I mentioned in my last blog how deciding to visit Cardiff, Wales, in January was quite a choice. 😂 And while we enjoyed our time in Cardiff, the real highlight of our visit to Wales was the day trip we took to the Gower Peninsula. We had considered renting a car in advance of the trip, but we decided against it in case the weather was going to be bad — so we basically booked and planned our road trip less than 24 hours before we set off.
Here’s what our day trip from Cardiff to the Gower Peninsula looked like, and what you need to know if you want to plan your own.
About the Gower Peninsula
As we planned our trip, the three of us — me, my husband Matt, and our friend Hanna — were kind of expecting the fact that a city in the UK might not be the most inspiring place to spend the first few days of January. So Hanna started investigating other places nearby for potential day trip destinations. And that’s how she learned about the Gower Peninsula.
The Gower Peninsula, which is about 70 square miles in area, is in Southwest Wales and juts out into the Bristol Channel. Most importantly, though, is the fact that the Gower Peninsula was named the first-ever Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the United Kingdom. Now, there are 46 AONB across the entire UK, with four in Wales and one on the England-Wales border. But the Gower Peninsula holds the title as the first to earn the designation, back in 1956.
According to Natural Resources Wales, Areas of Natural Beauty are “protected by law because of their special landscape qualities, wildlife, geology and geography … In terms of landscape and scenery, they are equal to National Parks.”
With that in mind, we were really excited to set out on our Gower Peninsula adventure.
Car Rental Logistics
Our favorite car rental company, whether in the U.S. or Europe, is Sixt. They’re so hassle-free compared to so many other rental car companies, and they have great customer service, too. Our second favorite is Hertz because we automatically get President’s Circle status through our CapitalOne Venture X credit card. But considering where our hotel was in Cardiff, and the fact that there were very few rental car places open that week (it was two days after New Year’s Day), we had to go with Avis.
I’ve had a lot of problems with Avis in the past, but I think we all had our best-ever experience with the Avis in downtown Cardiff. We booked the car one day in advance, and when we arrived to pick it up the next morning, the team was super friendly and our car was ready. There were no scare tactics, and we were in and out in almost no time. And while we’d originally put in our booking that we’d return the car by 9 p.m., the lads behind the desk told us that since they were closing at 8 p.m., we really just needed to make sure we were back before they opened the next morning.
A few other notes about renting a car in the UK:
- An international driver’s license was not required, but Matt (our driver for the day) had to bring his passport and U.S. license.
- Many cars are manual transmission, so be sure to select an automatic when making your booking if that’s what you want.
- You will have to drive on the LEFT side of the road.
To have the car for about 12 hours, we paid the equivalent of $88 for an automatic car that was not the tiniest one available, so we probably could have knocked a bit off the price if we’d gone for a smaller car.
One other important thing to know when renting a car (anywhere) is that several of the most popular travel credit cards — the CapitalOne Venture X and the Chase Sapphire Preferred, for example — have really great rental car insurance, so you need to decline the insurance offered by the rental car company. That will also save you money!
Gower Peninsula Stop #1: Mumbles, Wales
So, we set out on the road — Matt a bit nervous, as he was the only one of the three of us who had never driven on the left before. But once we got out of Cardiff center and onto the highway, he relaxed a bit. Highway driving is highway driving.
We decided that our first stop would be a town called Mumbles. When we’d told the guys at Avis our plan to go to the Gower Peninsula, they’d suggested Mumbles, so we drove just over an hour before arriving in Mumbles. (“Don’t bother with Port Talbot, by the way. There’s nothing there.”)
Mumbles was a cute little beach town on Swansea Bay, but the problem was that it was January 3rd. We parked at Knab Rock Car Park and walked the few minutes to Mumbles Pier, where there was absolutely nothing going on. It was absolutely freezing in the shade and blinding in the sun, and pretty much every shop and cafe was closed. We had a quick breakfast at apparently the only restaurant in town that was open, Copperfish Cafe, considering that it was somehow packed with people.
When we finished eating, there wasn’t much else to do or see in the area. I’m gonna go ahead and say Mumbles is a better summer destination than a winter one. Though apparently we missed something that very highly rated on Google: The Big Apple. Check out those reviews. 🤣
Gower Peninsula Stop #2: Pennard Castle & Three Cliffs Bay Hike
From Mumbles, we didn’t really have any specific destination in mind until someone looked at a map and said “Three Cliffs Bay sounds cool.” Though it turned out that Three Cliffs Bay isn’t really somewhere you can drive directly to, so the next order of business was finding out where we could park before starting the hike there. A quick Google search told me that the Gower Heritage Centre had parking for a few pounds, so we set off.
As we neared the Heritage Centre, we drove through a village that was so untouched by the sun that it felt like we were in a winter wonderland — all the frost was still sparkling on every surface.
