Whitstable/Herne Bay - charming, fabulous stretch of beach (for walking along clothed not for sunbathing on), great oysters. The hotels there are far from luxurious, but it is fun to rough it for a night or too. The Continental hotel is "designery" with a good quality restaurant in a more modern style. The Marine (a little further along the coast) is more old fashioned, rather basic, and its restaurant is a relic of the 50s serving old fashioned English style food - I enjoy it for a quiet weekend - winter is even better as the sea is far choppier and more interesting to watch.

Thank you again!
Underhill-we visited Hampton Ct. when we were there in 2002...LOVED it. Didn't see Catherine Howard's ghost :(

Thanks to all for the info.

I'm topping this b/c our trip, that we thought was cancelled is a go for Sept!! We will tentatively be spending 4 nights in Kent and, through much deliberation, will probably be staying in Canterbury. WE will have a 1.5 year old with us and would like to not drive to get into town. Would like a small hotel that is historic and has its own pub ;) -any personal favorites? Thanks in advance and I'm going to view the links provided right now.

We stayed in Tenterden last Spring- an old coaching village with wide main street, lots of old inns some serving excellent food. Great places to visit within easy reach- Canterbury, Whitstable, Rye, Ightham Mote (moated medieveal manor house), Great Dixter (beautiful gardens and ancient house), Bodiam Castle and the steam trains on the Bluebell line.

Ani: Canterbury cathedral/medieval princincts are lovely. But I personally wouldn't stay there for a trip to visit the castles/gardens and other sites in Kent and E. Sussex. It is pretty far east so you'd be driving long distances to many of the places you'll want to see. It is convenient to Dover and the seaside resorts along the NE Kent coast.

But a place like Tenterden would be more convenient. You could still get to canterbury from there but you'd only have to drive that distance once, not every day.

Maybe 1 night in Canterbury and 3 nights someplace like Tenterden would be a good comprimise.

But if you want to spend the whole time in one place - a more centrally located town would work better.

Thanks Bellini and Janis! Here's my concern: We will probably be spending a fair amount of time actually in the town we are staying in. That said, I'd like to be in a fairly large town, with more than one street to explore. Also, it seems per the comments on this post that many of the more central towns that are larger are really commuter towns and not much for historic/ambiance, etc. For comparison, we LOVE York-the size of it, the atmosphere, so much to see.

2 years ago we visited Scotland and due to the central location we were advised to stay in Cupar, about 7 miles from St. Andrews. Cupar was very small and didn't have much to do and we highly regretted not making the extra trek to stay in St. Andrews instead.
Soooo-what now?

I mentioned Tenterden instead of some of the smaller villages in the area for just that reason. I love some of the tiny villages but you say you want to be in a place w/ more options. Tenterden is a busy, small town w/ several places to stay/eat/shop, etc

Here is the town website so you can see what sort of place it is.

A larger town like Royal Tunbridge Wells might meet your needs - but except for the lovely center - I personally don't like it as much (but that is purely subjective - I just find the traffic a bit much)

Another option is Rye.

Oops - left off the url

http://www.tenterdentown.co.uk/