South Wales Guide turned one this month. It also, to my complete surprise, came away from the SME UK Enterprise Awards with the title of Best Independent Destination Guide 2026. Here’s how the year actually went.
Let me start with the honest bit. A year ago this was a stubborn conviction and a very messy spreadsheet, and not a lot else. The conviction went like this: the country from Chepstow across to Tenby, and up to the peaks of Brecon Beacons, deserved a guide written by somebody who actually lives here. Somebody who’s queued for chips on Barry Island in the rain, and watched the tide swallow Three Cliffs Bay whole. Not another list stitched together by a writer who’s never set foot in the place.
This wasn’t my first guide, mind. I’ve spent my whole working life in tourism management. For sixteen years I built and ran a destination guide covering the ski resorts of Andorra, took it from nothing, grew it, and sold it in 2024. From here I realised fairly quickly that I wanted to do something similar, but this time a lot closer to home.
Small patch, done properly
I was never trying to cover everywhere. I wanted to cover my corner of Wales properly, which is a completely different job. It’s the gap between somewhere getting a quick mention and somewhere you’d genuinely reroute your whole afternoon for. Yes, the guide has business listings, but it also has genuine stories, inspiration, and first-hand experiences I love to share so others can enjoy this part of the world.
I love that it’s independent too. It’s my baby that I’m able to grow, something to mould into a super useful resource, without the need for tourist board sign-off.
Building it, brick by brick
Year one, if it had a theme at all, was slow and steady growth. The unglamorous kind. South Wales Guide now lists more than 400 businesses and experiences across the region, and every one of them is there because it earned the spot, not to pad a number. Most of the year went on graft nobody ever sees. Building the platform itself. Chasing down details that refuse to sit still. Tweaking and fixing and nudging things forward a little at a time. None of it dramatic, all of it adding up.
The real turning point, if I’m honest, was our first paid partners. Local businesses choosing to back the guide, not as a favour, but because it was working for them. That’s when something shifts. It stops being your little project and becomes a thing people actually rely on.
I’ve put proper effort into the social channels this year as well, and they’ve grown into a real part of how the whole thing runs. It’s where I get to show the region off day to day, and reel in people who had no idea they fancied a weekend in South Wales until they saw one.
A birthday, and a rather nice shock
Which brings me to this month, and two things landing at once. The guide turned one. And at the SME UK Enterprise Awards, it went and won Best Independent Destination Guide 2026.
Honestly I wasn’t expecting it. Independent guides don’t have the budgets the big travel platforms sling about, and “best in the UK” felt like a stretch for something I’d started at the kitchen table twelve months earlier. So to have the independent bit, the very thing that makes us smaller and slower than the giants, counted as a strength rather than a handicap, well. That one meant a lot.
It isn’t really my award though. It belongs to every small business across the region quietly making South Wales one of the best places in Britain to visit.
The year ahead
Winning something in year one is lovely, obviously. The harder and more interesting job is being just as useful in year two. So: more of the region done properly. Better reviews, and more honest ones. A lot more shouting about the independent places too, the guest houses and surf schools and family-run cafés that haven’t got a marketing department but have more than earned the footfall.
If any of this is any use to another small business out there, it’s probably just the one thing. Cover less, but cover it properly. Be the one who actually turned up. There’s an awful lot of generic stuff floating about these days, and being properly, specifically local beats the lot of it.