Today I want to bring you my guide to visiting England’s Lake District without a car. This part of the UK is a great place to get outdoors, and with all the buses, ferries, and hiking trails, it’s easy to travel here without a vehicle.
Lake District without a Car
The Lake District National Park is best known for hiking. Trails wind up hills, though sheep-filled pastures, and along mirrored lakes.
Every village in Cumbria from bustling Keswick to tiny Grasmere has at least one outdoor goods shop that caters to the hikers and walkers that flood the Lake District every summer.
I knew all this when I packed my bags for the Lake District, but I also knew better than to bring any hiking clothes. I was going to Cumbria with my mother, who, in her words “doesn’t like that kind of hiking”.
Her kind of hiking consists of the brisk walk from boutique to boutique as she shops her way through a town.
Rather than join the massive crowds as they scrambled up hills and across streams, we used public transport to visit the Lake District without a car. We were there to support the local retail businesses and do some literary exploration.
Lake District Tours
If we hadn’t gone independently, we would have traveled with Rabbie’s. The company offers great small-group tours in the UK and has a number of Lake District itineraries to choose from.
I’ve taken a number of their tours and love the way they balance group transportation with independent exploration and free time in each destination.
Lake District Ferry to Ambleside
We based ourselves in Windermere village, which was easy to reach by train from London and had great bus and ferry connections to other Lake District towns and villages.
After checking into Applegarth Villa Hotel, we walked down to Lake Windermere and caught the ferry to Ambleside.
The 30-minute ferry ride took us past tiny green islands, large lakefront homes, and neat rows of sailboats docked along the water’s edge.
After we alighted in Ambleside, we walked up to the town and ducked into Lucy’s on a Plate to get some lunch. My vegetarian crostini featured some rubbery veggies, but given it was raining outside I was thankful to have a place to warm up.
Lake District Bus to Dove Cottage
After lunch the rain died down and we hopped on a bus from Ambleside to Grasmere. Specifically, we were going to Dove Cottage.
This small whitewashed abode was the home of English poet William Wordsworth, who wrote many of his famous poems while living in the Lake District.
We toured his house, which was a former pub, exploring the tiny low-ceilinged rooms and learning about his life there.
My favorite part of the tour was seeing his passport, which was a large sheet of paper with a physical description of him (no photos in those days) along with an array of stamps from various embassies throughout Europe.
After exploring Dove Cottage, we made the rounds at the adjacent Wordsworth museum and then explored the stone cottages nearby before taking a bus back to Windermere.
Lake District Bus to Grasmere
We didn’t make it into Grasmere that day, but two days later we found time to visit. We hopped on a bus from Windermere to Grasmere and found ourselves in the village shortly thereafter.
The place was small, but very pretty. My mother was delighted to find a boutique dedicated to her favorite English sheep, Herdy.
The Herdy shop in Grasmere was full of the local company’s adorable sheep mugs, dish towels, salt and pepper shakers, and T-shirts. She bought half the store.
Thankfully it wasn’t just my mother’s kind of shopping that Grasmere offered. I was quite taken with a different store, this one called The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop.
As the name implies, the shop sold thin squares of gingery goodness. They were made from a secret recipe that hasn’t changed in over a century, and they tasted delicious.
The store was so tiny that only four or five people at a time could wait to be served by one of the two ladies in frilly caps behind the counter. Being inside was like stepping back in time.
Gingerbread in hand, we visited Wordsworth’s grave in the local church cemetery. A friendly rabbit joined us for a bit, chomping irreverently on the holy grass.
Lake District Bus to Keswick
In contrast to Grasmere, our visit to another Lake District town, Keswick, brought us to a large, bustling town on another lake, Derwent Water.
After taking the bus from Windermere to Keswick, we went shopping before having a classic fish-and-chips lunch at the Old Keswickian. We also got to do a bit of walking by the lake, where we found a flock of friendly sheep.
Lake District Ferry and Bus to Hill Top Farm
Speaking of sheep, the following day we visited a working farm in Near Sawrey. It wasn’t just any farm, though. It belonged to Beatrix Potter, another of the Lake District’s literary heroes.
Hill Top farm was just across Lake Windermere from Bowness. We took a combination of a ferry and bus to get there. Once again, it showed us how easy it was to visit the Lake District without a car.
We arrived at Hill Top mid-morning used my National Trust pass to get free entry.
After exploring the garden, we settled in for a pre-lunch snack of millionaire’s shortbread and plum pudding at the Tower Bank Arms, a local pub that appeared in the Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.
We also explored a few buildings in the neighborhood, many of which were backdrops for Potter’s illustrations in The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan.
Eventually we made our way back to Hill Top and toured the interior of the 17th-century farmhouse. All the furniture belonged to Potter. Even the original letter on which she based The Tale of Peter Rabbit was lying on her writing desk.
Lake District Bus to Hawkshead
From the farm we continued our Beatrix Potter excursion by traveling by bus from Hill Top to Hawkshead.
We stopped in the village for an excellent lunch of chicken and leek pie at the Sun Cottage Cafe, then did some shopping in the local boutiques.
Our final stop was at the Beatrix Potter Gallery, another National Trust property in the Lake District. The museum was housed in Potter’s husband’s former law offices and had many of her original illustrations on display.
From Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle to Tom Kitten, all the characters from her tales were represented.
Visiting the Lake District without a Car
Like Potter’s tales, mine must eventually come to an end. As much as my mother and I enjoyed visiting the Lake District without a car, we couldn’t stay forever.
But we were thankful we were able to travel through this part of Cumbria on public transport, and like Potter, I hope to write more tales of the Lake District in the future.
Find this post helpful? Buy me a coffee!
New here? Join thousands of others and subscribe to the A Lady in London blog via email.
Some of the links in this blog post are affiliate links. At no cost to you, I earn a small commission when you click on them and make a purchase. It doesn’t affect the way you shop, and it’s a great way to support the A Lady in London blog.
Pin it!
Thanks for transporting us back to one of our old stomping grounds. Shame you didn’t get to go hiking – but there’s always next time…