Three million people visit the Yorkshire Dales every year. Almost all of them go to the same five places.
Wharfedale, Swaledale, Malham Cove, Aysgarth Falls, and Ribblehead Viaduct draw visitors. Guidebooks steer tourists here. Their beauty is renowned. Car parks fill by ten. Paths are muddy. Cafes overflow.
The Yorkshire Dales has dozens of valleys, not just five. The main dales run north to south through the Pennines. Each river bears an Old English name. Tributary dales feed them. Small, silent villages lie at the end of winding, single-track roads.
These are ten of those dales, untouched by tourist crowds and waiting to be discovered.
Quick Facts
- Region: Yorkshire Dales National Park and Nidderdale National Landscape, North Yorkshire
- Best for: Quiet walking, hay meadows, waterfalls, limestone scenery, solitude
- Getting there: The A1(M) and A65 provide access from the east and south. Skipton, Settle, Hawes and Richmond are the main gateway towns.
- Time needed: Three to four days to explore five or six dales comfortably
1. Littondale
Littondale runs north from Wharfedale into a narrowing limestone valley, following the River Skirfare past Arncliffe and Litton. It’s among the Dales’ most beautiful valleys, yet most Wharfedale tourists never leave the B6160 to find it.
Arncliffe surrounds a broad village green. Stone cottages here seem unchanged for centuries. Emmerdale filmed its early episodes here before production moved to Harewood. Since then, the village has slipped back into quiet normality. It is now just a cluster of farms in a tranquil valley, with sheep on the fells and lapwings over the meadows.
Walking here is gentle by Dales standards. This makes it ideal for relaxed exploration and accessible to most visitors. The river path between Arncliffe and Litton follows the Skirfare through hay meadows. These are cut late in summer, so wildflowers can set seed. In June, fields glow with buttercups, pignut, yellow rattle, and wood cranesbill. This is perfect for nature lovers.
Where to Stay: The Falcon Inn in Arncliffe is a traditional Dales pub with rooms, overlooking the village green. The Queen’s Arms in Litton serves local ale and honest food.
Worth Knowing: Littondale ends at Halton Gill, where a narrow pass over Horse Head Moor leads to Langstrothdale. This lack of through traffic is what preserves its quiet.
2. Langstrothdale
Where Upper Wharfedale narrows beyond Buckden, the valley’s name and character change. Langstrothdale follows the infant River Wharfe toward its source on Cam Fell. The land is dotted with farmsteads, stone barns, and walled fields. The setting feels as if it belongs to a forgotten century.
The roads are too narrow for coaches. They are also too winding for those in a hurry. Hubberholme, Yockenthwaite, and Cray are tiny villages. Hubberholme’s church, St Michael’s, holds a rare medieval rood loft—one of only two in Yorkshire. J.B. Priestley asked to be buried in the churchyard, calling it the prettiest place in the world.
The walking here is superb. From Cray, a steep path climbs to a waterfall above the village, then contorts across the fellside towards Buckden Pike. From Yockenthwaite, a stone circle on the moor is older than anything else in the valley. The whole dale feels deeply quiet, a quality the main valleys lost decades ago.
Where to Stay: The George Inn at Hubberholme is one of the most atmospheric pubs in the Dales, set beside the river with the church next door.
Worth Knowing: Yockenthwaite means ‘Eogan’s clearing’ in Old Norse. Vikings settled here more than a thousand years ago. The stone circle above Yockenthwaite is Bronze Age. People have been drawn to this spot for at least 4,000 years.
3. Waldendale
Waldendale is the dale that even Dales people forget. It runs south from Wensleydale. Walden Beck cuts through a valley so quiet and little visited that some walking guides miss it entirely.
West Burton is the only significant settlement. It is one of the most attractive villages in the Dales, built around a large green. A market cross and Cauldron Falls stand at the village edge. Beyond West Burton, the road climbs into Waldendale proper, past a handful of farms, then runs out entirely.
