With beautiful beaches, the chance to see bottleneck dolphins, and links to Dylan Thomas, New Quay in Wales has become a popular seaside destination for holidaymakers.

The town, nestled in the Cardigan Bay, was last year named as Britain’s “prettiest village” thanks to its largely “unspoilt” coastline. But for those living there, its location can be a double-edged sword.

New Quay has also been dubbed the most isolated town in England and Wales due to its distance from nearby amenities. The 1,045 people living in the quant town face a 20-mile trip to visit the nearest supermarket – Tesco or Aldi – while the closest train station is 40 minutes away in Aberystwyth.

The average distance to reach a GP, bank or school is around 6.8 miles, a study from The Telegraph found. YouTuber David Burnip, known as the Wandering Turnip, visited New Quay to find out what life is like in the “most isolated” town.

In a video on his channel, David said: “It is absolutely gorgeous isn’t it?” He added: “One thing you notice is the colour of the houses are so absolutely beautiful, each one is like individually painted and they clash so beautifully with the one next to it.”

One thing that instantly stood out to David was the lack of major road infrastructure in Wales. Many of the roads around New Quay are residential or B-roads, with the A487 connecting to both Aberystwyth and Cardigan.

He said: “What you notice looking at Wales [on a map of UK motorways] and especially driving through it is there are barely any motorways there. And I noticed it driving from Manchester to Wales.

“I’ve never done this drive before and it was pretty much entirely done on country roads. No main motorways connect the very mid section of this country and that must add to the isolation that these towns on the west coast must feel, for good or bad.”

One local told the YouTuber he was set for an operation later in the year, and faced a 20-mile trip to Aberystwyth before a 116-mile round trip to Swansea for the procedure itself.

He explained: “They’ve got to pick me up in Aberystwyth and then they will take me and somebody else as well probably, drive us all the way to Swansea, I’ll have an operation there and then they’ll bring me back to Aberystwyth and I have to make my own way home.”

David found the town lacked a proper bank as well as supermarket and train stations, with one cash point listed on the map. He added: “There is literally nothing nearby at all, a lot of mid-Wales has no train stations, so unless you drive, you are getting everywhere by bus.”

New Quay was originally founded as a small fishing village, with the herring as the main catch. However a local in New Quay told David it was lobsters and prawns that the remaining fishermen make their money from.

The town was where poet Dylan Thomas penned his most well-known play, Under Milk Wood, and David soon discovered why he thinks the writer chose the quaint village.

He said: “You can see why this place would inspire you, there is just something so charming about it, so beautiful, so peaceful, so isolating. Maybe that isolation is what a lot of people actually want and being far away from stuff doesn’t scare people.”