Travelling to Suffolk
Your Guide to Getting To and Around Suffolk
The journey to your destination always sets the tone for your holiday and at Original Cottages, we want to help you as much as possible to ensure that tone is a good one. All of our holiday homes come with extensive travel guidance, including the address of your properties, guidance on how to get there and where to park on arrival. However, this guide is designed to give you a base-level guide of how to get to Suffolk, the best routes to take to other places once you get here and we’ve even thrown in a few unusual ways you can travel around the county, too.
By Car
It goes without saying that a SatNav or map are a driver’s best friend, especially if you’re travelling somewhere for the first time. However, it is also a good idea to get a general sense of the roads you’ll need to take to get to your destination, as well as making a note of some of the region’s most popular driving routes.
With all that said, here is a list of which roads to take to get into and around Suffolk:
- The A12 runs from Lowestoft to Ipswich and is the main road to take to access the Suffolk coastline, including Kessingland, Dunwich, Saxmundham and Woodbrige. It also runs through Essex, so is a good route into Suffolk for those travelling from the South East.
- The A14 from Cambridge and the West travels through Bury St Edmunds, through Stowmarket, passing Ipswich and continuing to Felixstowe.
- The A11 travels through Suffolk in a south-westerly direction from Norwich and passes through Thetford.
- The A146 is the route that will take you from Beccles to Lowestoft and across the Oulton Broad.
By Train
Greater Anglia has a vast map of the Suffolk train services that run from its main stations in London Liverpool Street, Chelmsford, Hertford East, Peterborough, Ely, Kings Lynn, Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Bury St Edmunds, Lowestoft and Colchester, which you can view here. If you are travelling from elsewhere in the UK, it may be that you have to travel via another service from your nearest city to one of these stations and then change to get further into Suffolk.
A quick summary of the main lines across the region are as follows:
- The Ipswich to Lowestoft line covers Woodbridge, Saxmundham, Halesworth, Beccles and Oulton Broad.
- Trains from Bury St Edmunds travel to Ipswich, Stowmarket, Needham Market and Elmswell.
- Get the train from Ipswich or Westerfield to get to Felixstowe.
By Bus or By Boat…
With over 100 bus routes operating across Suffolk and travelling in from Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex, it is super easy to access Suffolk via bus. First Bus and other companies are in operation across the region, with routes that go deep into the Suffolk countryside. To read a full version of the Suffolk bus timetables, click here.
As Suffolk is home to the Broads, it is a region full of waterways, so travelling via boat is frequently an option, or even a necessity. Waveney River Tours take you from Oulton to Beccles, Orwell Lady River Tours take you across Ipswich’s iconic river and The Big Dog Ferry takes you up to Geldeston Locks from Beccles. These boat trips are just a small taste of the various ways you can see Suffolk by water, an out of the ordinary way to travel and an opportunity to make some lovely holiday memories.
