Somerset Travel Guide: Where to Stay, Eat & Explore in Luxury

What if the most quietly extraordinary corner of England was the one that never felt the need to shout about it? Somerset doesn’t do loud. It does ancient hills and cathedral cities, cider orchards so old they’ve lost track of themselves, a food scene that has somehow produced two of the UK’s most acclaimed restaurants without once feeling the need to issue a press release about it. It does lanes so narrow that two cars meeting in one constitutes a minor diplomatic incident. And it does all of this with an unhurried confidence that is, frankly, rather seductive – particularly if you’ve spent the last six months answering emails in an open-plan office in zone three.

The county suits a particular kind of traveller – which is to say, several quite different kinds, all of whom find what they came for. Families seeking genuine privacy, away from hotel lobbies and shared pools, discover that a private villa in Somerset can anchor an entire holiday: mornings in the garden, afternoons exploring, evenings eating embarrassingly well. Couples marking a milestone – an anniversary, a significant birthday, a decision to do something memorable rather than just expensive – find that the combination of extraordinary food and deep countryside makes the calendar feel less pressing. Groups of friends, especially those who have spent years meaning to do a proper long weekend together, find Somerset sized just right: compact enough to actually do things, generous enough to never feel rushed. Remote workers needing reliable connectivity have increasingly discovered that working from a well-appointed Somerset farmhouse with views of the Quantocks beats any co-working space on earth by a considerable margin. And those in search of genuine wellness – not the branded kind involving activated charcoal and a signature robe, but something more like walking, eating well, sleeping properly, breathing actual air – will find the county offers all of it without requiring you to download an app first.

Getting Here is Part of the Experience (Even If the Last Three Miles Are Not)

Somerset is in the south-west of England, and the good news is that the infrastructure to reach it is better than the county’s pastoral image might suggest. Bristol Airport is the natural gateway for most, sitting just north of the county boundary and offering direct flights from across the United Kingdom and from a growing number of European cities. From there, you’re into the county in under half an hour. Exeter Airport, just across the Devon border, serves the southern parts of Somerset conveniently and handles a useful spread of domestic and European routes. London Heathrow remains the obvious choice for international arrivals, with Somerset around two to two-and-a-half hours by car – less if the M4 is behaving, which it occasionally is.

By rail, the picture is genuinely good. Direct services from London Paddington reach Taunton in under two hours, and Bath Spa – on Somerset’s northern edge – in around an hour and twenty minutes. The Penzance line also serves Castle Cary, which is strikingly useful for Bruton and the increasingly celebrated east Somerset countryside. Once here, though, a car is not optional. Somerset’s greatest pleasures are distributed across valleys, across hilltops, down lanes signposted to villages whose names suggest someone was making things up. There are taxis and the occasional useful bus, but renting a car at the airport is the honest recommendation. You’ll want the independence.

One of England’s Most Remarkable Food Counties, and It Knows It

Fine Dining

The restaurant conversation in Somerset has, in recent years, stopped being a local secret and started being a national story. Osip, now operating from a beautifully renovated former pub in rural east Somerset near Bruton, was named the best restaurant in the United Kingdom by Time Out for 2025. Not best in the south-west. Not best outside London, with all the faint praise that implies. Best in the country. Chef Merlin Labron-Johnson runs a farm-to-table operation of serious conviction, with produce grown on their own land shaping a surprise tasting menu that changes with the seasons and occasionally with whatever is at its best that particular week. The Michelin star – regained, along with a Green Michelin star for sustainability – is almost beside the point. Dinner is £150 a head, with lunch at £95 and a more extended signature menu at £190. Booking ahead is not a suggestion; it is a requirement, and the waiting list has opinions about itself.

At the Chapel, also in Bruton, has held its Michelin Bib Gourmand continuously since 2010, which is the kind of consistency that requires genuine skill to achieve. The building is a converted 17th-century chapel, transformed with an almost architectural restraint into a space that manages to feel both grand and intimate simultaneously. The dining room – white walls, chapel windows, natural light flooding in – is one of the more striking rooms in which to eat a very good plate of food anywhere in England. The cooking is modern British with Mediterranean leanings, grounded in local Somerset producers. Natural wines are taken seriously. There is also a bakery, which will test your resolve on the way out.

