Dartmoor Car Parks That Do Not Fill Up by Ten in the Morning

Short answer: The car parks at the honeypot tors fill early on any sunny day. Bellever Forest, the moor-edge nature reserves and the National Trust sites hold out longer. Several Dartmoor and Exmoor car parks are cash only or have poor signal for payment apps — carry coins.

The problem

Dartmoor's car parks are small, scattered and mostly unmade. The ones serving the well-known tors along the main roads fill by mid-morning on any decent day in season, and there is rarely an overflow — the lanes are too narrow to park on and the verges are protected.

Carry coins

This catches people out repeatedly across the moor and its edges. Phone signal in the valleys is poor to non-existent, which makes app payment unreliable. Over on the Exmoor side, Watersmeet's nearer car park takes cash only with patchy signal, and Glen Lyn Gorge at Lynmouth is cash only with the nearest machine up in Lynton. Assume coins are needed and you will not be caught out.

Where to go instead

Bellever Forest is the most reliable of the popular spots because it is large — marked trails, a river, toilets and a coffee trailer, at £3 for two hours or £5 all day. Reviewers recommend the late afternoon when it empties out, which is also when the light is best.

East Dartmoor National Nature Reserve near Bovey Tracey has four separate car parks feeding the same network of paths, which spreads the load. If one is full, another almost certainly is not.

The paid sites that guarantee a space

• Castle Drogo — National Trust, free for members, with the 173 bus stopping outside.
• Lydford Gorge — two car parks, one at each end of the gorge, with a loop from each.
• Buckland Abbey — good parking and a walk down to the abbey from it.
• Becky Falls and Canonteign Falls — their own car parks, included with entry.

Timing

The same rules apply as at the coast. Before half nine and you park where you like. Ten to eleven is the crunch. After three, spaces reappear as the first wave leaves — and on the moor the late afternoon is genuinely the better time to be there.

One warning

Wistman's Wood has notoriously difficult parking and you will be walking in from a fair distance whatever you do. Reviewers are unanimous that it is worth it, but do not turn up expecting to park close.