‘Not quite the back of beyond’, but this restaurant-with-rooms ‘in a very pleasant, quiet, rural location’ is well worth the trek, according to trusted Guide readers.

‘A highlight of our journey. It was everything one could expect, in a historic setting.’ A reader on a hotel tour this year was impressed by this Grade I listed Elizabethan mansion-turned-hotel-and-spa in parkland with views of Snowdonia and Conwy Castle.

'Thank you for guiding me to this ideal hotel in the heart of the Welsh market town,’ writes a reader who chose William Griffiths’s family-run establishment for a celebratory 70th birthday stay this year.

In a grove, indeed, surrounded by flower gardens, kitchen garden and meadows, with views to the Preseli hills, Neil and Zoë Kedward’s hotel is ‘a real haven’.

We don’t wish to blow our own trumpet, but we like to think the Guide played a small part in the runaway success of Wales’s first contemporary art hotel.

A 12th-century castle graced with 21st-century design. In a dramatic setting on a rocky outcrop high above the Pembrokeshire landscape, the commanding property has panoramic views over St Brides Bay and the Preseli hills.

‘In a beautiful setting’ in wooded grounds, with trout lake and the River Irfon running through it, Jean-Pierre Mifsud’s hotel is especially praised for its ‘location, ambience and welcoming staff'.

‘An absolute gem!’ wrote a reader, of this ‘stunning country house’, the former home of the Armstrong-Jones family, with views to the Menai Strait and Snowdonia on the doorstep.

‘You sense that hospitality comes naturally to the owners and their team.’ A Guide insider was impressed by Edward and Louise Sykes’s ‘personable’, family-run restaurant-with-rooms inside the Pembrokeshire Coast national park.

‘An example of what a British seaside hotel can do.’ Trusted readers were impressed by Lindsey and Andrew Evans’s coastal property, created with an ‘ambition, vision and style one might associate with California or Australia’.

At the end of a long drive, Chris and Lisa Sutton’s ‘welcoming’ Italianate villa stands ‘in stunning grounds’, a mile outside Lampeter.

On their Pembrokeshire working farm, the Evans family ‘warmly welcomes’ visitors to their laid-back, restaurant-with-rooms.

Long a popular stop-over, this well-located hotel has for centuries been the hub of a fashionable, cobbled market town surrounded by cow-flecked hillsides in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Glorious views to Snowdonia spill away from a cheerfully quirky restaurant-with-rooms surrounded by sheep-spotted fields on the Isle of Anglesey.

‘Overall, a very enjoyable stay.’ With extensive views over the Tywi estuary, David and Wendy Beaney’s restaurant-with-rooms brings ‘stylish minimalism down to a fine art’.

Close to the centre of a historic village and the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, a small hotel in a lovingly restored 17th-century country house.

A ‘fabulous’ art collection still adorns this Jacobean mansion, which was opened as a hotel by the late Sir Bernard Ashley in 1990.

Clustered on the edge of a spectacular tidal estuary, this mansion house hotel – the focal point of Sir Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis's Italianate village – has welcomed guests including H G Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell.

Rich in antiques, fine wood panelling and painted ceilings. this sumptuous, well-refurbished country house hotel, in a historic Victorian manor house, lies on the edge of Snowdonia national park.

Royal treatment awaits visitors to this stylishly refurbished Victorian town house hotel; a butler, personal chef and chauffeur-driven vintage Rolls-Royce are at the ready, if required.

‘Worth the journey!’ Overlooking the Pembrokeshire coast, the Boissevain family’s 19th-century neo-Gothic house is ‘an attractive building’ in a ‘beautiful’ location.

Nestling in the hills in Thornhill (a northern Cardiff suburb) a welcoming, dog-friendly hotel in a Georgian manor house with sprawling views over the city and Severn Estuary beyond.