Water and lunch on Offa's Dyke Path, mile by mile

Offa's Dyke Path passes through or close to towns: Monmouth, Hay-on-Wye, Kington, Knighton, Welshpool, Llangollen, Prestatyn. Between them it keeps to the border hills, and some of those stretches are long. Three of them are worth planning around, and so is the water.

Everything below is counted from OpenStreetMap: every food shop, café and pub within a kilometre of the path, and every drinking-water tap within 400 metres, read 27 September 2026. A place on the map is not a promise it is open, and anything further than a kilometre off the path is not counted.

Food shops within 1 km

68

with 76 cafés and 83 pubs

Longest stretch without one

32 mi

51.4 km, Monmouth to Hay-on-Wye

Longest stretch without a tap

78 mi

126.3 km, Newchurch to Pontcysyllte

Monmouth to Hay-on-Wye

The longest stretch without a food shop is the first big one: 51.4 kilometres from Monmouth to Hay-on-Wye, through the farmland of Monmouthshire and over the Hatterrall ridge. The map has pubs along the way, between Llantilio Crossenny and Pandy, and nothing at all on the ridge itself. Buy lunch for two days in Monmouth, or plan it around the pubs.

The switchbacks

North of Knighton the path crosses the switchbacks of the Clun Forest, and the map has nothing within a kilometre of it for 34.2 kilometres: no shop, no café, no pub. That is the longest stretch of the whole walk with nothing at all. The next food shop after Knighton is near Buttington, 44 kilometres on. Buy lunch in Knighton.

The Clwydian Range

The last long stretch is the Clwydian hills, from Llandegla to near Gwaenysgor, the last few miles before Prestatyn: 43.9 kilometres with no food shop on the map. Llandegla's community shop is the last one before the hills.

Day by day

In the planner's thirteen-day split, walking south to north:

• Day 1, Sedbury Cliffs to Newland. Eight food shops, seven of them around Chepstow at the start; the last is Brockweir Village Shop, 6.9 miles before the end.
• Day 2, Newland to White Castle. Fourteen food shops, all around Monmouth; the last is 10.6 miles before the end.
• Day 3, White Castle to Llanthony. No food shop and no café on the map. Four pubs.
• Day 4, Llanthony to Clifford. Nothing for the first 10.7 miles, over the ridge; then Hay-on-Wye, with eleven food shops.
• Day 5, Clifford to Kington. Seven food shops, all in Kington, at the end.
• Day 6, Kington to Knighton. Twelve food shops, at Kington and Knighton.
• Day 7, Knighton to Brompton. Five food shops, all in Knighton at the start. Nothing after them for the rest of the day.
• Day 8, Brompton to Trewern. One food shop, near Buttington, 3 miles before the end.
• Day 9, Trewern to Trefonen. Four food shops; the last is Trefonen stores at the end.
• Day 10, Trefonen to Llangollen. Four food shops; the last is 3.3 miles before the end.
• Day 11, Llangollen to Llanferres. One food shop, Llandegla Community Shop, 6.9 miles before the end.
• Day 12, Llanferres to Croes-wian. No food shop and no café on the map. One pub.
• Day 13, Croes-wian to Prestatyn. Fourteen food shops, the first 7.6 miles in, near Gwaenysgor.

So days 3 and 4 want lunch bought in Monmouth, day 7 wants it bought in Knighton, and days 11 and 12 want it from Llandegla or Llangollen. The planner's day cards say the same for any split you choose.

Water: 78 miles with no tap on the map

OpenStreetMap has ten drinking-water taps within 400 metres of the path, and eight of them are in the first 26 miles, from Chepstow past Monmouth to Penrhos. After the tap at Newchurch, 58 miles in, the next one on the map is at Pontcysyllte, 136 miles in: 126.3 kilometres with none.

That does not mean the middle of the walk is dry country. The path passes through or close to Kington, Knighton, Welshpool and Llanymynech, and the water there is in the towns, not beside the path. Fill up wherever you stop, and carry enough for the hills between.

Build your walkOffa's Dyke Path in 13 days178 mi · about 14 miles a dayOpen the planner →