Swansea is Wales’s second city and it sits along the top of its own bay, with five miles of sand running from the middle of town round to Mumbles. The promenade goes the whole way and it is flat, so most people walk or cycle part of it. Holiday accommodation in Swansea gives you a city and a bay, with the flat promenade to Mumbles for walking or cycling.
16 places to stay · showing 1–10
Swansea, Swansea & Gower
A working farm park near Swansea offering holiday cottages and B&B, with rare-breed animals and fishing lakes, sleeping up to 10.
Swansea, South Wales
A stylish modern hotel in Swansea with air-conditioned rooms, a spa and leisure club — a comfortable city base.
Swansea, South Wales
A comfortable, well-equipped aparthotel in Swansea, with modern en-suite rooms — a handy, good-value base.
Swansea, South Wales
A distinctive 4-star boutique townhouse hotel in Swansea, with uniquely themed rooms — a characterful city base.
Swansea, South Wales
Spacious, luxurious self-catering apartments in Swansea with chic interiors, sleeping up to 6 — a stylish city base.
Swansea, South Wales
A modern, budget-friendly hotel in Swansea with bright, spacious rooms — great value for the city and the Gower. Dog-friendly.
Swansea, Swansea & Gower
A comfortable guest house in the Swansea Valley, with modern en-suite rooms and a jacuzzi — a relaxing base for the valley and beyond.
Swansea, South Wales
A modern three-storey townhouse near Swansea Marina, sleeping 7 across four bedrooms, dog-friendly, with marina views, close to the city, Mumbles and the Gower Peninsula.
Swansea, South Wales
A large detached house at Waunarlwydd near Swansea, sleeping 10 across five bedrooms, with a private hot tub and a games room, close to the Gower…
Swansea, South Wales
A 4-star boutique hotel in Swansea with beautifully styled rooms across the main hotel and Town House — stylish and characterful.
The middle of the city is compact. You can walk between the market, the shops and Wind Street in a few minutes, and the marina and the Maritime Quarter lie just below them on the front.
Behind it the ground rises into the Uplands and Sketty, and beyond those the lanes climb into farm country. West along the bay the Gower begins, so you can make a city break and a coast week the same trip.
The poet Dylan Thomas called Swansea an ugly, lovely town, and both halves of that still hold. The Uplands, the hill behind the centre, is where he grew up.
The reason the centre looks the way it does is three nights in February 1941. The Luftwaffe flattened forty-one acres of it, destroying 857 buildings and killing 230 people. The Ben Evans department store went overnight. Plans to rebuild the old street pattern were blocked by the government in London, so the modern centre looks nothing like the Victorian one.
Swansea market survived all of that and is still the largest indoor market in Wales. It opens Monday to Saturday, eight until five, with more than a hundred stalls under one roof.
The cockles come to those stalls from the Loughor estuary, a few miles west, and laverbread, the boiled seaweed, sits beside them for you to try.
Down at the marina the National Waterfront Museum charges nothing and opens ten till five. Swansea City play football and the Ospreys play rugby at the Swansea.com Stadium at Landore, the name it has had since 2021, so a match day can be part of a city break.
The real argument for staying here is what sits within half an hour. Mumbles is at the end of the seafront, and you can drive on past it to the big sandy bays along the south coast of the Gower.
Swansea is the practical base for this coast. The market, the marina and the museums in the middle, five miles of sand out to Mumbles, and the Gower beginning where the seafront ends. The real decision is whether to stay in the city or push out along the bay.
See all: Swansea & Gower accommodation
Browse Swansea & Gower by type: B&Bs & Guest Houses · Hotels & Inns · Cottages & Self-Catering · Caravan & Camping
Nearby towns: Mumbles · Port Eynon · Gower
Nearby areas: Carmarthenshire · Vale of Glamorgan · South Wales
Last-minute deals: Last Minute Holidays in Wales
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