Windermere and Bowness hold more hotels, inns and guesthouses than anywhere else in the national park, and most of them are small, family-run and perfectly good. This guide is for anyone staying in one of them — the practical business of using the two towns properly, which pickup point is nearest to you, and how to get at the parts of the Lake District that neither town can show you. Whichever front door you have a key to, the geography works the same way.
Quick Facts
Windermere and Bowness are not the same place, and Windermere town is not on the lake. This surprises a great many arrivals, some of whom have booked a hotel on the strength of the name expecting water outside the window. Windermere is the town at the top of the hill, built around the railway station when the line arrived in 1847. Bowness is the older lakeside village a mile and a half downhill, where the piers, the boats and the bay are. The lake itself is also called Windermere, which is where the whole muddle comes from.
Neither is better. Windermere town is quieter, has the station and better everyday shops, and is where a lot of the smaller hotels and guesthouses sit. Bowness has the water, the bustle and the restaurants. Knowing which one you are actually in makes planning the week considerably easier.
If you are staying anywhere in Windermere town, do this on the first afternoon. Orrest Head is the modest fell directly behind the town, reached by a path that starts almost opposite the station, and it takes about twenty minutes of honest uphill. From the top you get the whole length of the lake with the Coniston and Langdale fells stacked behind it. It was this view, seen by a young Alfred Wainwright on a day trip in 1930, that set him off on the fell-walking guides that made him famous. It is still free, still there, and still the best possible introduction to where you have come.
Staying down in Bowness instead? Brant Fell, from the top of the village, does much the same job in a similar time.
Windermere Lake Cruises runs from the Bowness piers and the mistake most visitors make is treating it as a sightseeing trip to be done once. Used properly it is a bus service on water. Sail north to Waterhead and walk into Ambleside for lunch; sail south to Lakeside for the steam railway; cross to the western shore for Wray Castle's grounds and the quiet woods of Claife. You will see more of the lake in an afternoon than you would in two days of driving round it, and you will not spend any of it looking for a parking space.
Both towns run out of parking by mid-morning through the season. In Bowness, Braithwaite Fold and Glebe Road are the ones to aim for; in Windermere, Broad Street. One firm warning worth heeding: the supermarket and retail car parks in both towns are customer-only, camera-monitored, and they do issue fines — a surprising number of visitors come home to one. If your accommodation has a space, the best plan is usually to leave the car in it all week and let buses, boats and tour days do the moving.
Another common tangle. The World of Beatrix Potter in Bowness is an indoor attraction bringing the illustrations to life — charming, and a genuinely good rainy afternoon with children. Hill Top, the farmhouse where she actually lived and wrote, is across the lake at Near Sawrey and is a different thing entirely: a small, atmospheric, still-working farm kept largely as she left it. Both are worth doing. Only one of them is the real place, and it is not the one in Bowness.
Here is the honest limit of a Windermere or Bowness base. The lake is the lake, and it is magnificent — but the high passes, the western valleys, the literary villages and the wilder fells all sit beyond the buses and the boats, and summer traffic makes driving to them a genuine chore. That is precisely what our tour days are for: seven guests at most, an expert guide, and someone else at the wheel on Kirkstone and Honister.
The grand sweep: ten lakes, the high passes between them, and an Ullswater Steamers cruise exclusive to this tour. If a celebration stay deserves one great day out, this is it.
See dates & bookCollected at the door, your party only, the day shaped to you — literary landscapes, hidden valleys, or simply the most beautiful roads we know. Well-behaved dogs are welcome aboard in our vehicle crates.
Enquire about a private dayDove Cottage at Grasmere — entry included as standard — and the valleys that made the poems, with Dora's Field carpeted gold in daffodil season. The right literary day for this most Georgian of addresses.
See dates & bookAcross the lake to Hill Top and Near Sawrey, with our illustration-matching walk through the village lanes — back for a long lakeside lunch.
See dates & bookThe afternoon version crosses the lake by boat rather than by road — worth choosing if you'd like the crossing itself to be part of the day.
See dates & bookA slow hall morning, then eight lakes and their valleys at a seven-seat pace — the most civilised way to spend a Lakeland afternoon.
See dates & bookThe same eight lakes as the afternoon tour, run the opposite way round in the morning — ideal if you'd rather keep your afternoon free for the lawns.
See dates & bookA full literary day east to Haworth — the Parsonage, the cobbled village, and the moors that gave Wuthering Heights its weather, newly magnetic with the recent film. Oxenholme pickup available.
See dates & bookInto the Dales for Grassington's "Darrowby", the Wensleydale Creamery, Kilnsey Crag and Bolton Abbey — filming locations brought to life around you with live scene technology.
See dates & bookIf you would rather not work to a departure time — or your party spans a wide range of ages and paces — a private day collects directly from your hotel or guesthouse and runs entirely to your own plans. It is the usual choice for anniversaries, milestone birthdays and family gatherings, and well-behaved dogs are welcome aboard, travelling safely in the crates our vehicles carry.
Not sure which route suits your plans, or want a day built entirely from scratch — a family reunion, a wedding anniversary, scattering ashes somewhere that mattered? Tell us what you have in mind and we'll design a day around it — see our guide to celebrating a special occasion for ideas, or get in touch directly.
Bowness has the density — everything from fish and chips eaten on the bay wall to serious dining rooms, and it is where most visitors head in the evening. Windermere town is quieter and has several very good small restaurants that take rather less booking. In season, reserve for a Saturday in either town; midweek you can usually follow your nose.
The World of Beatrix Potter, the covered decks of a cruise, the Windermere Jetty museum with its collection of historic lake boats, and the long Lakeland pub lunch are all good answers. So, frankly, is a tour day — you are warm and dry in the vehicle, the waterfalls are at their best, and low cloud on the fells is often more atmospheric than blue sky.
Day one: arrive, walk up Orrest Head or Brant Fell, eat locally. Day two: a tour day, out early, back for supper. Day three: the lake — a cruise, a walk on the far shore, an unhurried afternoon. Day four: a second tour day if the first one worked, or Hill Top and Hawkshead across the water. Day five: whatever the week has taught you that you like best. It is not complicated, and the alternation between a big day out and an easy one is what stops a Lakes holiday feeling like a campaign.
No, and it catches a lot of people out. Windermere is the town up the hill with the railway station; Bowness is the village down on the lake with the piers and the boats. They are about a mile and a half apart. The lake is also called Windermere, which is where most of the confusion comes from.
If you are staying up in Windermere town, use Windermere railway station. If you are down in Bowness, use Bowness Pier 1. Ambleside library is our third pickup, for guests staying further north. All three are main departure points for most of our scheduled tours.
Comfortably. Trains reach Windermere station directly, the two towns are linked by frequent buses and a walkable mile and a half, lake cruises cover the water, and a guided tour day reaches the passes and valleys no bus goes near.
Braithwaite Fold and Glebe Road in Bowness, or Broad Street up in Windermere. All fill by mid-morning in season. Please do not use the supermarket or retail car parks — they are customer-only, camera-monitored, and issue fines.
The World of Beatrix Potter in Bowness, the covered decks of a lake cruise, the Windermere Jetty museum, and the long Lakeland pub lunch. A guided tour day also works perfectly well in poor weather — you are warm and dry, and the fells are often at their most atmospheric.
We are an independent local tour operator. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by any hotel or guesthouse in Windermere or Bowness.