Climb Pen y Fan, at 886m the highest peak in South Wales, by the graded path from the Storey Arms, a 460m ascent

Find the reconstructed Bronze Age cairn with its central stone burial chamber on the summit, and its twin on nearby Corn Du

Walk on round the horseshoe to Cribyn and look back at the north face

Pen y Fan rises to 886m, the highest point in south Wales, and the graded path from the Storey Arms climbs 460m to it. On the summit is a reconstructed Bronze Age cairn with a stone burial chamber at its centre, and another on Corn Du beside it; the whole ridge falls away north in glacial cwms.

Pen y Fan: The Highest Peak in South Wales

Bannau Brycheiniog

From Bannau Brycheiniog to Cadair Idris: Pen y Fan and the dark skies, the bookshops of Hay and the Gospel Pass, red kites over the Elan Valley, and the mountain bike trails of Coed y Brenin.

Mid Wales: The Beacons to Cadair Idris

Fishguard

Nine nights in a loop from Fishguard: Cardigan Bay's dolphins, the steam railway to Devil's Bridge, red kites and dark skies in the Elan Valley, then Pen y Fan and the waterfalls of Bannau Brycheiniog.

Mid Wales and the Beacons from Fishguard

Find the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye on a clear, moonless night, 2.5 million light years away

Hike to the summit of Pen y Fan (886m) and photograph the pre-dawn sky before sunrise breaks over the Black Mountains

Photograph the Milky Way over the ridge on a moonless night

The Brecon Beacons became an International Dark Sky Reserve in February 2013, and on a clear night the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy and meteor showers are all visible from the park's Dark Sky Discovery Sites, such as Usk Reservoir, Crai Reservoir and the visitor centre at Libanus. Pen y Fan, the highest point in the reserve, is a popular place to watch the sunrise.

Bannau Brycheiniog International Dark Sky Reserve

Walk the Four Waterfalls Trail on the River Mellte and Afon Hepste at Ystradfellte, including Sgwd yr Eira, where a path leads behind the falls

Visit Henrhyd Falls, the 27m waterfall that is the tallest in South Wales, the entrance to the Batcave in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

See Porth yr Ogof, the cave where the Afon Mellte disappears underground

Around Ystradfellte the rivers of the southern Brecon Beacons drop through wooded gorges in a string of falls. The Four Waterfalls Trail follows the Mellte and the Hepste, and at Sgwd yr Eira the path goes behind the falling water. Nearby, Porth yr Ogof is the cave where the Mellte disappears underground, and Henrhyd Falls, 27m, the tallest waterfall in south Wales, was the entrance to the Batcave in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

Waterfall Country: Sgwd yr Eira and Henrhyd Falls

See Adelina Patti's castle, now a hotel, from the country park

Walk up the valley to the show caves at Dan yr Ogof

The soprano Adelina Patti bought Craig y Nos in 1878 and built a private theatre inside it, with an auditorium floor that could be raised level to turn it into a ballroom. The country park around it runs along the Tawe under the Beacons, and the Dan yr Ogof caves are just up the valley road.

Craig y Nos: The Opera Singer's Castle in the Swansea Valley

Take the hour-long underground tour at Big Pit National Coal Museum in Blaenavon, 90m below ground, led by former miners, wearing a lamp and a 5kg battery on a waist belt

Visit the pithead baths and the winding house at the colliery, which worked from 1880 to 1980 and employed around 1,400 men at its peak

See the sawmill and other Grade II listed buildings, part of the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site listed in 2000

Big Pit was a working coal mine from 1880 until it closed on 2 February 1980, and it opened to the public in 1983; it is now the National Coal Museum. Former miners take you 90m below ground, with a lamp and battery weighing 5kg on your belt, for an hour-long tour of the underground roads. On the surface are the pithead baths put in in 1939, which meant miners no longer walked home wet and black, and the winding house and other listed colliery buildings, all part of the Blaenavon World Heritage Site.

Big Pit: Ninety Metres Down With the Miners

Tour Blaenafon Ironworks, built in 1788–1789, with its Grade I listed blast furnaces, cast house and water-powered balance tower

Look at the site where Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy Gilchrist experimented in 1877–1878 with the process that let phosphoric iron ores be used

Walk Stack Square, the workers' cottages restored to different periods

Visit the Blaenavon World Heritage Centre

Blaenafon Ironworks, as Cadw now spells it, was built in 1788–89, and its blast furnaces, cast house and water-balance tower still stand; it was here in 1877–78 that Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy Gilchrist worked out the process that let phosphoric iron ores be used. The ironworkers lived in Stack Square beside the works, now restored to different periods. The town and its landscape became a World Heritage Site in 2000, and the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway runs on the hill above.

Blaenafon Ironworks: The Furnaces and Stack Square

Buy and taste real crumbly Caerphilly in the town

Walk the water defences and the lakes around the castle

Find the south-east tower of the Inner Ward, leaning out at 10 degrees

Caerphilly is a hard, crumbly white cheese made to feed the coal miners of the valleys, and the town's weekly cheese market had an official cheese-tester, Edward Lewis, who until his death in 1909 stamped the good ones with a circular mark reading Caws Cymru, Caws Pur and Genuine Caerphilly Cheese. The castle above the town is the other reason to come: Gilbert de Clare, known as Red Gilbert, began it in 1268 to hold north Glamorgan, and its thirty acres of towers and artificial lakes make it the largest castle in Wales and the second largest in the United Kingdom — the historian Allen Brown called its water defences the most elaborate in all Britain.

Caerphilly: The Crumbly Cheese and the Largest Castle in Wales

Walk the Pembrokeshire Coast Path north from Abereiddy to Porthgain, on the 186-mile National Trail from Amroth to St Dogmaels, opened on 16 May 1970

See the Blue Lagoon at Abereiddy, the flooded slate quarry about 25m deep where the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series jumped from 27m in 2012, 2013 and 2016

Look for Ordovician graptolite fossils in the shale beds of Abereiddy beach

The Pembrokeshire Coast Path, a National Trail opened on 16 May 1970, runs 186 miles from Amroth to St Dogmaels, . At Abereiddy a flooded slate quarry, the Blue Lagoon, is about 25m deep; the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series jumped from 27m in 2012, 2013 and 2016; the shale on the beach holds Ordovician graptolite fossils. North along the path from Abereiddy is the old slate and brick harbour of Porthgain.

Pembrokeshire Coast Path: Abereiddy's Blue Lagoon and the Path to Porthgain

Take the boat from Porth Meudwy to Ynys Enlli, the island of 20,000 saints

Find the ruins of the abbey the Augustinian canons held until 1537

Walk to the lighthouse on the island's southern peninsula

If you book a night in one of the Bardsey Island Trust's houses, stay out after dark and find the Milky Way

Bardsey Island — Ynys Enlli — lies 3km off the tip of the Llŷn Peninsula and is known as the island of 20,000 saints. In medieval times it was a great centre of pilgrimage, held by the Augustinian canons by 1212, until Henry VIII dissolved the monastery in 1537; the island is still the end of the North Wales Pilgrims Way. Manx shearwaters and choughs nest here, and in 2023 the island became the first place in Europe certified as an International Dark Sky Sanctuary. Boats cross from Porth Meudwy near Aberdaron when the weather allows.