Poole sits at the edge of one of the better-preserved rural counties in England, and the countryside starts within four minutes of Sandbanks.
The Isle of Purbeck
Not actually an island, but a peninsula cut off by the sea, the harbour and the Frome. Corfe Castle is its centrepiece: a ruined castle in a gap in the chalk ridge, slighted in the Civil War and still dominating everything around it. The Swanage Railway runs steam trains through it.
The market towns
Wimborne Minster has the twin-towered church and the chained library. Wareham is a Saxon walled town on the Frome, at the back of the harbour.
Walking country
The chalk ridge, the downland and the heath give you walking very different from the coast path. See walking and trails.
Getting there
The chain ferry from Sandbanks is the shortcut into Purbeck. See Studland and the Jurassic Coast.