Usha Gap Campsite

Nearby market town Richmond has been described as ‘an absolute gem’ by the Rough Guide and we fully agree (and want to go back to Richmond Castle). There are the usual shops, pubs and restaurants to be expected in any big town, but it’s all on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and has an eleventh century castle in its town centre. There are oodles of other towns and villages within easy reach, such as Reeth with the Swaledale Museum; Hawes for the Wensleydale Cheese Creamery, and Aysgarth with the famous Aysgarth Falls, favourite spot of dale and moor wanderer Wordsworth. Both Aysgarth and Richmond have national park centres crammed with info on what to do in the park, from horse-riding and mountain biking to canoeing and caving. If you don’t mind a drive for a day trip, there are two other national parks to reach from Usha Gap: the North York Moors National Park is to the east and leads to seaside towns like Scarborough, Whitby and Bridlington, and the Lake District National Park is to the west to see England’s highest mountain and deepest lake. Sticking closer to home, most folk who come to North Yorkshire want to walk at least a bit of it: both the Pennine Way and the Coast to Coast Path meet at Muker and there are several smaller stretches of both for those who want to do a day walk.