Holiday Parks in West Midlands

Ask ten people where the West Midlands is and you'll get two answers. One is the built-up bit: Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall, Solihull. The other is the whole region, which wraps Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire around it. Holiday sites live almost entirely in that second one.

That's good news for anyone booking. You get countryside, river valleys and some of the quietest parks in England, with a theme park, a safari park and a heritage railway all within an hour's drive of the caravan door. No coast, admittedly.

This guide covers the holiday parks West Midlands families come back to, what's on site at each one, which county suits which kind of break, and the days out worth building a week around.

What's a West Midlands holiday park break actually like?

Think small, green and quiet rather than big and brash. A few large holiday parks exist, but most places here are small lodge sites and farm holiday parks of ten to thirty holiday homes, set in trees or on the edge of a working farm.

Nobody's running a cabaret at nine o'clock.

You pull up beside your holiday home, unload the car in one go and that's the hard part over. Inside a typical one you'll find:

• A proper kitchen with a full oven, hob and fridge freezer
• One to three bedrooms, usually a double bed plus a twin
• A sofa bed in the lounge for an extra child or two
• A shower room, often an en suite as well
• Decking with garden furniture, and on many lodges a private hot tub
• Parking for a car right next to the door
• Wi-Fi, though sometimes only in designated areas of the site

Static caravans and timber lodges sit side by side on plenty of parks, and the difference is mostly insulation, bed sizes and price. Lodges stay warm in February. A static caravan is the cheaper way to get a family of six into the countryside in August.

Pools, pets and what's on site

Facilities vary far more here than they do at the seaside, so it pays to check before you book rather than after. An indoor swimming pool is the rarest thing on the list, which is why Silver Trees gets booked up so far ahead.

• Indoor pool, at a small handful of sites only
• Coarse fishing lakes, often free to guests, and far more common than pools
• Play areas, bike hire and games hire on the family sites
• A shop or off licence for the things you forgot
• A pizzeria or clubhouse on the bigger lodge parks
• Pet washes, which matter more than you'd expect in January
• Golf, free to guests at one or two sites
• Nature reserves and deer, genuinely, on two of the parks below

Six holiday parks West Midlands families book again and again

Every one of these is live on this site today, spread across four counties. Drive times are from Birmingham city centre by road.

Love2Stay Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury, Shropshire - about 50 minutes' drive - sleeps up to 6 - hot tubs / pets welcome / fishing

Twenty two acres of countryside just outside Shrewsbury, looking south towards open country. The safari lodges are the draw, and they're as comfortable as the name suggests. The nearby medieval town centre is minutes from the gate when the weather turns.

Ashlea Pools Lodges

Hopton Heath, Craven Arms, Shropshire - about 87 minutes' drive - sleeps up to 6 - hot tubs / pets welcome / fishing

Deep in south Shropshire, built around a lake, with water, trees and wildlife on three sides. It's the best equipped site on this list for children: play area, bike and barbecue hire, outdoor games, a shop and off licence, and a pizzeria for the night nobody wants to cook. Open all year, with a pet wash by the lodges.

Silver Trees

Cannock Chase, Staffordshire - about 39 minutes' drive - sleeps up to 5 - hot tubs / indoor heated pool / adults only

The closest site to the city on this list, and the one with the indoor heated pool. It's adults only, so think couples and friends rather than school holidays. Silver Trees keeps its own nature reserve across more than 20 acres of private woodland, where wild deer wander through, and there are tennis courts and a launderette. Rugeley and its pubs are three miles down the road.

Malvern View Country and Leisure Park

Worcester, Worcestershire - about 67 minutes' drive - sleeps up to 8 - pets welcome / fishing / no hot tubs

Right on the Worcestershire and Herefordshire border, in over 100 acres of farmland with trails that climb to a clear outlook across both counties. Three freshwater lakes for fishing, and a deer reserve home to more than 30 red deer with viewing platforms and feeding bays. Holiday homes here sleep up to eight, which makes it one of the few places in the area that takes everyone in one go.

Bredon View

Pershore, Worcestershire - about 56 minutes' drive - sleeps up to 4 - hot tubs / pets welcome / golf

A small, peaceful setting on the edge of a working farm, looking across to Bredon Hill. Every lodge has its own outdoor hot tub, there's a members clubhouse and river fishing, and guests enjoy the 18-hole golf course free of charge, though it closes from November to April because of the ground. Four lodges only, so it goes early.

