Dorset Holidays and Escorted Coach Tours
Dorset fits a great deal into a short stretch of coast. Ninety-odd miles of cliff, cove and shingle make up the Jurassic Coast, England's only natural World Heritage Site, and behind it lie chalk downs, heathland and the market towns Thomas Hardy renamed for his novels.
Our Dorset holidays are five-day coach tours based in and around Bournemouth, so you unpack once and leave the narrow lanes to the driver. Excursions take in Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove, Poole Harbour and, depending on the tour, the steam trains of the Swanage Railway.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Dorset Tours
More than on a town-based tour, though none of it is compulsory. Lulworth Cove and Old Harry Rocks are seen from paths that rise and fall along the cliffs, and the beach at Durdle Door is reached by a steep descent with steps, which some passengers skip in favour of the view from the top. Cliff-top ground can be uneven and windy. Tell us what you are comfortable with and we will be straight with you about each excursion.
Yes, on a limited basis. Each of our Dorset tours holds a set number of single rooms at no supplement — ten on some departures, six on others — and once those are taken the usual supplement applies. Quoted prices are per person sharing a twin or double and are based on 30 passengers travelling. Ask us how many singles are still free on the departure you are looking at.
The listed attractions are included, and they vary by tour: some departures include the Swanage Railway, a Poole Harbour and island cruise and an attraction ticket, others the Russell-Cotes Museum and the Upside Down House. Where a National Trust property features, entry is covered for members, so bring your card. If you are not a member, ask us before you book and we will tell you what the position is on your tour.
What the Jurassic Coast actually is
The name has nothing to do with the film. The cliffs between Exmouth in Devon and Studland in Dorset expose roughly 185 million years of rock, tilted so that walking east to west takes you back through the Cretaceous, the Jurassic and into the Triassic. Fossils fall out of the cliffs after winter storms, which is why the coast has been picked over by collectors since Mary Anning's day.
The set pieces are all within an easy drive of Bournemouth. Durdle Door is a limestone arch on a beach reached by a steep path down from the cliff top. Lulworth Cove, a mile east, is an almost perfect circle where the sea broke through a hard limestone wall and then chewed out the softer clays behind it.
Further west, Chesil Beach runs for eighteen miles as a shingle bank with the pebbles graded by size along its length. Old Harry Rocks, at the eastern end, are chalk stacks in the same band of chalk that reappears as the Needles.
Bournemouth as a touring base
Bournemouth was farmland and heath until the 1810s, which is why it looks the way it does: pine-lined chines running down to seven miles of sand, Victorian and Edwardian villas on the cliffs, and a pier at the centre of it all. The town has one of the better sunshine records in the country, and the promenade is flat and long enough for a proper walk before dinner.
It also makes a sensible base because the good things are close. Poole Harbour, a short run west, is one of the largest natural harbours in the world; Brownsea Island in the middle of it holds red squirrels and the site of Baden-Powell's first Scout camp in 1907. The Swanage Railway runs steam trains past Corfe Castle.
On the East Cliff, the Russell-Cotes Museum and Art Gallery is an Italianate seaside villa built in the 1890s and still hung with its founders' Victorian paintings.
