About Islandeering
Hi and welcome to Islandeering Islandeering is for people who want adventure in Britain’s wild blue spaces – our rivers, coast, lakes, canals and islands. You will find amazing walks, paddles and swims in the UK’s most special places, those recognised for outstanding natural beauty, incredible geology or special and abundant wildlife.
More About UsWe continuously find new islands, rivers, lochs, canals and coast to walk, SUP and swim in and meet plenty of great folks along the way. Join our community to get new routes and adventures, latest blogs and news by using the email box below. Tune in also to our Facebook and Instagram pages to see where we are going next.
Table of Contents
About North Wales
Best places to paddle board in Snowdonia
Best places to paddle board in North Wales
Welsh Islands in North Wales
About North Wales
North Wales is the ultimate adventurer’s playground. The majestic Snowdonia National Park, provides a paradise for walkers, and paddleboarders alike in stunning scenery whilst the coastline and vast sandy estuaries make for sublime paddles, swims and walks on some of the best beaches in North Wales
Including the counties of Gwynedd and Conwy, (see North East Wales for Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham and Anglesey and the Llyn Peninsula in a separate section on this website).
Best places to paddleboard in Snowdonia
Snowdonia National Park includes 199km of coastline, primarily around the beautiful Mawddach and Dyfi estuaries, which are part of the UNESCO Dyfi Biosphere Reserve, as well as the sandy beaches of the Dwyryd estuaries. Aberdovey is a great place to explore the Dyfi Estuary, paddling upstream alongside a nature reserve with mountain views and a good chance of spotting ospreys. Barmouth is the best place to start a paddleboard trip in the Mawddach Estuary mouth where you can paddle across to Fairbourne, or paddleboard upstream on to a fabulous waterside George III inn at Penmaenpool. Further north the Dwyryd Estuary, near Porthmadog, is we think one of the best places to paddleboard in Wales, with vast sand beaches, islets, Portmeirion and stunning views of the mountains as the backdrop. You can also paddle further upstream on the Afon Dwyryd into a steep-sided valley of rare Atlantic oak woodland.
Snowdonia also boasts some of the best mountain lakes in Britain, many of them excellent for paddleboarding. A string of mountain lakes in the valleys between Beddgelert and Capel Curig include Llyn Gwynant with its stunningly located campsite, Llyn Dinas with the legendary wizard Merlin, and Llynnau Mymbyr with its magnificent views of Snowdon. Nearby, Llyn Geirionydd is a beautiful and remote natural lake, situated in historic mining country within the Gwydir Forest Park. In Llanberis the magnificent Llyn Padarn showcases spectacular mountain scenery, revealing hidden lagoons and slate-mining heritage along its shores. Equally impressive is paddleboarding on Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Wales’ largest natural lake. This is to name but a few.
Where to paddleboard in Snowdonia
Afon Dwyryd into Vale of Ffestiniog
Check the interactive map for more routes or check out our new Paddle boarding Wales book.
Best places to paddleboard in North Wales
Aside from Snowdonia, there are plenty of other excellent places to paddleboard in North Wales. Wonderful coastal paddles include Criccieth with a paddle beneath castle ruins to beautiful riverside meadows. On the north coast a paddleboard trip along the Conwy Estuary ends with stunning views of magnificent Conwy Castle, and from Llandudno there is an adventurous trip around Great Orme and Little Orme to find hidden beaches and seals. There is also the hugely popular Shell Island, a shallow estuary protected by sand dunes where the water is every shade of turquoise. Inland lakes include Llyn Brenig, set amidst wild moorland with a good chance of spotting a pair of ospreys. Paddleboarding in Anglesey and the Llyn Peninsula as well as the counties in North East Wales are covered in their relevant sections.
Mochras (Shell Island) and Llandanwg
Aberdyfi (Aberdovey) and Dyfi Estuary
Llandudno and Y-Gogarth (Great Orme)
Rhos-on-Sea, Porth Dyniewaid (Angel Bay) and Little Orme
Check the interactive map for more routes or read our new book Paddle boarding Wales
Welsh Islands in North Wales
Islands in North Wales include Anglesey, the largest island in Wales, and its many satellite islands; Bardsey off the Llyn Peninsula; and a couple of smaller islands in the Dwyryd Estuary near Porthmadog. This section focuses on the latter, with more details in the other islands in the ‘Anglesey and Llyn region’.
The Welsh islands of Cei Ballast and Ynys Giftan both sit within the beautiful Dwyryd Estuary near Porthmadog. Cei Ballast is one of Britain’s newest islands built of rock picked up from all over the globe. Getting here is quite an adventure but worth it to bathe in the beautiful pools. Cei Ballast sits in almost complete secrecy in the northern reaches of the Afon Glaslyn, just a few hundred metres from the bustling town of Porthmadog. Ynys Gifftan
sits amongst spectacular beauty surrounded by vast tidal sands, wild salt marsh, and the distant mountains of Snowdonia below the pastel-coloured domes and spires of Italianate Portmeirion.
Find out more about how to visit these islands, best things to do, and how to get to them check out our pages
Cei Ballast
Ynys Giftan
Where to go Paddle boarding in North Wales
We have shared some of our favourite routes below but more can be found on our interactive mapInteractive Map
Criccieth Beach Paddle Boarding and exploring Tremadoc Bay
From charming seaside town and Criccieth Castle ruins to beautiful riverside meadows. On this high-tide route, launch from the Criccieth Beach at this charming seaside [...]
Walks in North Wales
We have shared some of our favourite routes below but more can be found on our interactive map.
