What area would be a good base for a Yorkshire holiday?

[VivaLeBeaver]

Looking at renting a cottage.

I'd like somewhere rural with nice walks, scenery very close by. But also fairly good access to better roads so we can go to bigger places and do stuff if the weather's bad.

Places we're interested in visting are Harrogate, Bradford media museum, Ingleton, Grassington.

Its hard to tell from looking at a map as I'm not sure how bad the roads are, so how long it takes to get places.. I have very fond memories of a childhood break in Kettlewell but I seem to remember it took ages to drive along the dale to get to Kettlewell.

If you go anywhere holidayish around there, you will always be subject to little windy roads - it's the landscape. It's worth having a look around the Skipton area. It's beautiful and central to all the places you want to visit.

North Yorkshire has loads of fabulous places to visit.

Skipton is the gateway to the Dales and is an excellent choice. If you wanted to get to the coast one day I would suggest staying near York as there is loads to do in York and the surrounding area.

I'm afraid that the media museum is showing its age these days and I didn't really enjoy our visit there last year, but another place worth visiting in the Bradford area is Saltaire. There is also Haworth, the Worth Valley Railway, Bolton Abbey, Skipton Castle, which is brilliant, loads of pretty villages in the Dales, Ilkley, Otley - so many places. You could even pick up a train in Skipton and do the Settle to Carlisle trip. Leeds is worth a visit - so much more to see there than Bradford - Kirkstall abbey, the abbey house museum, the wonderful Leeds market and Victorian arcades, the Corn Exchange, the fascinating Thackray medical museum the Royal Armories (which I found rather dull).

I used to live in Leeds and have happy memories of visiting all those places.

That's brilliant, lots of ideas. Thanks - will start looking round the Skipton area.