We’d been on the road for hours, the satnav cheerfully announcing “you have arrived” just as we pulled into a lay-by somewhere near Saundersfoot, convinced we’d taken a wrong turn. It was only when I checked the booking confirmation again that I realised I’d typed the postcode into the wrong field and we’d been following a farm track that didn’t actually exist. By the time we finally coasted down the last winding lane and spotted Ridgeway View’s neat little driveway, my nerves were as frayed as the map on the passenger seat.

The cottage itself looked exactly as it had in the photos—whitewashed walls catching the late afternoon sun, a small patio already set with two mismatched garden chairs. We tumbled out stiff-legged, the sea air hitting us like a reset button. From the front garden you could just glimpse the curve of the bay below, the water glinting between rooftops. It wasn’t the sweeping clifftop vista we’d half-imagined, but it felt closer and more real for that.

Inside, everything was compact and welcoming. The kitchen opened straight onto the living space, and someone had left a vase of fresh wildflowers on the table—probably the owners, judging by the handwritten note about the Wi-Fi password being the dog’s name. I dropped our bags in the hallway and immediately stubbed my toe on the low step I’d somehow missed in the listing photos. Typical. We laughed, more from relief than anything else, and wandered through to the little bedroom at the back where the window framed nothing but sky and a slice of distant headland.

Stepping back outside, we followed the footpath that dipped behind the row of cottages and opened onto the coastal track. It was only a short walk down to the beach—pebbles mostly, with a strip of sand at low tide—and the sound of the waves carried clearly even from the garden. I stood there for a moment, shoes already damp from the grass, and felt the long drive finally loosen its grip on my shoulders. It struck me, not for the first time, how much of a holiday is just the act of stopping; the mishaps and wrong turns fade quicker once you’re actually somewhere you want to be.

We didn’t unpack straight away. Instead we sat on the patio with takeaway fish and chips from the village below, watching the light slide off the water. The air had that particular Pembrokeshire chill that makes you reach for an extra jumper even in summer. I caught myself thinking how ordinary it all felt—the narrow lanes, the neighbour’s dog barking, the faint smell of seaweed—and how that ordinariness was exactly what we’d needed after months of city noise. Ridgeway View hadn’t tried to be anything grand; it had simply been there, waiting, while we sorted ourselves out on the doorstep.