Where the Locals Eat

The Three Horseshoes in Batcombe – a village whose sense of its own tranquillity borders on the devout – is owned by Margot Henderson of Rochelle Canteen fame, and currently sits at number seven in the UK’s Top 50 Gastropubs list. The building is a 17th-century pub with large fireplaces, stone floors and whitewashed walls, and the cooking matches the aesthetic: honest, unfussy, excellent. Rabbit pie. Mince on toast. Dishes that sound simple until they arrive and remind you that simplicity of this quality is actually quite hard to achieve. The terrace and walled garden are the obvious choice in better weather. There are five bedrooms if you find yourself unable to leave, which is a contingency worth considering in advance.

The Old Pharmacy in Bruton – sister to Osip, housed in a building that has been standing since before anyone thought to regulate what was sold inside it – operates as a wine bar, bistro and grocery in one. The menu changes daily on a blackboard, small dishes built around ingredients from the farm, with natural wines chosen with evident care. It is also simply a very pleasant place to sit, which should not be underestimated as a quality in a restaurant. Bruton, as a town, has done something remarkable: it has accumulated a cluster of genuinely interesting places to eat and drink without acquiring the self-consciousness that usually accompanies that kind of reputation. It is smug only by accident, which is the best kind.

Hidden Gems Worth Seeking Out

Somerset’s farmers’ markets – Frome on the first Sunday of each month is the best-attended and most reliably excellent – offer the kind of direct access to local producers that makes you understand why the restaurants here cook the way they do. The cider is, obviously, exceptional and available in quantities that suit everyone from the mildly curious to the genuinely committed. Wells, Taunton and Glastonbury all have good independent food and drink scenes worth an afternoon of exploration. The county is also home to a quiet tradition of excellent cheesemakers – Somerset Cheddar being the obvious and entirely justified starting point – and artisan producers of everything from charcuterie to handmade chocolate. Asking your villa concierge for a local recommendation here is the right move; they will know the farm shop three lanes away that nobody has photographed for Instagram yet.

From the Levels to the Hills – A Landscape of Genuine Variety

Somerset is larger and more varied than first impressions suggest, which is either a pleasant surprise or a gentle caution against assuming you’ve understood it after a single visit. The county roughly divides itself into distinct characters: the Somerset Levels in the centre, an extraordinary flat wetland landscape of water channels, willow trees and mist that looks, on certain autumn mornings, like the set of a film about time travel; the Mendip Hills to the north, higher and more dramatic, punctuated by the extraordinary chasm of Cheddar Gorge; the Quantock Hills to the west, where Wordsworth and Coleridge walked and wrote and apparently had rather a productive time of it; and Exmoor, shared with Devon, a national park of moorland, wooded valleys and high coastal cliffs that constitutes one of the genuinely wild places left in southern England.

The east of the county – the area around Bruton, Frome and Castle Cary – has become something of a cultural zone in recent years, attracting artists, makers, second-homers with good taste, and visitors who arrive for a meal at Osip and find themselves wondering, mid-tasting-menu, what it would cost to simply stay. Bath sits on the northern edge: technically in its own unitary authority now, but inseparable from Somerset’s cultural gravity. Wells, England’s smallest city, contains one of the country’s great cathedrals and is often overlooked in favour of Bath, which is a mistake. The city of Taunton serves as the county town, functional and underrated, with a good market and a castle that makes a genuine effort to be interesting about local history.

What to Actually Do – Beyond the View From the Terrace

The obligatory itinerary begins at Cheddar Gorge, England’s largest gorge and genuinely impressive despite the gift shops that line its base with cheerful determination. The caves beneath are ancient, the views from the cliff top are expansive, and the Cheddar cheese available in the village is, at its best, among the finest in the world. Glastonbury Tor – the hill rising from the Levels with its medieval tower at the summit – is a forty-minute walk that rewards with views in every direction and whatever spiritual significance you choose to bring to it. The town of Glastonbury beneath it is a particular experience that deserves its own category, and will either charm or overwhelm you depending entirely on your relationship with crystals and tie-dye.

Wells Cathedral is the morning’s programme that quietly changes how the day feels. The west facade, with its 300 medieval figures still largely intact, is one of the great surviving medieval artworks in England. The chapter house, reached by a staircase worn smooth by centuries of use, is breathtaking in the literal sense – the vaulting radiates from a single central column in a way that stops conversation mid-sentence. The Vicars’ Close nearby is the oldest continually inhabited medieval street in Europe, which is the kind of fact that requires a moment to properly absorb.

For a genuinely Somerset experience, Barrington Court and Montacute House – both National Trust, both extraordinary – represent the Elizabethan country house at its most confident. Hestercombe Gardens near Taunton is a collaboration between architect Edwin Lutyens and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll that remains one of the finest examples of their partnership and is probably the best garden in the county that most visitors haven’t heard of. The Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton is, for those with children aged approximately eight to fifteen, an absolutely reliable half-day and rather more interesting than it sounds.

