Caravan Parks
Pendine Bay Leisure Park
Pendine, Carmarthenshire
- Sleeps 6
- Pets welcome
Five-star park with two and three-bedroom self-catering caravans and a footpath straight down to Pendine Sands.
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The Best Caravan & Camping Holiday Stays in Carmarthenshire
Carmarthenshire keeps its beaches at the bottom of the county, along Carmarthen Bay. Pendine sits at the western tip of that bay and Llanelli at the eastern, with Laugharne, Ferryside, Kidwelly and Pembrey in between.
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Caravan Parks
Ferryside Farm Caravan & Camping
Ferryside, Carmarthenshire
- Sleeps 4
Small farm site above the Tywi estuary at Ferryside. Tents £25, caravans £30 including hook-up.
From£25 per night
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Pendine Sands is seven miles of hard, flat sand once the tide drops. The Ministry of Defence runs a firing range across it. Red flags mean stay off, and the beach can be closed off on weekdays between eight in the morning and quarter past four.
Cefn Sidan runs eight miles along the eastern half of the bay, with the woods and dunes of Pembrey Country Park behind it. Kidwelly and Ferryside sit above the estuaries of the Gwendraeth and the Tywi. Inland the county climbs to Llandovery, and Llanfynydd lies in the hills above Carmarthen.
Cefn Sidan means silken back, and the sand lies so flat that sandbanks reach far out into the bay. Between 1770 and 1870 the villagers behind the beach were said to strip the wrecks before help arrived. They carried small hatchets to cut rigging and free cargo, and the name stuck: Gwyr y Bwyelli Bach, the men of the little hatchets.
On 21 November 1828 a sailing ship called La Jeune Emma struck those sands in the dark. Nineteen people were aboard and thirteen drowned. One of them was Adeline Coquelin, twelve years old and a niece of Josephine, Napoleon's first wife. Her father, a lieutenant colonel, died with her.
Pembrey turned from wrecks to explosives. A gunpowder works opened behind the dunes in 1881, and the Nobel Explosive Company put up a TNT factory there in 1914. It was rebuilt in 1938 as a Royal Ordnance Factory. At its peak in 1942 it made seven hundred tons of TNT a week, and three thousand people worked on the site. It closed in March 1965.
That factory ground is Pembrey Country Park now, five hundred acres of woodland and dune behind the beach. The gates open from six in the morning until ten at night, and the visitor centre from ten until four. Ring 01554 742435 to find out what is open on the day.
The sea still gives the wrecks back. The ribs of the Paul, a Hamburg sailing ship, show on the sand at low tide. A second wreck called the Teviotdale lies further out towards the Gwendraeth estuary. Both are out on the sand the wreckers once worked. Check the tide times before you walk out to either.
Adeline Coquelin still lies in the churchyard at St Illtud's, and the gravestone names her and her father. The church stands in Pembrey village, just inland from the park. From there the Millennium Coastal Path heads east to Llanelli, thirteen traffic-free miles, flat enough for a child on a bike.
Caravan Parks in Carmarthenshire — your questions answered
- Where is Carmarthenshire?
- Carmarthenshire is in south-west Wales, between Swansea and Pembrokeshire. Its southern edge is the coast of Carmarthen Bay. Inland it reaches as far as Llandovery and the western edge of the Brecon Beacons. Carmarthen is the county town, and Llanelli is the biggest. Trains from Swansea and Cardiff stop at both.
- Where is Pendine Sands, and how far is it from Tenby?
- Pendine is where Carmarthen Bay runs out, close to the Pembrokeshire border. Tenby is about fifteen miles away, a little over half an hour by road. The route goes inland round the Taf estuary rather than along the coast. Laugharne is five miles back east.
- Can you drive on Pendine Sands?
- Not along it. Cars were banned from the sand between 2004 and 2010. Since then you may park on a marked area when the beach is open for it. The firing range comes first: when the red flags are up the beach is shut. Tide and sand conditions decide the rest, and there are car parks on Marsh Road and the sea front.
- How long is Pendine beach?
- Seven miles when the tide is out. Cefn Sidan, at the other end of the bay, is eight, and Carmarthenshire County Council calls it the longest beach in Wales. They are separate beaches with three river mouths between them, so neither ever feels full.
- Are dogs allowed on the beaches at Pendine and Pembrey?
- On most of both. From 1 October to 30 April no Carmarthenshire beach has a dog restriction. Between 1 May and 30 September Pendine keeps dogs off the stretch between its two slipways, its bathing area. Cefn Sidan keeps them off a mile of its eight, leaving seven open in August. Ferryside has no restriction at all.
- What is there to do in Carmarthenshire?
- Pembrey Country Park runs a dry ski slope and a toboggan run down the same hill, plus a miniature railway. At Pendine the Museum of Land Speed tells how the world land speed record was set on that beach in the 1920s. Babs, the car that took it in 1926, is on show there until 31 August 2026. Laugharne has the boathouse where the poet Dylan Thomas wrote.
- How much does it cost to stay in a caravan in Carmarthenshire?
- It depends whether you want a pitch or a caravan. A touring or camping pitch on this coast can be had for £15 a night, and £25 to £30 is normal with an electric hook-up. A week in a static caravan near Pendine or Kidwelly begins a little over £200 in the quieter months, and a good deal more in August.
Pendine and Pembrey put you on the sand, with Laugharne and Kidwelly a short drive behind them. Inland is a different week: Llandovery sits at the top of the Tywi valley, where the hills begin, and the lanes around Llanfynydd and St Clears are quiet. Llanelli is the nearest town for a supermarket or a station.
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