Everything you need to know before you head out: weather, what to pack, the best seasons, and useful links.
Half-day highlights, full-day explorer, rainy day plan, and weekend escape: all mapped out step by step.
Hay sits on the Wye with the Black Mountains to the south, and the trig point on Hay Bluff is at 677 metres, so the town and the tops can have very different days. Check the hills separately from the valley.
Local producers, markets, and makers worth a stop before you leave Hay-on-Wye.
Three floors of new and second-hand books in Hay's 1886 agricultural stores on Lion Street.
Known for: New, second-hand and antiquarian books across three floors
Hours: Monday to Saturday 9:30 to 17:30, Sunday 11:00 to 17:00; closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Easter Sunday.
A 1965 cinema conversion on Castle Street with around 200,000 second-hand books.
Known for: Second-hand, remaindered and antiquarian books on every subject
Hay's warren of a bookshop on Lion Street, trading since 1987.
Known for: English literature and modern first editions
Detective fiction, true crime and horror from the Addyman family, on Lion Street since 1997.
Known for: Crime fiction, green Penguins and Sherlock Holmes
Science fiction, fantasy and dystopian fiction at 10 High Town.
Known for: Science fiction and fantasy
A small, carefully chosen second-hand stock off High Town, open since 2018.
Known for: Modern first editions, poetry and Folio Society
Natural history, New Naturalists and beekeeping on Forest Road; closes noon Saturday.
Known for: Natural history and the New Naturalist series
Hours: Monday to Friday 9:30 to 17:00, Saturday 9:30 to 12:00.
Hay Festival 2027 runs Thursday 27 May to Sunday 6 June, the organiser's 40th anniversary edition. HowTheLightGetsIn Hay runs 28 to 31 May 2027.
Late May is festival time and the town changes shape for it. The organiser has set Hay Festival 2027 for 27 May to 6 June, its 40th anniversary, on Dairy Meadows off the Brecon Road, and HowTheLightGetsIn brings philosophy and music to its site off Newport Street from 28 to 31 May. If you want to stay in town that fortnight, book early. Outside it, spring is the season for the walk up Hay Bluff before the bracken is high, and the Thursday market keeps its weekly rhythm.
Wye Valley Canoes' half day from Hay to the Boat Inn at Whitney-on-Wye is £40 a head including the lift back.
Summer is the river and the hills. Wye Valley Canoes meets paddlers at the Wyeford car park and sends them five miles downstream into Herefordshire, past Clifford Castle to the Boat Inn at Whitney-on-Wye, for £40 a head with the lift back included. Kilverts' beer garden and the castle lawn's deckchairs are where the town sits out in the evening. Hay Castle's adult ticket is £7.50 and lasts a year, and the Great Hall and cafe cost nothing to walk into.
The Hay Festival Winter Weekend runs Thursday 26 to Sunday 29 November 2026 at Hay Castle and around the town. In 2025 the Trust closed nearly all of the castle that weekend; no 2026 notice yet.
Autumn is when Hay is most itself: the Thursday market, the shops, and fewer cars on Broad Street. The festival comes back for the Winter Weekend, Thursday 26 to Sunday 29 November 2026, at the castle and around town, opened by the Christmas lights switch-on in the Market Square. If you want to see the castle rooms themselves, go before then: in 2025 the Trust closed nearly all of the building that weekend, so check before you go. On a wet afternoon, the 48-seat cinema behind Richard Booth's is the answer.
Hay Castle is open 10am to 4pm daily per the Trust's visit page.
Winter is short days and long browsing. Hay Castle opens 10am to 4pm, the cafe lights its open fire, and the Three Tuns opens every day from noon. The Thursday market keeps going all year. The Black Mountains above the town hold weather the valley does not, so look at the forecast for the tops, not the town, before you set out for Hay Bluff.