Bowness on Windermere England |

Ryan Biddulph June 16, 2025 travel posts 🕑 4 minutes read

Bowness-on-Windermere England

Cruising around Bowness-on-Windermere England today goaded me to publish this post.

Blogging From Paradise readers told me to write more about my travels.

I am more than happy to share. 40 plus countries makes for some serious content creation potential.

But I need to feel inspired to write a post. I dislike forced travel guides but love genuine pieces; hence the dearth of these on Blogging From Paradise Dot Com.

I typically offer travel observations.

That’s pretty much it.

But I do have a sneaky motive today.

I intend to debut a new camera.

Strike that; I broke the old camera in Panama a few years ago. Kelli and I bought a new camera a few years ago. But we barely use the thing. I had no clue how to make images *pop* (like with the old camera) until recently.

Today I made a few Bowness-on-Windermere images POP.

Hence my sneaky motive.

Enjoy.

Bowness-on-Windermere

We landed in Kendal for 24 days. Kendal sits in the treasured Lake District of England.

Bowness-on-Windermere England

Hikers – and travelers – the world around traverse the peaks in these parts fueled by fare such as Kendal Mint Cakes. Sir Edmund Hillary never stopped talking about these mint cakes; he swears that the energy-infused goodies powered his team to the top of Mount Everest. Well…..at least the cakes partially powered the group to the world’s highest peak.

Anyway, Kendal is more than just mink cakes. Endless hiking trails snaking through dairy farms, sheep farms, fells and forests make for a hiker’s dream. I typically get lost for 2-4 hours daily here. I know exactly where I am headed; “getting lost” means getting out of Kelli’s hair for that exact time frame.

I love Kendal because public easements allow for hiking through golf courses, the aforementioned farms and land typically private and forbidden in the States. I envision myself walking directly across a golf course in the USA. Members would be furious. Ditto for traversing farms in most states, dodging livestock in the process. I prefer not to stare down the double barrels of a shotgun with a bearded man yelling:

“State ya business!”

so I avoid such scenarios in the United States of America.

In this region of England as well as during my hikes in and around the South Downs National Park I noted more than a few farmers let the general public cross through designed areas. Brilliant (as one would say in the UK).

Charming to the core, this sleepy little town offers convenience in a relaxing rural setting.

Trending over to the Windermere area made sense.

The Lake District hub is a 17 minute bus ride from Kendal.

Kelli wisely asked the driver if the Windermere stop sat beside the lake. He told us that we wanted Bowness for that one. We obliged, dropped the 6 Pounds for 2 tickets (currently that is $8.16 USD as of the publish date) and allowed our jaws to hit the ground as we enjoyed gorgeous countryside views.

Being all Roger Rabbit about the countryside sounds fitting. Even locals admire the beauty. More than one professed to be super duper lucky to live here with its gorgeousness and unlimited hiking options.

Mountains and Farms

Most land in the vicinity is cultivated.

But not much else exists in terms of human development.

The Lake District in these parts is mountains and farms. Pepper in some small villages. Toss in a few trees here and there.

Arriving in Windermere – then Bowness – brought a few more trees into the fold. I spied an actual forest.

Tourist Town

Windermere is a hub for this large region in Northwest England.

I noted a heavy volume of tourists as soon as we traipsed into town.

Bowness-on-Windermere England

Throngs of Asian tourists sporting selfie sticks reigned supreme. I barely caught wind of anyone with an American accent save Kelli and I. Most others appeared to be locals or UK folks on holiday. I kept hearing the word “bloody” being banded about; that’s my barometer.

Bowness felt like a tourist town but not in a traditional sense.

Clean, relatively quiet and not obnoxiously commerce-focused, the spot retained its small town charm and stunning natural beauty while offering enough convenience for the traveling masses. As a 14 year globe trotter I know that this is a rare thing. A few rare tourist towns seem not too tourist friendly. But most become garish havens of the same:

restaurants
bars
dozens of local vendors focused 100% on the draw (sorry Siem Reap and Kathmandu for the Angkor Wat and Himalayas mentions here)

Basically guys, Patong in Phuket becomes Kuta in Bali which becomes Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Mass tourism is what it is but basically erases any sense of uniqueness or NOT perceiving tourists as walking dollar signs.

Again; I get why mass tourism operates in such fashion. Especially in developing nations, tourism seems to be the main meal ticket. Yet how can I not call it how I see it? Right? No condemnation. But genuine observation.