Tripadvisor reviewers rank Cardiff the top running destination in the UK

Cardiff has been named the top destination to run in the UK by Tripadvisor reviewers.

An analysis by SportsShoes.com of over 100,000 reviews for 700 different running, cycling and swimming spots around the world, saw Cardiff as the only destination to feature twice in the UK running top 10.

Bute Park and Cardiff Bay ranked as the 3rd and 6th best places to run, within the whole of the UK.

London’s Hyde Park, and Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh finished first and second on the list, with Heaton Park, Manchester and Cassiobury Park, Watford ranking in fourth and fifth place, above Cardiff Bay.

The top 10 running spots in the UK were:

Hyde Park, London

Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh

Bute Park, Cardiff

Heaton Park, Manchester

Cassiobury Park, Watford

Cardiff Bay, Cardiff

Holyrood Park, Edinburgh

Windsor Great Park, Windsor

Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol

Cannock Chase, Staffordshire

The study, which also analysed swimming and cycling locations, analysed Tripadvisor reviews for over 760 routes across different countries to find out which destinations persuaded visitors to take to Tripadvisor to leave glowing reviews.

The results were then ranked in order to place the best places to run, swim and cycle in each country, and which countries took the crown for each activity.

The USA was ranked as the top nation for running, with the UK in second place and Spain third.

The Tripadvisor data was extracted using the ‘Things to Do’ section of the Tripadvisor website, the attractions in each location that had the highest number of mentions of ‘run/running’, ‘swim/swimming’ and ‘cycle/cycling/bike’ (in French and English language) in their reviews were ranked as being the best spot or each activity in that country.

The number of mentions were then totalled to provide a country-level ranking for each activity.

Results where the terms were used negatively or for another context (“this area was run-down”), or if the location was not an area of beauty (i.e., a swimming pool) were omitted from the final results.