Take the boat from Poole Quay or Sandbanks to the island

Walk the woods and find the red squirrels

Watch avocets and terns on the lagoon from the hide

Find the stone marking Baden-Powell's 1907 camp

Brownsea is the largest island in Poole Harbour and one of the few places in southern England with red squirrels, kept safe by the water. Robert Baden-Powell ran his experimental camp here in 1907, the start of Scouting, and the lagoon on the north shore holds avocets and terns.

Brownsea Island: Red Squirrels and the First Scout Camp

Purbeck and Lulworth

Poole

Six nights in a loop from Poole along the Jurassic Coast: Corfe Castle and the arch at Durdle Door in Purbeck, then fossil hunting at Lyme Regis and the swannery at Abbotsbury.

The Jurassic Coast from Poole

Lulworth and Purbeck

A week along the Jurassic Coast from Lyme Regis to Purbeck: fossil hunting where Mary Anning worked, Golden Cap and the Abbotsbury swans, Durdle Door and Corfe Castle, and Old Harry Rocks at the eastern end.

The Jurassic Coast: Lyme Regis to Old Harry Rocks

Walk out along the cliff top to Handfast Point and look down on Old Harry

Work out how the chalk once reached the Isle of Wight

Walk Knoll Beach and the dunes of Studland Bay

At Handfast Point on the Isle of Purbeck, three chalk formations, among them a stack and a stump, mark the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. The chalk used to run in one ridge across to the Isle of Wight; the sea broke through, arches formed and collapsed, and one of the stacks left behind is Old Harry; another, Old Harry's Wife, was worn through at the base until its top fell away, leaving a stump. North of the point, Studland Bay curves for two and a half miles of sandy beaches — South, Middle and Knoll Beach, and Shell Bay — backed by dunes and heathland, with a stretch set aside as a naturist beach.

Old Harry Rocks and Studland: The End of the Jurassic Coast

Climb through the broken keep and the leaning towers

Find where the walls were blown apart in the slighting

Ride the Swanage Railway steam train to the village

Walk up West Hill for the classic view of the castle in its gap

William the Conqueror built Corfe Castle in the gap the Purbeck Hills leave between Wareham and Swanage. Sir John Bankes bought it in 1635, and while he was away with the king his wife Mary led the defence through two sieges; when it finally fell, Parliament ordered it slighted in March 1646, which is why the towers lean and split the way they do.

Corfe Castle: Slighted by Parliament, Held by Lady Bankes

Walk west from the pier along the sands past Durley and Alum Chines

Walk up through Alum Chine, the wooded ravine behind the beach

Walk the Lower, Central and Upper Gardens up the Bourne valley

Carry on west along the shore towards Sandbanks and Poole

Before 1800 this was empty heathland that only fishermen and smugglers bothered with. Lewis Tregonwell founded a health resort here in 1810 and the pines and gardens went in around it, which is why the town still feels planted rather than grown. The beach runs seven miles of golden sand — Alum Chine, Durley Chine, Bournemouth Central — and keeps going west until it merges into Sandbanks and Poole.

Bournemouth: Seven Miles of Sand and the Chines

Walk from Lulworth Cove over the cliff path to Durdle Door, the natural limestone arch, on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site that runs 95 miles from Exmouth to Studland

Look at the Fossil Forest ledge east of Lulworth Cove, fossilised tree stumps about 144 million years old

Visit the Etches Collection at Kimmeridge, the museum of Jurassic marine fossils, and walk the ledges of Kimmeridge Bay

Walk into Tyneham, the village abandoned to the army in 1943, when the Lulworth ranges are open

The Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site runs 95 miles from Exmouth to Studland, and its best-known stretch is here: the cliff path from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch, and the Fossil Forest ledge east of the cove, with fossilised tree stumps about 144 million years old. At Kimmeridge the Etches Collection shows Jurassic marine fossils found on the ledges of the bay. Between the two lies Tyneham, a village abandoned when the army took it and the land around for firing ranges just before Christmas 1943.

Lulworth, Durdle Door and Kimmeridge

Visit Thomas Hardy's Cottage at Higher Bockhampton, the thatched house where he was born in 1840

Visit Max Gate in Dorchester, the house Hardy designed for himself and lived in until his death in 1928

See the Hardy collection at the Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in Dorchester

Tour Clouds Hill, the small cottage near Bovington that T. E. Lawrence bought in 1925 and moved into in 1935, weeks before his death

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in the thatched cottage at Higher Bockhampton, and he designed Max Gate in Dorchester for himself and lived there until he died in 1928; the Dorset Museum & Art Gallery keeps his collection. Near Bovington, T. E. Lawrence rented the small cottage of Clouds Hill from 1923, bought it in 1925 as a retreat, and moved in on leaving the RAF in 1935, weeks before his death.

Hardy's Dorset: Higher Bockhampton, Max Gate and Clouds Hill

Cycle the forest tracks of the New Forest, the hunting forest William I created in 1079, now a National Park

Find the Knightwood Oak on the Bolderwood Ornamental Drive, one of the forest's most famous ancient pollards

See the wild ponies, and walk the Deer Watch trail at Bolderwood looking out for fallow deer

Visit the Rufus Stone, which marks the traditional spot where William II was killed in 1100

Visit the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, founded in 1952

William I made the New Forest a royal hunting forest in 1079, and it is now a national park where ponies and deer roam free. On the Bolderwood Ornamental Drive stands the Knightwood Oak, one of the forest's most famous old pollards, and at Bolderwood a short Deer Watch trail looks out over the meadows where deer graze. The Rufus Stone marks the traditional spot where William II was killed while hunting in 1100, and the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu was founded in 1952.

The New Forest: Bolderwood, the Rufus Stone and Beaulieu

Walk the public footpaths through the rewilded scrub

Look for white storks on their nests in the oaks

Listen for nightingales in the thorn thickets in May

Look for purple emperors around the sallows in July

Charles Burrell took over 3,500 acres of heavy Sussex clay at Knepp in 1983, tried for seventeen years to make it pay, and from 2001 began letting it go: fences down, longhorn cattle, Tamworth pigs, ponies and deer left to shape the land. It is the first major lowland rewilding project in England, and it has become a nesting stronghold for nightingales, a breeding hotspot for purple emperor butterflies and the site of the first white stork chicks hatched in Britain for centuries.

Knepp: The First Big Lowland Rewilding in England

Listen for booming bitterns from the reedbed hides in spring

Look for bearded tits on the grit trays in autumn

Watch marsh harriers quartering the reeds

Walk over to the saltmarsh hides on the bay side

Leighton Moss, behind Morecambe Bay, is an RSPB reserve known for its breeding bitterns, marsh harriers and bearded tits, with otters and red deer in the reeds; six booming male bitterns were counted in 2021. The RSPB also protects a stretch of Morecambe Bay saltmarsh here where avocets feed. In spring the booming carries across the reedbed, a sound like blowing over the top of a bottle.