What To Do In Powys
POWYS is Wales at its most expansive: a sweep of mountains, moorland and market towns where grand houses, storybook castles and star-pricked skies sit minutes apart.
Much of the county lies within Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park, whose ridgelines culminate on Pen y Fan, the highest summit in south Wales and a classic day hike with huge views. By night, this becomes one of Britain’s finest stargazing locations thanks to International Dark Sky Reserve status – proof that the wild still rules here.
For heritage drama, few sights match Powis Castle above Welshpool, its red sandstone walls rising over world-famous Italianate terraces and clipped yews. Inside, the Clive Museum holds one of the UK’s most significant South and East Asian collections, adding global depth to a very Welsh story.
A short hop away, steam whistles echo along the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, a narrow-gauge beauty threading the green border hills.
Water shapes central Powys. The Elan Valley – a 70-square-mile estate of sculptural Victorian dams and mirror-calm reservoirs – delivers spectacular scenery for walkers, cyclists and photographers, with Craig Goch, Caban Coch and their sister dams stealing the show.
Downstream, Lake Vyrnwy pairs a fairytale straining tower with woodland trails and bird hides where spring brings pied flycatchers and redstarts. Time your afternoon for Gigrin Farm Red Kite Feeding Centre near Rhayader to watch hundreds of kites wheel and dive: an only-in-Wales spectacle.
Book lovers make pilgrimages to Hay-on-Wye, the original ‘town of books’, where second-hand shelves spill into courtyards and the annual Hay Festival fills lanes with readers and writers. Don’t miss Hay Castle, newly restored as a bright arts and learning centre in the town’s heart.
In Brecon, the quietly beautiful Brecon Cathedral anchors a rare walled close and offers a peaceful pause between market-town wanders.
And in Llandrindod Wells, the National Cycle Museum spins through two centuries of bike design inside the Art-Deco Automobile Palace – proof that this is a county built for two wheels as much as two feet.
Powys also excels at time-travel. The Judge’s Lodging in Presteigne recreates a Victorian judge’s world – courtroom to kitchens – with award-winning detail, while clifftop Montgomery Castle surveys the borderlands from romantic ruins above its Georgian town.
Long-distance walkers can trace the kingdom-sized footprint of history on the Offa’s Dyke Path, which rides the spine of the Marches right through Powys.
For families and underground explorers, the Dan-yr-Ogof National Showcaves Centre for Wales opens a cathedral of caverns and waterfalls on the park’s western edge. And for a forward-looking counterpoint, Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth is a pioneering eco-centre and educational hub championing sustainable living in a spectacular former slate quarry. Together, they bookend Powys’s appeal: deep time below your feet and bright ideas on the hillside.
Whether you come for castles and culture, rivers and ridges, or shelves of second-hand treasures, Powys rewards unhurried days and star-studded nights – and it leaves you planning the next trip before you’ve even left.
