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St Michael’s Mount at sunrise

Bowerman’s Nose rock stack, Dartmoor

Like England but less so, the Southwest has long revelled in its otherness. It is the West Country, the nation within a nation, the supreme host welcoming visitors with an easy charm, but always staying slightly removed from the party; 'with' England, but not 'of' it, as Churchill once said of Britain’s relationship with continental Europe. For tourists it presents two contrasting personalities, being both the country’s most convivial holiday destination – all those resorts and holiday cottages and fish restaurants – and its most mysterious, rebellious region.

In the Southwest, myths and legends seem almost to seep from the ground. This is a land of swirling mists and lonely moors, its history filled with tales of legendary kings, smugglers holed up in secret caves and rebel leaders alighting on rocky shores ready to march on London. But it’s also a place of cream teas and surfing, of sunning yourself on sandy beaches and bracing coastal walks, of gentle literary tours and bobbing boat trips, of cycling along narrow country lanes, chiff-chuffing steam train rides and fish suppers on the harbourside. It’s a pirate in a kiss-me-quick hat. It’s King Arthur eating a scone. It’s a rebel leader with a plastic bucket and spade. Above all, it’s a profoundly beautiful place with an endlessly varied landscape that warrants thorough exploration, from the gentle rolling hills of Somerset through the tor-studded moorland of Devon to the craggy headlands and cliff-top castles of Cornwall.

As you head west and the peninsula tapers down towards the looming Atlantic, so the influence of the sea becomes ever greater. Much of the north coast is wave-battered and wild, the great ocean rollers providing the country’s best surfing conditions, which are harnessed to their most popular effect at Newquay, while the south is calmer, more sheltered and lined with deep water estuaries, picturesque fishing villages and large sprawling resorts.

Minack Theatre, near Porthcurno, Cornwall

The weather in these parts can often be filled with mean intent, throwing thick obscuring blankets of fog across the moors and hurling waves with ferocious abandon against the rocky shore. But it has its kinder side too – all that coastal battering has left behind a collection of lovely serene beaches at places like Salcombe, Falmouth and Fowey. And when the sun shines and the mist and clouds depart, revealing the landscape in all its verdant, patchwork, craggy, sandy glory, there are few places more idyllic in the whole country.

While the Southwest is perhaps best known for its natural and rural wonders – its proud, embattled cliffs, its noble sweeps of sand, its forbidding moorland expanses dotted with thatched cottages – it has plenty of urban treasures too: the honey-coloured architectural primness of Bath, the buzz and bluster of Bristol, the art galleries of St Ives and the fancy fish restaurants of Padstow among them.

The Southwest is also where the nation’s most determined eccentrics come to indulge their quirkiest passions, where wonderful follies and grandly odd projects are given life, where people create giant tropical greenhouses in abandoned quarries (the Eden Project), cut theatres into coastal cliffs (Minack Theatre) and build entire homes simply to showcase their collections of seaside knick-knacks (A La Ronde).

The Southwest is many things. It’s a haven of regional gastronomy, a surfing mecca, a holiday-home paradise and a renowned artistic retreat. It’s a place of tiny tasteful towns and giant rural sweeps, of modern cities and traditional fishing villages, a land defined by the sea, that boasts one of the country’s most celebrated interiors. But most of all, it’s a great place for an adventure. So do yourself a favour, hop in your car or climb aboard the Great Western Railway, and go and find yourself one.

Cornish coastline, near Padstow

Roman baths, Bath, Somerset

Clear sea off Tresco, Isles of Scilly

Where to Go

The regional chapters of this guide are ordered east to west, following the route of a traveller entering Somerset, passing through Devon and finishing up in Cornwall.

The first chapter, Somerset, Bristol and Bath begins with tours of two great cities, which together provide the perfect urban gateway to the rural pleasures beyond. They offer neatly contrasting attractions: Bristol buzzes with bars, hip new restaurants and the revitalization of its industrial heritage, while Bath promotes the studied appreciation of the old, welcoming thousands daily to admire its carefully preserved Roman and Georgian architecture. The nearby cathedral city of Wells is the perfect miniature base for gentle walks in the Mendips and tours of the local limestone landscape’s great rain-cut wonders: Cheddar Gorge and the Wookey Hole Caves. The country gets wilder and more intense as you head west through the boggy Somerset Levels and its great mystical capital of Glastonbury into the poet-inspiring Quantocks and on to rugged Exmoor and its wonderful wooded coast.

The Devon chapter also begins in urban fashion at Exeter, home to one of the region’s most remarkable cathedrals with its impossibly intricate fan vaulting, before heading off along the south coast, passing through the big hitters of the 'English Riviera' and on to some of the region’s most beautiful resorts – including swanky Dartmouth and Salcombe – before ending up amid the cheery modern bustle of Plymouth and its wealth of maritime history. Inland is perhaps the Southwest’s most celebrated natural wonder, Dartmoor. The timeless rolling expanses of England’s wildest wilderness invite extensive exploration on foot or horseback, and by bicycle or kayak.

Cornwall kicks off at Bodmin Moor, the county’s miniature version of Dartmoor, which comes with its own collection of myths, legends and tors. Cornwall’s south coast is dotted with villages – some of them, including Looe, Polperro and Fowey, among the most inviting in the Southwest – and also provides access to two of the nation’s great horticultural wonders: the great domed rainforests of the Eden Project and Mevagissey’s Lost Gardens of Heligan. The north coast is an angrier, less forgiving environment with its high wave-battered cliffs supporting brooding lonely castles, such as Tintagel, the supposed birthplace of King Arthur. But it also boasts some of the region’s top-rated attractions, from the gourmet fish restaurants of Padstow to the art galleries of St Ives. At the end of the peninsula, Penzance, Britain’s most westerly town, makes a good base for exploring the romantic offshore castle of St Michael’s Mount, as well as Land’s End, the nation’s furthermost extremity, and the Isles of Scilly, the pretty stretch of islands 28 miles (45 km) from the mainland whose balmy(ish) climate has made them a popular beach-holiday destination.

Bath Pump Room and Bath Abbey

Gothic vaulted ceiling, Exeter Cathedral