Stratford Upon Avon Lodge Retreat

Snitterfield, Warwickshire - about 44 minutes' drive - sleeps up to 10 - hot tubs / pets in selected lodges

A quiet village ten minutes from Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. The lodges have floor to ceiling bedroom windows, en suites with a free standing bath and a rain shower, and decking to sit out on. You can pre-book Royal Shakespeare Company tickets at the retreat at a discount, for the main theatre on the river, The Swan or The Other Place.

Days out the kids will ask for

An unusual amount is packed into a small area here, and most of it is half an hour from wherever you're staying.

Alton Towers

The big one, with a season that runs from March to early November. If that's the point of the trip, our guide to family-friendly holiday parks near Alton Towers lists the closest places to stay.

The safari park at Bewdley

Hard to beat for under 10s. There's a drive-through safari, an African walking trail with elephants, giraffes and rhinos, and the Land of the Living Dinosaurs. Rides cost extra on top of admission, so budget for a wristband if the children spot them.

Trentham Monkey Forest

The one nobody expects, up at Stoke-on-Trent. You follow a path through 60 acres where 140 Barbary macaques roam free around you, with no fence between you and them!

The Severn Valley Railway

Sixteen miles of steam through Worcestershire and Shropshire, with the Engine House visitor centre at Highley halfway along and Santa specials from late November.

Day out	County	Postcode	Best for
West Midland Safari Park	Worcestershire	DY12 1LF	Under 10s, and a rainy-day car safari
Cannock Chase Forest, Birches Valley	Staffordshire	WS15 2UQ	Bikes, Go Ape, buggy-friendly trails
Wyre Forest, Callow Hill	Worcestershire	DY14 9XQ	Miles of trails with the pets
Trentham Monkey Forest	Staffordshire	ST4 8AY	Something genuinely different
Severn Valley Railway, Kidderminster	Worcestershire	DY10 1QX	Steam trains and a day out of the car
Warwick Castle	Warwickshire	CV34 4QU	Knights, birds of prey, a full day
Black Country Living Museum	West Midlands	DY1 4SQ	Older children, and proper fish and chips
Hereford Cathedral and the Mappa Mundi	Herefordshire	HR1 2NG	A quiet hour with something ancient

Can you bring the pet?

Most sites here say yes, and the walking nearby is the reason you'd want to. Before you book, check these:

• Whether pets are allowed in every holiday home or only selected ones
• The charge per pet per week, and the limit on how many
• Whether the site is adults only, which usually means pet free as well
• Whether there's a pet wash, which saves your bathroom afterwards
• Which nearby pubs and cafes let dogs inside rather than out

You can filter straight to the parks that welcome pets if that settles it.

Walking, woods and water across the region

This is the part the West Midlands doesn't get enough credit for, and it's worth a day to explore properly.

The Shropshire Hills

The wildest ground in the region, and a National Landscape, which is what an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is now called. The Long Mynd rises straight out of Church Stretton, a town so hemmed in that the Victorians called it Little Switzerland, and you can climb it from Carding Mill Valley in under an hour. West of there, the Stiperstones is a nature reserve of rocky tors, heather and scree, with red grouse and ravens about. Church Stretton, Bishop's Castle, Clun and Much Wenlock are all Walkers are Welcome towns, so the paths are signed, the villages expect muddy boots and Wenlock Edge gives you nearly 20 miles of continuous woodland to explore.

The Malvern Hills

A single ridge running nine miles along the Worcestershire and Herefordshire border, visible from 30 miles away. Worcestershire Beacon is the high point and British Camp, further south, is an Iron Age fort cut into the slope in rings. Spring water still runs out of the rock at natural wells along the range, and people fill bottles at them. The outlook from the top takes in both counties and the Welsh mountains beyond.

Cannock Chase

The easy one: heathland and forest 40 minutes from the city, and another National Landscape. At Birches Valley you'll find cycle trails, a cycle centre, Go Ape and the Room on the Broom trail for small children, plus a cafe and a visitor centre.

The Wyre Forest

Three miles west of Bewdley at Callow Hill, and the largest woodland National Nature Reserve in the country. Forestry England runs the site, so expect waymarked trails, a cafe and a car park that reads your number plate. Bluebells in May are the pick of the year.

Rivers and towpaths

Water turns up everywhere once you look for it. The Severn and the Wye run the length of the region, the lakes on the parks themselves are stocked for fishing, and a canal network reaches out of the city into Shropshire and beyond. Flat, level and ideal to explore on foot or by bike with children.