Walking, Cycling, Surfing and the Case for Actually Getting Muddy

Exmoor’s hiking is among the finest in the south of England – properly varied, with routes ranging from gentle valley walks to serious ridge traverses with coastal views stretching to Wales on a clear day. The South West Coast Path enters Somerset along Exmoor’s northern edge, tracing clifftops above the Bristol Channel at heights that make the waves below look almost polite. The Two Moors Way connects Exmoor to Dartmoor through landscape that sees very few people and rewards accordingly. Walking guides, local knowledge and decent waterproofs are all advisable. Optimism about the weather is permitted but should be kept private.

Cycling is well served: the Quantock Hills offer mountain biking trails with serious elevation, while the Somerset Levels provide the opposite – flat, well-surfaced routes through the wetland landscape that are genuinely pleasurable for riders of any age and ability. Electric bike hire is increasingly available across the county. For sea swimming and surfing, the Somerset coast is the honest answer rather than the flattering one – the Bristol Channel is not the Atlantic, the tides are among the highest in the world, and conditions vary considerably. Burnham-on-Sea and Minehead offer beaches of reasonable quality, while those who want proper Atlantic surfing should travel the extra forty minutes into north Devon, where Croyde and Saunton deliver the full experience. Wild swimming in the rivers and reservoirs of the Mendips and Exmoor is excellent and increasingly popular; the water is cold in the way that makes you feel substantially more virtuous afterwards.

Somerset with Children – Space, Freedom and an Absence of Queues

Somerset is, without qualification, one of the better counties in England for a family holiday – and not in the way that requires managing expectations. The combination of proper outdoor space, a manageable scale, and specific attractions that actually deliver makes it an easy recommendation for families who want an experience rather than a schedule. The key, as with most things in Somerset, is in knowing where to go rather than following the brown signs.

Wookey Hole Caves, just outside Wells, does a very reliable job of combining genuine geological drama with the kind of theatrical showmanship that children find entirely compelling and adults find quietly charming. The Haynes International Motor Museum at Sparkford has a collection of over 400 vehicles that produces strong opinions in anyone aged roughly six to sixty-five. Exmoor is home to wild red deer and wild ponies in genuine, uncurated numbers – spotting both requires only a half-hour drive into the national park and a degree of patience that is easier to sustain when the landscape is this beautiful. Canoeing and kayaking on the rivers and reservoirs of the county is available through a number of well-run local operators and works for children from approximately eight upwards.

The particular advantage of a luxury villa in Somerset for families – and it is a significant one – is the private space. Children with a garden, a pool if the property has one, and the freedom to move through a house that belongs entirely to them for the duration of the holiday are measurably happier than children navigating hotel corridors and restaurant children’s menus. Parents who can eat dinner on a terrace with a glass of local cider once the children are asleep are measurably happier too. The two facts are connected.

Mythology, Music and the Making of a Very Old Place

Somerset’s history is layered in a way that requires some unpicking. Glastonbury’s Arthurian associations – the legends of Avalon, of the Holy Grail, of Arthur’s supposed burial – are medieval inventions overlaid onto something genuinely ancient, the Iron Age hillfort on the Tor predating the myths by centuries. They are the more interesting for it. The Somerset Levels contain some of the most significant prehistoric archaeology in Britain: the Sweet Track, a wooden causeway built across the wetland in 3807 BCE (the date established by dendrochronology with remarkable precision), is among the oldest engineered roads ever found. The county’s Roman history is well-documented at Bath, where the baths themselves remain one of the finest Roman sites in northern Europe and are best visited early morning before the groups arrive.

The Glastonbury Festival – the world’s most famous, held each June on Worthy Farm in Pilton since 1970 – is a genuine cultural institution rather than simply a music event, and its relationship with the surrounding county is complex and affectionate in approximately equal measure. If you are not attending the festival, the week of its occurrence is sensible to avoid the immediate area. If you are attending, you require different accommodation advice entirely and probably a different article. Somerset also has a strong tradition of folk music, church music, and the kind of local cultural events – village shows, rural fairs, cider festivals – that resist easy irony and tend to be quietly excellent.

