Bowness sits right on Lake Windermere, and most visitors come for the water and the surrounding walks. Boat trips on the lake run year-round, and the car ferry across to the western shore is the only lake crossing in the National Park.
About a mile and a half south of Bowness is Blackwell, a house designed by Baillie Scott of the Arts and Crafts Movement at the very end of the 19th century. It has been opened to the public and furnished in keeping with the period, with fine views over Windermere. The Windermere Steamboat Museum claims the oldest mechanically powered boat in the world, with its engine still in working order, part of a collection tracing the history of boating on the lake.