Southwest England Complete Guide 2026: Cotswolds, Bath, Cornwall, Devon & Jurassic Coast
Browse more guides: United Kingdom (england) travel | Europe destinations Southwest England Complete Guide 2026: Cotswolds, Bath, Cornwall, Devon and the Jurassic Coast TL;DR Southwest England is the part of Britain I keep returning to, and after seven separate trips across the region I am convinced it gives the best ratio of scenery, history, and walkable towns of anywhere in the UK outside London. The Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (designated 1966, 1,990 square kilometres) packs honey-coloured villages like Bibury, Castle Combe, Bourton-on-the-Water, Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Campden and Snowshill into roughly two hours of driving. Bath, inscribed by UNESCO in 1987, is the only English city where you can soak in Roman thermal water under the same arches the legionaries used, then walk five minutes to John Wood the Younger's Royal Crescent (1767-1774) and Robert Adam's Pulteney Bridge (1773). Cornwall and Devon hand you a coastline that feels Mediterranean...