What to Buy and Where to Actually Find It

Frome is the shopping destination of the moment in Somerset – a market town that has accumulated an impressive number of independent retailers, galleries, vintage shops and makers without yet losing the sense that it is primarily a town rather than a destination. The monthly Frome Independent Market, held on the first Sunday of each month in the town centre, brings together over two hundred stalls and is one of the best independent markets in the country. Bruton, smaller but arguably more refined, has galleries and boutiques calibrated to its increasingly gallery-dense identity – Hauser and Wirth’s farm-based outpost just outside town has been transformative for the area and has a very good bookshop.

Local products worth taking home include – obviously – cheese, particularly aged farmhouse cheddar from the Cheddar area and the excellent range available from local cheesemakers at farmers’ markets. Somerset cider brandy, produced by Julian Temperley at Burrow Hill, is a genuinely world-class spirit that remains curiously underknown outside the county. Local wool and textiles from Exmoor’s sheep population are available through a number of specialist makers. Artisan ceramics from the county’s well-established community of potters and makers are worth seeking out at markets and studios. The Old Pharmacy in Bruton’s adjacent grocery sells provisions from Osip’s farm – which is about as specific a souvenir as you can get, and rather better than a tea towel.

Practical Matters – The Useful Bits, Kept Brief

Somerset uses the pound sterling, as does the rest of the United Kingdom, and contactless payment is accepted almost everywhere with the exception of certain village pubs and farm shops that remain committed to cash on philosophical grounds. Tipping is customary at around ten to twelve percent in restaurants, less formally at pubs where you’ve only ordered at the bar. Service charges are increasingly added automatically at better restaurants; checking the bill is sensible practice.

The best time to visit for settled weather is May through September, with July and August the warmest and most reliably dry – though Somerset’s position in the south-west means that rain is a year-round possibility and locals would be the first to acknowledge it. May and September offer good weather with significantly fewer visitors; June is excellent if you avoid the Glastonbury Festival fortnight. Spring, when the orchards blossom and the light is extraordinary, is possibly the most beautiful season of all if you dress for variable conditions. Winter in Somerset is genuinely atmospheric – frost on the Levels, cathedral cities quietly magnificent, log fires in good pubs – and the accommodation rates reflect the season accordingly.

The county is safe and well-served by emergency services. Mobile signal is variable in rural areas – honest notice rather than a complaint. Water from the tap is excellent. Wellies are not compulsory but represent a significant quality-of-life improvement between October and April. Driving on the left is non-negotiable and the lanes of Somerset will enforce this without sentiment.

Why a Private Villa Changes the Entire Nature of the Holiday

A luxury holiday in Somerset is a specific thing: it is not built around a hotel and a spa, though both exist. It is built around space, privacy, and the particular pleasure of a place that belongs entirely to you for the duration. A private villa in Somerset – whether a converted farmhouse on the edge of Exmoor, a Georgian manor in the Mendip Hills, or a carefully restored barn within reach of the east Somerset food corridor – offers something no hotel can replicate: the ability to structure your own day, at your own pace, without a checkout time or a breakfast sitting or a lobby in which strangers make eye contact over their luggage.

For families, the mathematics are straightforward. A villa with a private pool, a garden, a kitchen stocked with local produce, and bedrooms enough for everyone removes the friction that hotels introduce – the noise management, the shared spaces, the negotiating of everyone’s schedule around someone else’s. Children sleep in their own rooms. Parents drink wine on a terrace that belongs to them. The day starts when it starts. For groups of friends, the communal villa experience delivers something genuinely different from a weekend of separate hotel rooms – shared meals, a shared base, the easy sociability of a house in which everyone is at home. For couples, a private property in the Somerset countryside with serious cooking within a short drive is a very compelling version of a milestone celebration.

The best Somerset villas come with concierge services that can pre-stock the kitchen with local provisions, arrange restaurant bookings at Osip or The Three Horseshoes before you arrive (strongly recommended – these are not tables that materialise at last notice), arrange private chef services for evenings in, organise walking guides, cycling routes or horse riding, and generally act as the local knowledge you would otherwise spend three days accumulating by trial and error. For remote workers, many properties now offer high-speed broadband and, in more rural locations, Starlink – the Somerset countryside is rather more connected than its hedgerows suggest, and a kitchen table with Exmoor views is a significant upgrade on the average home office.

Wellness, in the genuinely restorative sense, comes naturally here: swimming in a private pool on a clear Somerset morning, walking the hills before lunch, eating extraordinarily well in the evenings, and sleeping in a property without corridor noise or 6am housekeeping is a programme that requires no scheduling and no additional booking. It simply happens.

With over 27,000 properties worldwide, Excellence Luxury Villas is well-placed to match you with the right property for your specific version of a Somerset holiday. Browse our private villa rentals in Somerset to find the property that fits.