Mile Zero
The Anglesey Coastal Path on Holy Island — Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
The Isle of Anglesey Coastal Path — roughly 130 miles around Anglesey and Holy Island, part of the Wales Coast Path — officially begins and ends at Holyhead, by St Cybi’s church in the town centre. Through-walkers typically take 10–13 days for the circuit; day walkers get the reward concentrated, because the Holy Island legs either side of town are widely rated the finest of the whole path.
The Classic Legs
North & South Stack — from Breakwater Country Park the path climbs past the fog station at North Stack, rounds the seabird cliffs beneath the mountain and arrives at South Stack — 4–5 miles of the best cliff walking in Wales. South Stack to Trearddur — gentler cove-hopping past Porth Dafarch to Trearddur Bay’s cafes. Trearddur to Rhoscolyn — headlands, arches and St Gwenfaen’s Well to Borthwen. Chain all three for a full-day, 12-mile traverse of Holy Island’s coast — bus or taxi home from Rhoscolyn or Trearddur.
Practical Notes
Waymarking (the tern logo) is good; OS Explorer 262 covers Holy Island. The cliff legs are exposed — proper footwear, wind layers, and care with children and dogs near edges. Town-based walkers have the luxury of beds, pubs and the railway at the trailhead; specialist operators offer baggage transfer for the full circuit. Ferry-wait walkers: even one hour out-and-back towards North Stack repays the boots.
Walking the Whole Circuit
Through-walkers starting at St Cybi’s face a choice of directions: clockwise takes the drama immediately — North Stack, South Stack, Rhoscolyn in the first two days — while anticlockwise saves Holy Island for the finale. Baggage-transfer operators and the coast’s B&B network make either painless. Day-walkers colonising the circuit in pieces should claim the Holy Island legs first and calibrate everything else against them; little of Britain’s 2,700-mile coast path network beats this corner.
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