The Norfolk Broads are one of the most beautiful and unusual landscapes in Britain, a network of rivers, lakes, and marshes stretching over 300 km² of East Anglia, Britain’s largest protected wetland and a national park in all but name (it is managed by the Broads Authority and has equivalent status to a national park), a landscape of wide skies, reed beds, windmills, and the slow, silent drifting of a boat along a river that has not changed its course in centuries. The Broads are not a natural landscape, they are the flooded remains of medieval peat diggings, abandoned in the 14th century and reclaimed by the water, a landscape created by human industry and maintained by human management ever since. The result is England’s finest boating destination, a network of 200 km of navigable waterways where you can hire a boat (no experience necessary, the training takes an hour), drift through the reeds, moor at a riverside pub, and fall asleep to the sound of water lapping against the hull and the call of a barn owl across the marsh. It is one of the most peaceful and restorative experiences in the UK.

Quick Facts: The Norfolk Broads

• Best time to visit: May–September for the best boating weather; the birdlife is spectacular in spring (the bittern, the rarest and most elusive bird in the Broads, whose booming call sounds like someone blowing across a bottle top, is most active in April–May) and autumn (the wintering wildfowl arrive from October). The dragonflies and swallowtail butterflies (the largest butterfly in the UK, yellow and black, found only in the Norfolk Broads) are magnificent in June–July. The Broads are beautiful in winter, the mist over the water at dawn, the skeins of geese overhead, and the silence of a frozen Broad, but many boatyards and pubs close from November to March
• How to get there: The Broads cover a large area, the main centres are Wroxham (the “Capital of the Broads,” the largest village on the Broads and the traditional starting point for a boating holiday, ~25 min from Norwich by car or train), Stalham, and Potter Heigham (on the northern rivers, the Bure, the Ant, the Thurne), and Beccles, Oulton Broad, and Brundall (on the southern rivers, the Yare and the Waveney). A car is helpful but not essential, Wroxham and Hoveton have a railway station (Wroxham, on the Bittern Line from Norwich), and many boatyards will collect you from the station
• The boating experience: Hiring a cruiser (a motorboat with accommodation, 2–8 berths, is the classic Broads experience. Cost: ~£600–1,500 per week for a 4–6 berth cruiser in peak season, significantly less in spring and autumn. No licence or experience is required, the boatyard provides full instruction on arrival, and the rivers are slow, the banks are soft, and the worst that can happen is a gentle grounding on the mud (the Broads are famously forgiving). A short break (3–4 nights) is sufficient for a first visit. The northern rivers (the Bure, the Ant, the Thurne) are the most popular and the most beautiful, the stretch of the Ant from Ludham Bridge to Barton Broad (the second-largest Broad, a vast expanse of open water, reed beds, and sky, the home of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s floating boardwalk) is the essential cruise. Moor up at the village of Horning (the most beautiful village on the Broads, thatched cottages, a riverside green, and the pubs, the Swan Inn, the New Inn, that are an essential part of the experience), Ranworth (the church of St. Helen, the “Cathedral of the Broads”, climb the tower for the best view of the Bure valley and the Broads beyond), and St. Benet’s Abbey (the ruins of a 10th-century monastery, the only monastery in England never officially dissolved by Henry VIII, the Bishop of Norwich still arrives by boat once a year to conduct a service in the ruins). The southern rivers (the Yare and the Waveney) are wider, deeper, and quieter, the marshes of the Halvergate Levels and the Berney Arms Mill (the tallest and most isolated wind pump on the Broads, accessible only by boat or on foot) are the highlights
• Beyond the boat: The Norfolk Wildlife Trust nature reserves, Hickling Broad (the largest Broad and the best for wildlife, the bittern, the marsh harrier, the swallowtail butterfly, and the otter) and Ranworth Broad (the floating boardwalk through the reed bed and the floating visitor centre, one of the most beautiful nature experiences in the UK). The seals at Horsey Gap (a colony of grey seals on the beach at Horsey, the pups are born in November–December, and the sight of hundreds of seals and their white pups on the sand is one of the most extraordinary natural spectacles in Britain. The walk from the car park to the viewing deck is ~20 minutes across the dunes, free). And the city of Norwich (30 min from Wroxham, the cathedral, the castle, the medieval streets of Elm Hill, and one of the best independent food scenes in the UK. Explore more UK guides →)