7 Best Sights in Whitby, Yorkshire

This museum documenting the life of the famous mariner and those who sailed with him is located in a 17th-century house owned by the captain to whom Cook was apprenticed and where he lodged from 1746 to 1750. Exhibits devoted to Cook's epic expeditions display the legendary explorer's maps, diaries, and drawings.

Whitby's landmark church, where Captain James Cook once worshipped, overlooks the town from the top of East Cliff, with the striking ruins of Whitby Abbey looming beyond. Bram Stoker lived in Whitby briefly and later said the image of pallbearers carrying coffins up the 199 stone steps that lead to the church inspired him to write Dracula. The oldest parts of St. Mary's (the quire and nave) are Norman, dating back to 1100, while the tower and transepts were added in the 12th and 13th centuries. The nave's interior is late 18th-century Georgian while the unusual enclosed box pews and triple-decker pulpit were added in the 19th century, although you can still see Norman widows and stonework in the chancel and the Tudor altar. The churchyard, a setting in Dracula, is filled with the weather-beaten gravestones of former mariners and fishermen. Rather than walking, you can drive to the hilltop and park in the abbey's lot for a small fee. Otherwise, you can take the hourly Esk Valley Bus 97.

This scaled-down replica of Captain Cook's ship was built by local craftspeople using original drawings and specifications, and it includes hardwood decks, detailed rigging, and carved timber moldings. The ship runs 20-minute tours of Whitby harbor and excursions along North Yorkshire's Jurassic coast as far as Sandsend, accompanied by commentary on Cook's life and Whitby sights. Note that sometimes tours don't run in bad weather.

This moorland village, 8 miles southwest of Whitby, has a charming 1865 train station that was the location for Hogsmeade Station, where students bound for Hogwarts disembarked, in the film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. While there, hop on the 18-mile-long North Yorkshire Moors Railway, which travels between Grosmont and Pickering, passing through picturesque towns and moorland. The route of the steam-powered trains extends to Whitby twice daily.

Set high on the East Cliff, the strikingly Gothic ruins of this once grand church are visible even from moorland hills miles away. The abbey, one of the very few founded by a woman (St. Hild in AD 657), was populated by a mixed community of monks and nuns. After the Vikings sacked it in the 9th century, it was refounded by the Benedictines in the 11th century and later enlarged (the headland is dominated by the shell of the abbey's 13th-century church), continuing to flourish until it was destroyed by Henry VIII. The excellent visitor center has exhibits on St. Hild and Dracula author Bram Stoker, Anglo-Saxon artifacts from the site, and interactive displays about the medieval abbey.

Exhibits in this quirky museum range from local geology and natural history to archaeology, whaling, and trade routes in Asia, plus an exceptional collection of marine fossils. It's notable for its old-school displays that use handwritten cards.