Dog-friendly Hunstanton

A large family pub on the edge of Hunstanton doing grills, stone-baked pizzas and pub classics, with a beer garden and table service. Dogs are welcome in the whole pub, not just a corner of it, which matters in a town whose beach shuts to dogs for seven months. Useful on a wet day in April.

Four and a quarter miles in about two hours, north along the striped red and white chalk cliffs, down the ramp at the lighthouse and out onto the dunes and open sand at Old Hunstanton before turning back through the golf links. Start from the central car park off Southend Road behind the green, pay and display with plenty of space out of season and a long queue in August; the coastal bus stops on the Esplanade. Dogs are banned from the beach between the power boat ramp and the north end of the promenade from 1 April to 31 October inclusive and must be on a lead on that stretch of promenade, with an £80 fixed penalty for ignoring it, but the dunes and sand north of the lighthouse stay open all year.

Five and a half miles there and back, a flat two and three quarter hours on firm sand, boardwalk and the dune path of the Norfolk Coast Path, ending where the Peddars Way reaches the sea at Holme. It starts at the cliff-top car park at the north end of Hunstanton by the lighthouse, pay and display, and there is a small alternative car park at Holme beach if you want to halve it. Dogs run free on the open sand north of the lighthouse all year, there is fresh water at the sailing club end, and the Holme dunes hold ground-nesting birds in spring and summer, so keep to the marked path and read the signs where cordons appear.

Seven and a quarter miles and about three and a half hours inland, climbing gently off the coast onto the chalk to Ringstead village and returning along the last miles of the Peddars Way, the 46-mile Roman road that ends at Holme-next-the-Sea. Start at the cliff-top car park at the north end of Hunstanton and walk out through Old Hunstanton; the route can be cut to five miles by returning down Ringstead Road. The Peddars Way is a broad green track with no stiles, but the field sections cross sheep and cattle ground where leads are needed, there is no water for four miles in the middle, and the Gin Trap Inn at Ringstead is the only stop.