Places to explore near Bournemouth

Ten acres of 1920s themed gardens, Italian and Japanese, above Poole Harbour.

3.6 km SW

Dorset's "Isle" of Purbeck, a peninsula of chalk and limestone on the Jurassic Coast, with sea stacks, quarried stone and a ruined castle

5.4 km SW

Chalk ridges, quiet combes and one of the finest coastlines in England, from Lyme Bay to Purbeck

5.7 km SW

National Trust island in Poole Harbour where red squirrels survive, with a wader-filled lagoon, woodland paths and the first Scout camp site

6.2 km SW

630 miles around England's toe — the longest and most demanding of the National Trails.

6.7 km SW · spans 4 counties

Long dune-backed sands facing Old Harry.

6.7 km SW

One of England's longest parish churches, a Norman and Gothic former priory near the harbour, with its legend of the miraculous beam.

7.6 km E

Three brilliant white chalk stacks and stumps at the seaward tip of the Purbeck, marking the eastern start of the Jurassic Coast.

9.2 km S

Four miles of soft Dorset sand between Old Harry Rocks and Poole Harbour, with wild heath and dunes at its back

10.2 km SW

Ancient wood pasture and heathland where commoners' ponies still roam free.

10.9 km NE

A historic market town centred on its twin-towered minster church, with a Georgian core and a much-loved 1950s model town.

11.6 km NW · Dorset

Around Thomas Hardy's Wessex from his birthplace cottage to the churchyard at Stinsford, via Corfe Castle and Lulworth Cove.

11.8 km NW · Dorset & Wiltshire

Big chalk downland and old hunting country, with some of the darkest night skies in southern England

12.6 km NW

A tiny two-room brick cottage on the National Trust's Kingston Lacy estate, beer passed through a hatch by the same family for generations.

12.9 km NW

A Victorian seaside town at the eastern end of the Purbeck, with a sandy bay, restored pier and a preserved steam railway to Corfe Castle.

13.7 km SW · Dorset

Grand house with art and a beech avenue.

14.7 km NW

A Civil-War-slighted skyline ruin above its Purbeck village.

15.4 km SW

A flooded old clay pit near Wareham whose water shifts between turquoise and green as the light changes, ringed by Purbeck heathland

15.4 km SW

A village of grey Purbeck-stone cottages clustered in the gap beneath its ruined royal fortress, with barely a modern building in sight.

15.4 km SW · Dorset

A wave-cut Purbeck quarry ledge dropping to the sea, with a small tidal pool blasted into the rock for Victorian schoolboys.

16.7 km SW

A Saxon walled town between the Frome and Piddle rivers, its grid of Georgian streets running down to a riverside quay near Poole Harbour.

16.8 km W · Dorset

A Purbeck limestone village of stone cottages around a duck pond, high above the sea near the Square and Compass pub.

17.7 km SW · Dorset

A dramatic disused sea-cliff quarry of galleries and caves opening straight onto the water below Worth Matravers.

18.6 km SW

A remote horseshoe cove ringed by high, fossil-rich cliffs on the wild south Purbeck coast, reached only on foot.

19.2 km SW

Stands at the foot of the chalk stacks off the western tip of the Isle of Wight, a candy-striped tower amid one of the Channel's busiest seaways.

21.3 km E

The three chalk sea stacks and red-and-white lighthouse off the western tip of the Isle of Wight, best seen from the down and battery above.

21.4 km E

Dark ledges below the clifftop Clavell Tower.

21.4 km SW

Chalk downs ending at the Needles, Osborne and Carisbrooke Castle, dinosaur-fossil coasts and sailing at Cowes, a short ferry from the mainland

21.5 km E

Saltmarsh and lagoons on the Solent Way.

22 km E

Cranborne Chase village inn from the acclaimed Chickpea Group, an olive gastropub pick.

22.3 km N

Deer-viewing platform among ancient tall trees.

22.8 km NE

Henry VIII fort at the end of a shingle spit.

23.1 km E

A deserted Purbeck village requisitioned in 1943 and never returned, its roofless cottages, school and church preserved on the army ranges.

23.1 km SW

The 'Queen of the Forest', over 500 years old.

23.7 km NE

A wide, empty crescent of shingle and cliff below the abandoned Tyneham valley, open only when the Lulworth ranges are quiet.

24.1 km SW

Georgian sailing town with a cobbled quay.

24.1 km E · Hampshire

A 17th-century mock castle built as a grand hunting lodge, gutted by fire and now an open shell in the Dorset parkland

24.9 km W

Following the Dorset Stour from the lakes at Stourhead to the sea at Hengistbury Head, under a kingfisher waymark.

4.9 km N · Dorset & Wiltshire

A National Nature Reserve in Dorset.

6.2 km SW

One path around a whole country — beach, clifftop and seawall the entire way round England's coast, opening stretch by stretch.

6.7 km SW · spans 24 counties

A Site of Special Scientific Interest in Dorset.

7 km E

Ruined keep on its mound and a 12th-century stone hall beside the mill stream in Christchurch, with one of England's few surviving Norman chimneys.

7.6 km E

A country park in Dorset.

9 km W

A country park in Dorset.

10.6 km N

A National Nature Reserve in Dorset.

11.6 km N