Start from 26 curated places around Snowdonia, GB, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Olif
A Welsh tapas and gin bar in the middle of Betws-y-Coed, plating small sharing dishes that mix Spanish style with Welsh produce. It is the most contemporary place to eat in a village otherwise full of pubs and tearooms.
Pont y Pair Inn
A friendly village pub beside the old bridge over the Afon Llugwy in Betws-y-Coed, doing hearty plates and local ales after a day on the hills. It is the reliable, unpretentious dinner in the village's busiest corner.
Trails & outdoors
Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) via the Llanberis Path
The longest but most gradual route up the highest mountain in Wales, shadowing the mountain railway from Llanberis to the summit. It is the path most first-timers choose, a long, steady plod rather than a scramble, with the cafe and train at the top.
Snowdon via the Pyg Track and Miners' Track
The classic loop up Yr Wyddfa from Pen-y-Pass, climbing the rugged Pyg Track past Glaslyn lake and descending the gentler Miners' Track. It is shorter and far more dramatic than the Llanberis path, with the finest mountain scenery of any route.
Things to do
Zip World Llechwedd
An adventure complex built into a former slate mine at Blaenau Ffestiniog, with underground zip lines, a vast cavern of bouncing nets and deep-mine tours. It is the headline rainy-day-proof activity of the area and turns the slate heritage into a playground.
Ffestiniog Railway
The oldest surviving narrow-gauge railway in the world, built in 1836 to haul slate and now carrying passengers thirteen miles from Porthmadog harbour up into the mountains at Blaenau Ffestiniog. The little steam trains climb through forest and past lakes on a genuinely scenic line.
Landmarks & sights
Harlech Castle
One of Edward I's ring of conquest castles, perched on a crag that once had the sea at its foot, with a famous gatehouse and a near-vertical 'way from the sea' stairway. The ramparts give some of the widest views in Wales, across Cardigan Bay to the Llyn Peninsula.
Portmeirion
An Italianate fantasy village built over fifty years by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis on a private wooded peninsula, best known as the set for the 1960s series The Prisoner. It is part folly, part garden, part film set, and unlike anywhere else in Wales.