past through Vikings and Victorian trading ships. You can follow Good Journey’s directions to get to the Rum Story or the Beacon.
- The Pennington Hotel, just steps from the Esk estuary and three minutes’ from Ravenglass station makes a very comfortable base with double rooms.
