Coach Holidays to Northumberland and Hadrian's Wall
Northumberland is a big, thinly populated county with its best things spread widely apart: a castle on a crag at Bamburgh, a tidal island at Lindisfarne, a Roman fort on a ridge above Hexham, a walled market town at Alnwick. Driving between them yourself means maps, parking and tide tables. On a coach you look out of the window instead.
Our Northumberland holidays run four and five days with private coach travel throughout, breakfast and evening meals, and the excursions arranged in advance. They suit both individual travellers and clubs booking a whole tour.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Coach Holidays to Northumberland Tours
Four or five days, with four nights in one hotel. That gives three or four full excursion days without the schedule feeling rushed, and it means you unpack once. Distances between the coast, Alnwick and the Wall are modest by coach, so most days involve an hour or so of driving rather than a long haul. Departure dates and durations for the coming season are on each tour page.
Puffins are ashore on the Farnes from around April until late July, when the young birds leave and the adults return to the open sea. Late spring is usually the liveliest time on the islands, with terns and guillemots nesting too. Atlantic grey seals are around for far more of the year. Boat trips can be cancelled at short notice in rough weather, which is a decision the skipper makes on the day.
The itineraries include Lindisfarne itself, crossing the causeway by coach. The causeway floods on every tide, so the visit is planned around safe crossing times published in advance, which is one of the more useful things about not driving yourself. Timings mean the length of the visit varies between departures. Ask us if you want to know roughly how long you will have on the island for a particular date.
Each of our Northumberland tours sets aside a number of single rooms with no supplement, and these are allocated as bookings come in. Solo travellers are a normal part of these holidays rather than an exception. Because the no-supplement rooms are limited and go early, it is worth ringing us as soon as you have a date in mind to check what is still available.
More than a purely scenic tour, less than a walking holiday. Housesteads sits above its car park on a slope, Durham's cathedral peninsula is cobbled and uphill in places, and Bamburgh beach is level but soft underfoot. Alnwick Garden and Beamish both involve a good deal of standing and strolling. Most sites can be enjoyed at your own pace, and you are never obliged to join an excursion. Ask us about a specific itinerary if you have concerns about mobility.
Entrance fees for the listed excursions are covered as stated on each tour page. Two of the Northumberland itineraries note entrance to National Trust properties where you are a member, so bring your card with you if you have one, as the Farne Islands, Housesteads and Cragside are all Trust or Trust-linked sites. Ask us what applies on the departure you are considering if you are not a member.
The coast, Holy Island and the Farnes
The Northumberland coast is nearly all sand and whinstone, with fewer people on it than any comparable stretch in England. Bamburgh Castle sits on a rock above three miles of beach, and the walk along the shore below it is one of the great simple pleasures of the county. Our Coast and Castles of Northumberland tour puts that beach, a boat trip to the Farne Islands and Lindisfarne in the same four days.
The Farnes are a seabird colony run by the National Trust: puffins, guillemots, kittiwakes and terns in season, with Atlantic grey seals hauled out on the rocks for much of the year. Lindisfarne is reached over a causeway that floods twice a day, which is exactly the sort of timing a driver-guide keeps track of so you do not have to.
Hadrian's Wall and Roman Northumberland
Hadrian's Wall crosses the county on a ridge of hard volcanic rock, and the stretch between Housesteads and Steel Rigg is where it looks most like the frontier it was. The Roman North goes to Housesteads, the most complete fort on the Wall, with its granaries, barracks and famously well-engineered latrine block.
The same tour visits Vindolanda, where waterlogged ground has preserved leather, wood and the thin writing tablets that record soldiers' letters, kit lists and a birthday party invitation. Excavation continues most summers, so there is often work in progress to watch.
Also on the itinerary: Hexham, with its abbey crypt built from stone robbed from Roman Corbridge, and The Sill, the landscape discovery centre near Once Brewed with a grass roof you can walk onto for the view.
Castles, gardens and Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Alnwick appears on two of our tours: the castle, still the Percy family seat and familiar from film and television, and the Garden next door with its Grand Cascade, the Poison Garden and one of the largest tree houses in the country. The Kingdom of Northumbria tour includes a guided tour of the castle's State Rooms.
That tour also looks at the older story. Northumbria was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom and a centre of learning and early Christianity, and its saints are still the thread through the region: Cuthbert on Holy Island, Bede at Jarrow, both now buried in Durham Cathedral. The walking tour of Durham takes in the cathedral and the peninsula around it, and Beamish, the open-air museum of northern life, provides the industrial century that followed.
How the coach travelling works
Northumberland is a county of long, empty roads, and a coach handles them well. Our tours use private coach travel throughout, with an experienced driver, so there is no changing vehicles and no hunting for parking at Bamburgh or Housesteads on a busy weekend.
The pattern is one hotel for the whole stay and days out from it, which means unpacking once. Recent Northumberland tours have been based at The Hog's Head Inn at Alnwick, well placed for the coast, and the Gibside Hotel at Whickham for the Durham and Tyneside side of the programme.
- Breakfast and evening meals included
- Excursions and boat trip as listed in each itinerary
- Cancellation Protection included
- A number of single rooms with no supplement on each tour
Exact inclusions vary by departure, so check the individual tour page.
