Here’s 12 suggestions about things you might want to resolve to do when you visit Norfolk in 2024. They’re reason enough to plan a trip…
1 Visit the country’s largest seal colony at Blakeney Point. You can walk along the 4-mile shingle spit from Cley-next-the-Sea or take a relaxing boat ride from Morston Quay with Beans Boats.
2 Breckland in the west of the county has the best overall climate in the country… yes, really! Why not hit the heights on the aerial ropes at Go Ape! Before taking a relaxing walk in the country’s largest lowland pine forest.
3 Walk in the footsteps of the first known humans to come to the UK when you’re on the beach at Happisburgh. Yes, the first tourists to this country came to visit Norfolk! This is the Deep History Coast, where the world’s largest and best-preserved mammoth skeleton was found.
4 Enjoy some of the country’s best birdwatching in the country at brilliant Premier League wildlife reserves such as Cley-next-the-Sea, Snettisham and Titchwell.
5 Walk in the footsteps of our Royal family at Sandringham where you can enjoy the house and gardens, and there’s a great museum too.
6 Hire a boat in the unique Norfolk Broads, 125 miles of navigable waterways – that’s more than Amsterdam or Venice has! And most of them are man-made. Who knew?! Yes, they’re actually the result of medieval peat diggings. They’re also the UK’s newest National Park, and the only National Park with a city in it.
7 Visit one of our ‘Downton Abbeys’, including the wonderfully Palladian Holkham Hall, Blickling Hall where you might want to hunt out the unique pyramid mausoleum, and Houghton Hall, where you can enjoy the miniature battlefields as well as contemporary art. Oh, and at Oxburgh Hall, you can hide in the Priest Hole.
8 Enjoy the Golden Mile at Great Yarmouth, where you can ride a snail, go ‘Wheee!’ on a wooden rollercoaster, roll up your trousers legs and have a paddle and don’t leave without eating some freshly-made donuts… bet you’ll lick your lips!
9 Spend a day being a flaneur in Norwich, a brilliantly walkable city. Highlights include riverside, the Cathedral precinct, Europe’s largest permanent covered market and medieval Tombland and Elm Hill.
10 Book tickets for the Cromer Pavilion Summer Show. It’s the last end-of-pier show in the country! And while you’re in town, you simply must have the eponymous crab – it’s delish.
11 Snap the sunset at Hunstanton in West Norfolk, known to us as Sunny Hunny. Why? Because they’re spectacular. And the reason why is it’s the only east coast resort that actually faces west! Stand on the stripey cliffs or on the beach below and marvel at the sumptuous colours.
12 Count the beach huts at Wells-next-the-Sea in north Norfolk. Put it this way, you’re going to need more than your ten toes and ten fingers. While you’re here, try and game of hide and seek in the pine forest behind the beach.