Walking here is straightforward. The area is perfect if you want manageable routes and big views. A circuit from West Burton follows the beck upstream through the valley, then crosses the moor at its head. It returns along the western ridge. From here, you see Penhill to the east and the flat top of Buckden Pike to the south. The quiet is deep; you’re unlikely to meet another walker.
Where to Stay: The Fox and Hounds in West Burton overlooks the village green and serves food using local produce.
Worth Knowing: West Burton’s waterfall, Cauldron Falls, drops into a plunge pool at the edge of the village. It is overlooked by a packhorse bridge and surrounded by trees. On a still autumn morning, with the leaves turning and the water low, it is one of the most perfect small scenes in England.
4. Coverdale
Coverdale begins at the River Ure in Middleham. It runs southwest into the hills along the River Cover through a long, narrow valley. Once home to a Premonstratensian abbey, it is now sparsely populated and tranquil.
Coverdale has its own character. It is softer than Swaledale, less dramatic than Wharfedale, and emptier than either. The villages—Carlton, Horsehouse, and Braidley—stand along a single road that climbs steadily to Park Rash. This is one of the steepest roads in the Dales. It then drops into Kettlewell in Wharfedale.
Coverham Abbey, founded in 1190, sits on private land near Middleham. You can see it from Holy Trinity Churchyard. Miles Coverdale produced the first complete English Bible translation in 1535 and is associated with the abbey, though his connection to the dale is uncertain.
Walking here is outstanding. A circuit from Carlton takes in the high ground on both sides of the valley and gives views of Great Whernside and Penhill. The valley-floor hay meadows are traditionally managed. In June, they rival anything in Swaledale.
Where to Stay: The Foresters Arms in Carlton, Coverdale, is a traditional Dales village pub.
Worth Knowing: Park Rash, the steep hill at the head of Coverdale, has been used as a stage in professional cycling races. The gradient reaches 25 per cent in places. Driving it in either direction is not for the faint-hearted.
5. Kingsdale
West of Ingleton, on the remote southwest edge of the national park, Kingsdale gives a sense of true wilderness. It is a rare place for dramatic scenery and near-total solitude. This is ideal if you want to escape busy routes and immerse yourself in nature. The glaciated valley floor is flat, the sides steep. Kingsdale is a refreshingly untouched retreat from heavy tourism.
The valley’s limestone hides cave systems. Some are Britain’s deepest and most technical. Near the head of the dale, Yordas Cave is accessible with a torch. It was a Victorian attraction, but is now mostly forgotten.
Above ground, the valley is simple: stone walls, sheep, and a few barns. The road climbs over Kingsdale Head to Dent, then drops into Dentdale beyond. In winter, when snow lies on the tops, and the light is flat and grey, Kingsdale feels like the world’s edge.
Where to Stay: The Marton Arms in Thornton-in-Lonsdale, near Ingleton, is a well-regarded Dales pub with rooms and a strong beer garden.
Worth Knowing: Kingsdale contains one of the most important geological features in the Dales: a series of shakeholes and sinks. Here, surface streams disappear into the limestone and re-emerge miles away as springs. The hydrology beneath this valley is extraordinarily complex and still not fully mapped.
6. Raydale
Raydale holds Semerwater, one of only two natural lakes in the Yorkshire Dales. The lake lies at the head of a short, broad valley. It sits south of Bainbridge in Wensleydale. Low fells and rough grazing ring the lake.
Most visitors to Wensleydale never find Semerwater. This makes it an excellent choice for those wanting a peaceful, undisturbed lakeside. The quiet, dead-end road maintains a serene mood, allowing reflection and relaxation. You can enjoy slow-paced outdoor activities, free from crowds and noise.
A local legend says a city is drowned beneath the lake, punished for refusing to shelter a traveller. In reality, Semerwater formed when a glacier left a moraine across the valley mouth, damming the water.
Walking around Semerwater is easy. A circuit takes about two hours and passes Marsett, Stalling Busk, and Countersett. None has more than a dozen buildings. The ruined chapel at Stalling Busk overlooks the lake. It was abandoned when a new church was built lower in the valley in the nineteenth century. Its roofless walls and empty windows frame the water perfectly.