When we arrived, we went the building to pay the £5 parking fee and get some more information on how to get to Three Cliffs Bay. The workers inside the Gower Heritage Center were so kind and helpful, telling us how to get to the Bay with a stop at a castle, and they even suggested we try to watch the sunset at the Worms Head in Rhossili later that day. (Which was great, because we didn’t have any plans for after this.) The Heritage Centre is also a museum, and while it costs £8 for adults, they give you a £5 if you paid for parking. We thanked the workers for their help and decided we’d try to do the museum if we had time after our Three Cliffs Bay hike.
About 25 minutes after setting off, and hiking uphill most of the way, we came across Pennard Castle. Originally built in the early 12th century, it’s now maintained by the Pennard Golf Club, on whose course the castle now sits.
But besides the impressive stone ruins, Pennard Castle area gave us our first great look at Three Cliffs Bay. From there, we continued our hike toward the beach, and luckily it’s not as steep as it looks in the photo below. There’s a trail you can follow to the left that will take you much more gently past the streams and to the sand.
Once you make it to the beach, it’s like the surrounding terrain totally changes. While moments ago you were on top of these lush rolling green hills, now it seems like you could be on the moon or something. Between the moss-covered sharp black rocks, and the wet sand molded into strange patterns by the tide, we couldn’t stop taking pictures.
There’s also a choose-your-own-adventure type vibe that you can really lean into — how committed are you to climbing over sharp rocks to keep getting closer to the sea? Or hiking through a dripping tunnel to see what’s on the other side, though if you make one wrong step you risk falling into the stream and being wet for the rest of the day?
So, you’ll definitely want to wear good shoes. 🙂
We ended up spending about two hours in the Three Cliffs Bay area before deciding to head back, but it was absolutely an amazing stop on our Gower Peninsula trip! Nothing we did was too strenuous, and we saw lots of other people, families with kids and dogs, also enjoying the scenery and sunshine on a cold January day.
By the way — when you’re ready to head back to the car, you don’t need to hike all the way back up to pass by the castle. Just stay on the lower ground in front of the castle’s hill, following where you see other people coming from, and it’s a lot more flat on the way back.
Gower Peninsula Stop #3: Worms Head Causeway, Rhossili
Wanting to make the sunset in Rhossili — and knowing that sunset was at 4:21 p.m. — we didn’t end up having time for the Gower Heritage Centre museum. But it’s a good thing we left when we did, because when we typed “Rhossili” into the car’s GPS, it took us to Rhossili Bay, which is much closer to the town of Hillend than to Rhossili.
And while it’s only three miles between the two towns as the crow flies, the Welsh country roads are a different story, so we had to backtrack about five miles before getting on the right road for five more miles. Which was about a 30-minute ordeal. We arrived and parked the car around 3:45 p.m., giving us about half an hour to make it out to Worms Head before the sun set.
Ok, so you might be wondering: What is Worms Head? Worms Head is the westernmost point of the Gower Peninsula, and it’s basically an island in the sea that is connected to the mainland only when the tide is low. An old coast guard lookout station warns visitors about what time they need to be back from their trek to the island. We were there too late in the day to actually go out before the tide came in and covered the causeway (walkway) so when I say we went to Worms Head, it was really more like a viewpoint.
But wow, what a view it was.
From the car park, it doesn’t seem like it would take long to get out to the viewing area, but it’s about a mile. And it takes longer than it might normally take you to walk a mile, because the views of everything around you are just absolutely amazing and you might need to stop and take pictures constantly. There’s the Rhossili Bay Beach stretched out to one side, green cliffs to the other, and we even came across a few grazing sheep and a pack of wild horses. Add in the impending sunset changing the colors every few minutes, we were just in awe of everything.
While the Gower Heritage Centre workers had told us Worms Head was also an amazing place to stargaze — and a prime location for spotting shooting stars — we decided to grab dinner at the Helvetia Bar in the Worms Head Hotel before setting back off for Cardiff.
Final Thoughts: Cardiff to the Gower Peninsula
For not having gone into the day with much of a plan, we couldn’t be happier with how our road trip to the Gower Peninsula turned out! While I might recommend skipping Mumbles if you’re visiting in the winter, I would 100% recommend the Three Cliffs Bay/Pennard Castle hike and a visit to the Worms Head in Rhossili, no matter the time of year.
And our road trip to the Gower Peninsula was definitely the highlight of our visit to Wales. It makes me want to explore even more of the Welsh countryside!
Plan Your Own Day Trip
Best Cardiff Hotels: Book Cardiff Wales Hotels
Day Trips to the Gower Peninsula (if you don’t want to rent a car): Mumbles and Gower Peninsular Tour From Cardiff // Gower Peninsula, Finest Cliffs of South Wales // Mumbles, Three Cliffs, Worms Head Gower Tour
If you’re thinking about visiting the Gower Peninsula, let me know what questions you have! And if you’ve already been there and you think I missed something, tell me in the comments below.
-Cathy
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