Reaching both ends of an 84-mile line
A point-to-point trail has a logistics problem no circular route has: you finish a long way from where you started. Here's what connects both ends.
The eastern end: Wallsend
Wallsend sits on Newcastle's Tyne & Wear Metro network, with direct trains from Newcastle Central Station taking well under half an hour, and Newcastle Central itself has direct rail links to London, Edinburgh, and most of the rest of the country. Newcastle International Airport, connected to the city centre by its own Metro line, makes this the easier end to fly into if you're arriving from outside the UK.
The western end: Bowness-on-Solway
Bowness-on-Solway has no railway station of its own. The nearest is Carlisle, itself well served by mainline rail (the West Coast Main Line runs through it, with direct services to London, Glasgow, and Manchester), roughly 15 miles from Bowness by road. A local bus service connects Carlisle to the Solway coast villages, though timetables are considerably thinner than the AD122/122 service further east — check current times before relying on a specific departure, particularly outside summer.
The AD122 (now simply "122") Hadrian's Wall Country bus
The single most useful public-transport fact for anyone walking only part of the trail: a dedicated bus service, historically branded AD122 after the wall's construction year and now simply numbered 122, runs between Hexham and Haltwhistle via almost every major stop a walker needs — Chollerford, Chesters Roman Fort, Housesteads, Once Brewed (for Steel Rigg), Vindolanda, and on to Greenhead near Birdoswald. It runs daily through spring and summer (mid-April to the end of October) and drops to weekends only over winter. A separate route, the 185, has been extended to also serve Birdoswald Fort on a Monday-to-Saturday basis, and AD122/122 Rover tickets are valid on it too. This is the backbone of every shorter, non-thru-hike day trip described on this site.
Getting between stages if you're not doing a full thru-hike
Because the 122 bus roughly parallels the trail's central and most scenic section, it's entirely possible to base yourself in one town (Hexham or Haltwhistle both work well) and bus out to a different stretch of trail each day, walking a there-and-back or one-way-then-bus-back section rather than carrying luggage between six different beds. See shorter day walks for specific routes built around exactly this pattern.