Where to Stay: The Rose and Crown in Bainbridge is a coaching inn on the village green, a short drive from Semerwater.
Worth Knowing: Semerwater is an important site for breeding wading birds, including lapwing, redshank and curlew. The surrounding meadows are some of the richest in the Dales for wildflowers, particularly in June and early July.
7. Barbondale
Barbondale sits on the western edge of the Dales, where Cumbria meets North Yorkshire. It cuts between the Howgill Fells and the Pennine ridge. In many minds, it belongs to neither the Lakes nor the Dales. As a result, it belongs to nobody at all.
The dale is narrow and wooded in its lower reaches, opening out onto rough pasture and moorland as it climbs towards Dentdale. The road through it is a back lane connecting Barbon to Dent, and it carries almost no traffic. The village of Barbon has a church, a few cottages and a fell race that takes place once a year.
The Howgill Fells, which rise to the west, are among the finest walking hills in the north of England, smooth-sided, grassy and empty. The Sedbergh area, at the foot of the Howgills, was described by Countryfile as one of England’s most isolated landscapes.
Where to Stay: The Black Bull in Sedbergh, or one of the B&Bs in the town, which is England’s official Book Town and has an excellent collection of secondhand bookshops.
Worth Knowing: Sedbergh was absorbed into Cumbria in 1974 but has always considered itself Yorkshire. When the national park boundary was extended in 2016 to include the Howgills, Sedbergh was brought back within the Dales, restoring a connection that locals had never accepted losing.
8. Arkengarthdale
North of Swaledale, over a steep pass from Reeth, Arkengarthdale pushes into the high moors towards the county boundary with Durham. It is the most northerly dale in the national park and one of the emptiest.
The dale follows Arkle Beck past the villages of Langthwaite and Booze, the latter being exactly as small as its name is entertaining. The upper dale is bleak and open, with lead mining remains scattered across the moorland and the ruins of the CB Inn, once the highest pub in the Dales, standing at the road’s end before the track drops over to Tan Hill.
The walking in Arkengarthdale is for those who like solitude and big skies. The moors are vast, the paths are faint, and the views extend across some of the wildest country in England. In autumn, when the heather is purple, and the grouse are calling, the upper dale has a grandeur that makes the busy valleys to the south feel almost suburban.
Where to Stay: The Burgoyne in Reeth, or the Red Lion in Langthwaite, one of the most traditional village pubs in the Dales.
Worth Knowing: The village of Booze has no pub, shop, or post office. It is simply a cluster of farms on a hillside. Its name probably derives from the Old English “boga hus,” meaning house by the bow-shaped hill. It is the most photographed village sign in the Dales.
9. Deepdale
Approach Whernside from the popular Three Peaks route and you will join a long queue of walkers trudging up the well-worn path from Ribblehead. Approach it from the west, through Dentdale, and you will find Deepdale, a hidden valley that cuts into the mountain’s flank and carries almost no foot traffic at all.
Deepdale is reached from the hamlet of Deepdale Head, above Dent. The valley holds a pair of small tarns, Deepdale Tarn and Whernside Tarns, set in rough moorland beneath the western ridge of Whernside. The path is faint in places, and the ground is boggy, but the sense of being somewhere genuinely remote, on the back of a mountain that thousands of people climb every year from the other side, is powerful.
The return can be made via the summit of Whernside itself, joining the main path only for the final descent. Or you can simply walk back through Deepdale the way you came, which is what the valley deserves. Somewhere this quiet should not be rushed through.
Where to Stay: The Sun Inn in Dent is a seventeenth-century pub in one of the most attractive villages in the Dales, with flagstone floors, real fires and locally brewed Dent Brewery beer.
Worth Knowing: Dentdale itself is one of the less-visited main valleys, partly because its road connections are indirect and partly because it sits in the far western corner of the park. The Dales Way long-distance path passes through it, but day visitors are few.
