Whitby
Gothic abbey, working harbour and the best fish and chips on the coast
Where to base yourself
Towns and villages
Harbour towns, market squares and dale-head hamlets. Each one makes a different kind of base for exploring the moors.
Helmsley
Handsome market town at the start of the Cleveland Way
Pickering
Steam railway terminus with a castle and a medieval church
Goathland
Aidensfield to Heartbeat fans, Hogsmeade to Harry Potter fans
Hutton-le-Hole
Picture-book village around a green with the Ryedale Folk Museum
Robin Hood's Bay
Steep, secretive smugglers' village tumbling to a fossil beach
Staithes
Fishing village and artists' colony where Captain Cook first saw the sea
Rosedale Abbey
Quiet dale village ringed by the remains of a Victorian ironstone industry
Runswick Bay
Sheltered sandy bay with red-roofed cottages on the cliff
Osmotherley
Stone village at the western edge where two famous walks begin
Grosmont
Where the Esk Valley line meets the steam railway
Danby
Esk Valley village with the National Park Centre
Thornton-le-Dale
Beck-side village with one of the most photographed cottages in Yorkshire
Great Ayton
Captain Cook's boyhood village under Roseberry Topping
Lastingham
Tiny village with an 11th-century crypt beneath its church
Ravenscar
The town that never was, on a high cliff between Whitby and Scarborough
Castleton
Esk Valley village on the railway at the foot of Castleton Rigg
Lealholm
Riverside village with stepping stones, a green and a famous pub garden
Egton Bridge
Wooded valley village of gooseberries, stepping stones and a grand Catholic church
Kirkbymoorside
Small market town on the southern edge with a Wednesday market and a fine main street
Glaisdale
Scattered dale village with the Beggar's Bridge and a stretch of ancient woodland
Sleights
Village on the Esk below Blue Bank, with salmon leaping at the weir in autumn
Coxwold
Sleepy village of Laurence Sterne, with a broad street, a pub and Shandy Hall
Hawnby
Remote estate village in the upper Rye valley beneath two whaleback hills
Sinnington
Village green, packhorse bridge and a river with no name on the maps
Levisham
One-street moorland village above Newton Dale, a mile from its station
Stokesley
Handsome Georgian market town on the plain below the Cleveland Hills
Malton
Yorkshire's food capital, a market town at the southern gateway to the moors
Saltburn-by-the-Sea
Victorian resort at the northern end of the Cleveland Way coast, with pier and cliff lift