The Best Hotels in Poole

Poole Hotels

With palm trees lining the wide streets and a salty breeze permeating the air, Poole certainly has a holiday feel to it. In the harbour, kite-surfers and windsurfers zip by, while further out into the open sea, boats and ferries ply the waterways to local islands and beyond. Yachts dock at the marina; the quay full of relaxed chatter and the chinking of glasses. The adjoining town of Bournemouth provides sandy beaches popular with families and a bustling shopping district.

Things to see

Poole Harbour is one of the best and most popular spots on the south coast for watersports, particularly windsurfing and kite-surfing. The harbour provides a safe area in which to paddle about and learn if you’re just a beginner, while reliable wind currents make it good fun for the more advanced as well. In the summer months, lessons and equipment hire are widely available here. Along the harbour edge, the wide promenade is a great place to stroll, rollerblade or just sit and watch the tide come in. For an enjoyable summer daytrip, take a ferry out to tiny Brownsea Island, where soft, sandy beaches, rock pools and the chance to spot puffins will delight children. Back on the mainland, you can spend more time at the seaside on Bournemouth Beach. Its pier provides family entertainment with arcade games, a traditional theatre and all the candyfloss your teeth can stand.

Hotels in Poole

There are some great hotels in Poole, with a variety of traditional, characterful guesthouses and modern, mid-range hotels available at great value prices. Poole’s upmarket beachfront hotels offer traditional elegance, sea views and charmingly-furnished rooms. High-quality furnishings, such as Egyptian cotton sheets, and amenities such as mini-bars and plasma TVs add to the sense of luxury. Most of these hotels also provide onsite gourmet restaurants or traditional wood-panelled bars serving local ales. In the familiar-brand hotels, amenities include indoor pools, health clubs and business centres to suit business and leisure travellers. The rooms tend to be spacious and modern.

Where to stay

For a relaxed, seafront location, the hotels in central Poole are the best option. Accommodation here offers a charming, romantic atmosphere and the relaxed waterfront attractions of Poole Harbour and Quay are just a short walk away, where there is a choice of restaurants and bars. For a greater range of shops, restaurants and evening entertainment, central Bournemouth is the best choice. Its city centre has a variety of mid-range hotels and quaint guesthouses. Bournemouth Beach also has plenty of hotels, which are very family-friendly. They include large resort-style hotels, as well as small, welcoming guesthouses, right on the beach.

How to get to Poole

Bournemouth International Airport is located just a few miles away from Poole. It is small but highly convenient, with numerous UK and European flights. From the airport, frequent bus services run to both central Bournemouth and Poole, and several of the hotels offer airport transfers. If you arrive at one of the London airports, Poole can be easily reached by train. From Waterloo, Poole is just an hour and a half away. If coming from France or elsewhere along the British coast, you can also arrive directly into Poole by ferry. Cherbourg in France is a 4-hour ferry trip away.