10. Upper Nidderdale
Nidderdale was controversially excluded from the Yorkshire Dales National Park when the boundaries were drawn in 1954, and the resentment lingers. It has its own designation as a National Landscape (formerly an AONB), but its lack of national park status means it receives a fraction of the visitors.
Upper Nidderdale, above the reservoirs of Gouthwaite, Angram and Scar House, is one of the most atmospheric valleys in the whole region. The reservoirs themselves, built to supply Bradford with water in the early twentieth century, are beautiful in a stern, industrial way. Beyond them, the dale narrows and climbs towards the high moors of Great Whernside, and the landscape becomes genuinely wild.
The walking is varied. The Nidderdale Way circles the valley on a well-marked 53-mile route. Shorter circuits from Lofthouse take in Middlesmoor, the highest village in the dale, and the river below the reservoirs, where hidden waterfalls tumble through wooded gorges that feel more like the Scottish Highlands than the Pennines.
Where to Stay: The Crown Hotel in Lofthouse, or the Sportsman’s Arms in nearby Wath, which serves excellent food in a converted farmhouse.
Worth Knowing: Upper Nidderdale was the source of a major engineering effort in the 1920s when the Scar House Dam was constructed. The workforce was housed in a temporary village on the moor, complete with a hospital, a cinema and a school. Nothing remains of it today except a few foundations in the grass.
Practical Tips
- The hidden dales are reached on single-track roads. Drive carefully and use passing places properly. Many of these roads are also used by farm vehicles.
- The AllTrails app is the best way to navigate walking routes across the quieter dales, particularly where paths are faint or unmarked.
- Mobile phone signal is unreliable or absent in most of these valleys. Carry an OS map or download offline maps before you set out.
- The hay meadows in the Dales are at their finest in June and early July. Many are managed under conservation agreements and should not be walked through during the growing season. Stick to marked paths and field edges.
- Spring and autumn are the best seasons for walking. Summer brings more visitors, even to the quiet dales. Winter brings short days, limited daylight and the possibility of snow on the high passes, but also extraordinary light and total solitude.
Responsible Visiting
The quiet dales are quiet because they are working landscapes. Close the gates behind you. Keep dogs under close control around livestock. Do not park in gateways or on verges where farm vehicles need access. The hay meadows in these valleys are ecologically precious and economically vital to the farming families who manage them. Do not walk through them during the growing season. If a path is unclear, follow the field edge rather than crossing the middle.
Reader Q&A
Which dale is the quietest? Waldendale, Kingsdale and Deepdale are the three emptiest on this list. On a weekday outside of school holidays, you may not see another person all day.
Can I visit these dales without a car? It is very difficult. Public transport in the Dales is limited and almost non-existent in the tributary valleys. The Dales Bus service runs on some weekends and bank holidays in summer, but a car gives far more flexibility.
Are these dales suitable for families? Yes, for families who enjoy gentle walking and are comfortable on uneven ground. Littondale, Raydale, and West Burton (at the entrance to Waldendale) are the most family-friendly. The waterfall at West Burton is a particular favourite with children.
When are the hay meadows at their best? Late June to early July. The display varies from year to year depending on the weather, but in a good year, the meadows in Littondale, Coverdale and Waldendale are among the richest wildflower displays in England.
Is there accommodation in these dales? Most of the dales have at least one pub with rooms or a small B&B. Booking ahead is essential, particularly at weekends and during school holidays. For the most remote dales, Kingsdale and Deepdale, you will need to stay in a nearby town (Ingleton or Dent, respectively) and drive in.
Where to Stay
For Littondale, Langstrothdale and Coverdale, stay in the villages themselves at one of the small pubs or B&Bs listed above. For Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, The Burgoyne on the green in Reeth is a Georgian country house hotel with exceptional views across the dale. For Nidderdale, the Crown Hotel in Lofthouse or the Sportsman’s Arms in Wath. For the western dales, the Sun Inn in Dent or the Black Bull in Sedbergh.
The Dales are always there, behind the main roads and the tourist traffic, doing what they have always done. The hay grows. The rivers run. The stone walls hold. Nothing changes in these valleys except the seasons, and that is the whole point.