Which county should you book?

Each county has its own page listing every holiday park we can book there, so start with the one that matches the week you want.

Caravan parks, lodge parks and farm sites

People search for caravan parks in the West Midlands, lodge parks and holiday parks as though they're three different things, when on the ground they overlap almost completely.

Three names for much the same holiday

Caravan parks

Static caravans, two or three bedrooms, on a grassy plot with parking beside them. The cheapest way to bring everyone.

Lodge parks

Timber-built holiday homes with thicker insulation, bigger beds and a private hot tub far more often, which makes them better in winter and dearer in August.

Farm holiday parks

A handful of either, pitched on land a family still farms. That's where most of the region's small sites come from, and why so many have an outlook rather than a clubhouse.

Glamping

Safari tents and pods on some of the same sites through the summer, usually with a wood burner and a shared shower block, and a cheap escape if you don't mind the walk to the showers.

How to pick between them

Go by what's on site rather than by the label, and work down this list until the choice makes itself:

• How far you're willing to drive on a Friday night
• Whether anyone needs an indoor pool to stay happy
• Hot tub or no hot tub, which changes the price more than anything else
• Pets, and how many
• How many beds you genuinely need, not how many are listed
• Whether you want a clubhouse or complete quiet

If a hot tub is the thing, go straight to the parks with hot tubs. If you're tied to a postcode for work or family, the postcode search sorts the whole list by how far each one is from your door.

When's the best time to visit?

There's no season here in the way there is at the seaside, so the calendar is about crowds and daylight more than weather.

What to pack for a West Midlands park break

Half of this list is about mud, and that's not an accident.

Weekend getaways in the West Midlands

The holiday parks West Midlands locals book for a Friday to Monday are the small lodge sites, and the reason is simple. Nothing is far from anything else. From Birmingham you're at Silver Trees in about 40 minutes, at the Stratford lodges in three quarters of an hour and in Shropshire inside the hour, and Coventry, Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent are all within similar reach.

Three weekends that work:

• Walking: Love2Stay or Ashlea Pools, with a day on the Long Mynd and a pub lunch in Church Stretton
• Families: a holiday home near the Wyre Forest, the safari park on Saturday and the steam railway on Sunday
• Couples: Bredon View or Silver Trees, a hot tub, a long walk and nothing else booked at all

Two couples or a family of six sharing a lodge that sleeps eight usually works out cheaper per person than two hotel rooms, especially once you're cooking a couple of meals in.

West Midlands holiday park FAQs

Are there any holiday parks in Birmingham itself?

No. The built-up area has country parks but nowhere to stay in a caravan or lodge, so every site is out in the surrounding counties. The nearest is Silver Trees, about 40 minutes from the city centre.

Which holiday parks in the West Midlands have a swimming pool?

An indoor pool is rare in this region. Silver Trees has an indoor heated pool and tennis courts, and it's adults only. If a pool is essential for the children, check each site's facilities before booking rather than assuming.

Which counties count as the West Midlands?

For holidays, five: Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Staffordshire, plus the metropolitan area around Birmingham and Coventry. Each has its own page here.

Can I take my dog?

Most places in the region welcome pets, though some allow them only in selected holiday homes and nearly all charge a small fee per pet. Cannock Chase and the Wyre Forest are the two big ones nearby, and both have cafes used to muddy paws.

Are the holiday parks open all year?

Many are, including Ashlea Pools in Shropshire. Some smaller farm sites close for a few weeks in winter, and extras such as the golf course at Bredon View shut from November to April. Always check the dates you want before you pay.

Is there a beach anywhere near?

No. The region is landlocked and the nearest coast is a good two hours away in Wales. What you get instead is rivers, lakes, canals and high ground, which is why so many sites here have water of their own.

What's the difference between a caravan park and a lodge park?

Static caravans are lighter built and usually cheaper, with two or three small bedrooms. Lodges are timber framed, warmer in winter, have bigger beds and far more often come with a private hot tub. Plenty of places have both on the same site.

How far ahead should I book for the school holidays?

For August, several months. The sites here are small, some with only a handful of lodges, so the best ones go early. September and May are the easiest months to book late, and the nicest weeks to be here.

Ready to pick one? Browse every holiday park we list across the region at bookholidaypark.co.uk, or jump straight into the county that suits you best. Enjoy it.