The South West Coast Path is one of my favourite areas of Britain. The 630-mile path extends all the way round the peninsula at the south west of England, along the coasts of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset. If you follow the recommended itinerary, it would take you 52 days to walk the whole route.
Read on for tips for planning your trip to the South West Coast Path.
How did I get into walking the South West Coast Path?
In summer 2020, when we were finally allowed to travel within the UK again after the first wave of Covid subsided, I walked three days of the south Devon coast with a friend.
I was hooked. In 2021, I spent a month in Cornwall solo between jobs (still wary of going abroad in case Covid cancelled everything) and I did 14 days of walking.
I would love to walk the whole of the South West Coast Path. Realistically, I’m never going to get 52 days off work in a row, so I’ve been chipping away at it over the last few years over some long weekends and even some normal weekends. My eventual aim is to become a Completer.
What is it that attracts me to the South West Coast Path?
Being near the sea
First, I love being near the sea. There’s something so soothing about walking for hours on end with the sea stretching endlessly into the distance on one side of you, hearing the perpetual push and pull of the waves.
Easy to navigate
Secondly, I have a terrible sense of direction. Doing a hike along a coast path makes navigating a whole lot easier. You can just keep the sea on one side of you and you’ll never get lost. It also helps that the South West Coast is very well signposted.
It’s addictive
Finally, the South West Coast Path is addictive. Once you’ve done one stretch of it, you feel compelled to do more.
Planning your trip: transport
After walking a section of the South West Coast path, you’ll finish at a different point to where you started. This can make a trip seem fiddly to plan. But don’t worry – it’s not as complicated as it first seems!
Driving
If you’re driving to your starting point, your best bet is to find somewhere to park for a few days and then get a bus or train back to your starting point at the end of your hike. If you’re stuck for public transport, you might have to bite the bullet and fork out for a taxi.
Taking the train
I live in London so I travel mostly by train. This means I’ve got used to being savvy at getting the best price for my tickets.
Rather than buying two single tickets to and from the different start and finish locations, look at where the outbound and return train routes would overlap. Buy a return to there and then single tickets for other parts of the journey.
For example, when I walked from Falmouth to Par, I bought a return ticket from London to Exeter and single tickets from Exeter to Falmouth and from Par to Exeter.
Exeter is usually the crossover point if you’re venturing into Devon and Cornwall. If you’re doing the Somerset sections, look at returns to Taunton. Play around on Trainline and see what’s the cheapest route.
What form of transport is best?
Train will probably give you more flexibility than driving, simply because you won’t have to retrace your steps or struggle for parking.
However, driving is probably the easiest way to get to the sections along the north coasts of Somerset and Devon, which are poorly connected by train. I don’t have a car, and that’s the main reason I haven’t done any of that section of the South West Coast Path yet! South Devon is better connected than the north of the county. Cornwall is also slightly better as there are rural train routes which branch off from Truro and Par.
Planning your trip: where to stay
Even if you’ve got a plan for your transport, accommodation can put a spanner in the works. Most of the settlements along the South West Coast Path are villages and small towns, so they don’t have a ton of accommodation options. If you’re travelling during the school holidays – particularly the summer – places are likely to get booked up very early.
There are two solutions to this. The first one is to book your trip well in advance so that you get first dibs on the accommodation. The second option is to be flexible. During my month in Cornwall in 2021, it was August (school holidays) and mid-Covid (everyone travelling domestically rather than internationally) so I was very short of options. This meant that I ended up staying in some places which were a bit out of the way.
But I made it work. A South West Coast Path trip does take quite a bit of planning, with limited accommodation and fiddly transport to think about. But it all comes together in the end.
Sections of the South West Coast Path that I’ve completed
Read about the sections I have completed so far:
- Tintagel to St Ives (8 days)
- Mousehole to Falmouth (6 days)
- Falmouth to Par (3 days)
- Dartmouth to Exmouth (3 days)
- Exmouth to Seaton (2 days)
Where do you start walking the South West Coast Path?
You can start wherever you like. It depends how much time you have and where you can get to most easily.
To help decide where to start, look for two places which are convenient to get to/from in the amount of time you have. For example, you can get fairly easily from London to Par and from Plymouth back to London – Par to Plymouth is a three-day section.
For me, Cornwall is one of my favourite places in the world so that’s why most of the miles I’ve done are there. I’d like to finish at the finish in Dorset eventually, but who knows?