Nice areas for a short break near Bristol Airport

[HappyHaribo]

I’m looking for ideas for a base for a family holiday within approx an hours drive of Bristol Airport. Not bothered whether it’s coast or countryside, as long as we have easy access to pretty towns and villages, nice walks and scenery, cafes, children’s attractions etc. Where are the nicest areas where we could base ourselves? Recommendations please!

I reckon Bath would be a good bet!

Bath
Cheddar

Bradford on Avon is a gorgeous town which we’ve used as a base for visiting Bath for the day, Bowood House and Gardens (epic adventure playground), Castle Combe and Longleat Safari Park. There’s a whole website dedicated to walks that you can do from/near the town walkbradfordonavon.org/walks-in-bradford-on-avon

Head down the M5 to Exmoor, Tiverton is a lovely place to stay. You’ll have moors, wonderful coastline, plenty of places to visit in beautiful countryside.

After doing similar and staying in Bristol, I'd recommend Cardiff. It's about an hour. If you don't want a built up place then I'd recommend looking in the coastal villages around. Was very nice.

Bristol
Bath
Wells

Thanks everyone! Some great suggestions here. Is there much to interest younger children in Bath?

Cheddar Woods is an excellent base.

Bath is great, or if you want a slightly more "real" city why not Bristol itself? Having said that there are some great museums in Bath, our favourite is the working life one, a bit further out but a bit of a hidden gem, or the American museum. It isn't all Jane Austen frocks over that way. Plenty of nice parks too but be prepared to walk 🙂🙂

Or if you're thinking of Tiverton why not just stay in or near Exeter - loads for kids to do, it's about an hour from Bristol straight down the M5 (there is an airport in Exeter but it's tiny and after Flybe went bust - again - I'm not sure what state it's currently in, so lots of people locally fly to and from Bristol instead).

Good suggestions from others about Cheddar and Wells, the Somerset Levels round Glastonbury are lovely and unique, or if you want a decent base what about the county town of Taunton? Almost everything mentioned is about half an hour by car, some trains are also available to main cities like Exeter.

Or there's always Weston Super Mare which is about 30 or 40 minutes from Bristol airport and has a great beach when the tide is out - really depends what you all like doing.

Thanks, this is so useful! I like the idea of staying in a smaller village or rural area (most likely self catering) but with access to Bath and other places for day trips. Can anyone suggest any good family friendly self catering places in this area? Will definitely check out Cheddar Woods.

Anyone any accommodation ideas please?

Church Farm Country Cottages is between Bath and Bradford on Avon. It has an indoor pool and a games room, plus they can get you discounted tickets for Longleat.

Oh great, thank you. I'll check that one out. 😊

Still open to suggestions if anyone else has any inspiration?

We were facing a similar question last year about where to stay close to Bristol airport. But different to you in several ways: only for one night, and we didn’t have the kids with us, and we don’t live in the UK anyway (and nowhere near the coast) so everywhere is something of a novelty. In the end, after asking around on here, we decided to go for Weston Super Mare: lots of people warned us that it was a bit of a dump, so actually when we got there with low expectations we were quite positively impressed instead because it wasn’t that dumpy. Weston is only half an hour from the airport, which left more time to spend there on the morning of departure. We had a lovely walk along the beach, nearly cut off by the rising tide on a little stone jetty/pier thing (locals will know what I mean), which provided a frisson of excitement, had fish’n’chips on the promenade, watched the setting sun across the channel in a beachside bar, went to a local backstreet pub for a late beer, then full English breakfast next to the beach the following moring. It was all surprisingly nice.
Our alternative would have been Cheddar Gorge, but we think that would have required two nights because it was further away and we would want to do some proper hikes if there.

Thanks LadyGrey - I’m glad it exceeded your expectations! 😁

There’s really too much choice all within close drive of Bristol - Hay on Wye looks lovely, Frome, Wells, Lacock, Cotswolds. Decisions, decisions!

Not self catering but we stayed in a lovely guest house in Cheddar with an outdoor pool. We stopped off on the way to Cornwall and I really enjoyed it. More than Cornwall if I'm honest.

Thanks - what was Cheddar village like and was it really busy?

Recommend Corsham with a visit to Bowood house for the kids

Bristol itself is great as there is lots to do such as the S S Great Britain, M Shed, Suspension Bridge and the Wild Place on the outskirts. There are numerous eateries The National Trust Tyntesfield also near by.
There are also pending festivals eg Harbour regatta and the Balloon festival. Bath is a cheap train ride 20 minutes - I would avoid driving in Bath central if possible. However You have to drive to the American Museum on the outskirts but that would be on another day.
it has stunning grounds.

Close to Bristol are places like Lacock and Stourhead also Bowood ( with lots of slides etc)

It was nice enough. Quite small, not too busy, lovely Thai restaurant. It was a really nice place to relax if that's what you want.

How about cotswold water park, Fairford is a very pretty village. Villages further west are closer and also lovely.

Thanks everyone, some really helpful ideas here.

Just reading how long it takes to get from Bristol to anywhere else cause of the traffic! 😏