The best outdoor activities in Galloway

Galloway Forest Park is a forest park managed by Forestry and Land Scotland that mostly covers Dumfries and Galloway woods. It is said to be the biggest forest in the United Kingdom. The park was classified as a Dark Sky Park ("Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park") in November 2009, making it the first in the UK.

The park, which opened in 1947, spans 774 square kilometers (299 square miles) and attracts over 800,000 tourists each year. Each year, around 150,000 people visit the three visitor centers at Glen Trool, Kirroughtree, and Clatteringshaws. Much of the Galloway Hills are inside the park's limits, and there is some decent but hard hillwalking as well as some rock climbing and ice climbing. Several well-developed mountain biking trails, part of the 7stanes project, are located inside or near the park's limits.

In addition to providing recreational opportunities, the park has commercially significant woods, which produces 500,000 tons of lumber every year.

Galloway Forest Park and the people that visit and work there were the focus of a six-part BBC One documentary series named "The Forest" that aired in early 2018.