The Yorkshire Dales, England (Steve Allen/Shutterstock)
Looking for some Great British adventure inspiration? You're in the right place. Here you'll get an independent, ad-free lowdown on Britain's top 50 adventure locations - the online yin to the paper yang of our Joyously Busy Great British Adventure Map.
Why Go To The Yorkshire Dales?
Yorkshire has it all, as anyone from that part of the country will tell you. Just some of things you can do in the Yorkshire Dales that you can't do anywhere else..
Do the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge: hike up Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough
Enjoy the unique sights of the Dales: the natural rock amphitheatre of Malham Cove, large waterfalls like Hardraw Force and Cautley Spout, and beautiful spots including Grassington Moor, Bishopdale and Langstrothdale
Marvel at the Ribblehead viaduct, or take the celebratedly scenic Settle - Carlisle train that trundles over it
Want to find out more? Read on for great photos, articles, videos, top tips and other content to fire up your adventure appetite. Got a question? Ask away.
Tell Me More
Lots of valleys (called dales), divvied up by drystone walls and topped by white limestone cliffs (scars) and dark millstone grit peaks (fells). Those are types of rock. Highest point: Whernside (736m), which perhaps oddly is higher than Great Whernside (704m). The centrepiece in northern England’s embarrassment of natural riches, recently expanded to adjoin the Lake District to the west, with the North York Moors to the east. Highlights: the natural rock amphitheatre of Malham Cove, several large waterfalls like Hardraw Force and Cautley Spout, and beautiful spots including Grassington Moor, Bishopdale, Langstrothdale and the Ribblehead viaduct, over which the celebratedly scenic Settle - Carlisle railway trundles.
The remarkable Ribblehead Viaduct, Yorkshire Dales (ford34/Shutterstock)
An essential journey in the Yorkshire Dales is the Settle - Carlisle railway, or the more strenuous Three Peaks Challenge. The long-distance Pennine Way also winds its way through the Dales.
Swaledale is described as a "crazy paving of walls... perhaps the wayward course of a drunken ploughman or rebellious ox" by Simon Jenkins, who lists it as one of his favourite views in England...
Another of the cheesy tourism videos we seem to like so much. It’s tough - you want not to like them but they are oddly charming (and this one does show off the Dales’ scenery very nicely)…
Getting To The Yorkshire Dales, Maps & Guides
Getting there: 2 hrs from Sheffield by car, 4.5 hrs from London.
Travel times from where you are: See the Yorkshire Dales on Google Maps.
Maps: Find the right Ordnance Survey maps and / or get a month's free subscription to their excellent OS Maps app.
Guidebooks: Try Rough Guides' or Bradt's Yorkshire guidebooks.
Walking route guidance: Yorkshire Dales national park walking guide.
Tourist board: Yorkshire Dales national park.
Even More Yorkshire Dales Adventure Inspiration
There's a good intro to the Dales on the Ordnance Survey's GetOutside blog. Christopher Somerville, the resident British walks expert at the Times covers the Langstrothdale walk here. The BBC's Ramblings podcast spent a whole series on the Dales Way. The Yorkshire Dales also feature in Rough Guides' favourite British road trips.
If all else fails, there's always the Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival...
What Next?
Click here to see 49 other Great British adventure locations and tell us about your adventures, plans and suggestions for these pages.
Britain's Best Outdoorsy Bits... Mapped!
Liking what you see, but fancy keeping it old school with an actual paper map? Our Joyously Busy Great British Adventure Map features all of Britain's best outdoorsy bits (including the Top 50), plus some enjoyably random and vaguely useful stuff too. Available either as a 2-sided fold-out map or a framed wall map (office furniture and fake plants not included).
