The Cotswolds is one of Britain's best-loved tourism hotspots, attracting a reported 38 million visitors every year (pre-Covid). Not bad for an area with just 139,000 residents.
Luckily, it's a great location to explore in a campervan, with plenty of chocolate box and picture postcard villages to explore, admire and take photos of.
The Cotswolds is Britain’s largest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Stretching from the very edge of Stratford-Upon-Avon to the honeyed stone spa town of Bath, it’s so large that exploring it all would be a fairly sizeable task for any holidaymaker, but for us the quintessential Cotswold experience comes from visiting towns such as Broadway, Bourton-on-the-Water, Moreton-in-Marsh, Burford and Stow on the Wold.
Being not far from the Cotswolds (the very edge of the AONB is within a stone's throw of CamperKing HQ) we've picked out our top five highlights for anyone visiting the Cotswolds in a campervan.
1. Broadway
Situated at the bottom of an escarpment that looks west towards such landmarks as the Malvern Hills and the Vale of Evesham, Broadway is one of the more popular spots on a visitor’s radar. A long snaking high street is flanked by numerous boutique shops, bakeries, ice-cream parlours, quaint independent cafés and restaurants, up-market hotels and, invariably, throngs of people drinking it all in. You’ll find it hard to leave here without parting with a little money.
There's plenty of parking available in and around the town, and you'll find a great Caravan and Motorhome Club Site just a short walk from the shops.
2. Bourton-on-the-Water
Bourton is always a busy and crowded place, and not just in the summer months, but the large Bourton Vale car park just outside the town centre helps swallow up the majority of the tourist traffic and is suitable for campervan drivers. The High Street is a picturesque tree-lined avenue sliced end to end by the shallow waters of the River Windrush.
In warmer weather you might find hundreds of people picnicking on the grass, relaxing on benches, or even cooling off by splashing about in the ankle deep water.
The river is also the scene of an annual summer football match, with goals set up in the water itself as two teams thrash it out – presumably in hilarious fashion – to win. While in Bourton, you might choose to visit the model village, a 9:1 scale recreation of the town, or Birdland with over 500 birds, many of them exotic species.
3. Lower Slaughter
This pretty little village so adequately sums up the Cotswolds, it's hard to see why you wouldn't pay a visit here just to enjoy its quintessential charm and calming appeal. The slow-moving River Eye passes mere feet from the front doors of the 16th and 17th century Cotswold stone cottages here, and the village has been immortalised in painting after painting thanks to its beauty.
4. Cotswold Farm Park
If you're on tour with your family, you could do a lot worse than heading to Cotswold Farm Park, the Gloucestershire attraction part-owned and run by Adam Henson of BBC Countryfile fame. The great thing about visiting in a campervan is that the park has its own well-kept campsite, and campers get free entry to the park itself, where you can feed lambs, check out rare breed farm animals, learn more about farming life and sometimes even meet Adam himself in between his various commitments.
5. Cotswold Lavender
For only a short couple of months each year (15 June to 7 August, so now's a great time to go!), Cotswold Lavender throws open its 70 acres of colourful fields and allows the general public in to wander among rows of this incredible vibrant and aromatic shrub. In peak time (July) you'll pay a little more to get in, but it's an affordable visit either way with plenty more to do, such as checking out the far-reaching views and following the woodland trail.
More great things to do and see in the Cotswolds
- Look out over as many as 16 counties from Broadway Tower
- Fill up on artisan foods and produce from the award-winning Daylesford Farm Shop
- Check out apex predators in action at Crocodiles of the World, near Burford
- Wander among nationally important trees at Batsford Arboretum
- Hike the 102-mile Cotswold Way
