Road Trip To St Ives Cornwall
In this blog I will break down our road trip around Cornwall and share with you the route, locations, things to do as well as covering what gear I used and how much it all cost. As well as sharing a day by day account of the trip, I will also talk about any mistakes I made, lessons learned and what can be improved next time round.
Trip Type
This blog is catered towards someone going for a long weekend and is mostly going for a chill getaway with a focus on visiting small seaside towns while staying in hotels or B&B. In other words a very slow cruise through Cornwall while taking photos of nice places. This is not a surfing beach going van life hiking guide to adventure …. That’s for another time. Also this is not a guide for best food and drink places either.
Trip Plan
To plan the trip I initially googled all the different towns and villages to get an idea of what is generally recommended and what it roughly looks from photos online. I then googled some interesting activities or things to see and compiled into a different list. In Apple Maps I created a new guide under which I can save locations. To be honest I think google maps is a little better at this. I then searched for each location and saved into this guide. This gave me a visual understanding of where all the places are in relation to each other and having worked out how long it would take driving from one to the other, I eliminated about half. In the end I ended up with max 4 locations per day….. as you will see soon, this didn’t really go to plan. I then googled the most central car park in each place and saved the postcode into a table in Apple Notes.
As for food, I don’t normally research or plan ahead and just go by suggestions from the locals. In terms of hotels, I just used booking.com. The first night was simply a stop over in Newquay as it was on the way.
The main stay was in the Western in St Ives which was very nice and in a great central location so I would recommend it.
So the final plan was to start at the top in Bude, drive down the north side stopping over in various places, then sleep over in Newquay and carry on to St Ives the following day. We would then use St Ives as our base and stay there for the remainder of the trip
Gear
If you go in the summer then shorts and t -shirts are generally enough. Maybe also bring a jumper or two just in case. One thing I am glad I had with me was a packable thermal coat that I can just throw in my day bag. On a couple of the days we did get caught out and it did get chilly…so it was really useful to have that. In terms of bags, if you can avoid suit cases or any awkward large items then your life will be easier. Ideally bring one of those 40 litre travel backpacks with a small folding backpack for daily use. The reason for that is that many of the hotels, especially in town centres, do not have on site parking…. So you would have to find a car park nearby and walk…. Which is much easier with a backpack
As for camera gear I had the following:
Fuji XT4 for both photo and video
16-55 f2.8 which in full frame terms is a 24-70 (This was by far the most used lens…I’d say like 80% of all photos and videos were on that)
50-140 f2.8 which in full frame terms is a 70-200 (Although not used anywhere near as often as in Scotland, it was great to have for a few specific shots)
23mm f2 which was my very light and small walkabout lens for evenings when I didn’t want to bring a big set up and have something small just in case.
GoPro Hero 9 came in really useful for quick behind the scenes video bits and to get some interesting perspectives on the car.
DJI Mini 2 to get some aerial perspectives on some of the places.
Bellroy travel and every day bags.
Finally as for camera settings, I was in aperture priority for 99% of the time with a minimum shutter speed of 1/200 and exposure between -0.3 for very sunny midday sun to +0.3 for cloudy days. I focused using continuous autofocus with a zone focus mode for moving and walking shots and single point for more accurate still shots. In terms of focal lengths, most of the photos fell between 23mm and 50mm on the Fuji so that’s around 35mm and 80mm full frame. All the photos are edited in Lightroom on my iPad and video in Final Cut Pro.
Driving, Navigation & Parking
Driving around Cornwall is so nice however the roads can get very tight especially if they are leading up to small seaside villages. My best advice is to bring the smallest car possible and make sure you are ok reversing and judging the size of your car when trying to squeeze through. The roads themselves are good and you will have no issues even in a lower car.
Some places only have one road in and out, so if you get stuck in traffic for whatever reason, you might not have an option to re-route another way. There are ample fuel stops and although I wasn’t looking out for electric charge points, I did see a lot of electric cars which at least suggest some infrastructure. I used Apple Maps and it was overall very accurate and never sent us the wrong way. Now and then I also had to use Maps.Me as that is my offline navigation app for times when we lost signal. However saying that, i found that we had 4G or at least 3G more often than not.
There are ample car parks in pretty much every town, beach and tourist spot. All the car parks either accept coins or have an app you can pay through using apple or android pay. The main apps were Ring Go, Just Park and Mi Permit
My suggestion is you download and set them up before the trip. Finally some car parks have a limit on how long you can stay without the option to extend… so just double check.
Costs
Before i go through how much this trip cost, keep in mind that Cornwall is a popular holiday destination and we went in the summer. Also given the current global circumstances not many brits can travel abroad so most either go to Cornwall or Scotland. All this meant that prices were very inflated across the board…. If you are watching this video a year from now, I hope they are a little cheaper.
Hotels - £600 (4 night)
Activities - £170
Food - £200
Fuel - £110
Parking - £80
Total - £1160 (£580 each)
Without a doubt this is expensive and 100% can be done cheaper. Under normal global circumstances and maybe booking in May or September, I reckon you can half the cost of the hotels. If you wanna go extra cheap, then why not just stay at a campsite…. I did that years ago and although not as comfy it will save a ton of cash. As for food i don’t think we spent too much given it was 2 of us and you can definitely spend more. The most expensive parking charges were in St Ives for overnight… in total that was over £40…. If you find free overnight parking or stay at a camp site, then that’s a huge saving. All activities were fairly prices and never felt ripped off or overcharged.
Day 1 - Travel, Bude & Boscastle
The first day started with a very chilled drive down from London…. Even if the weather wasn’t ideal. However because it is the UK, a few minutes later we had beautiful sunshine and stopped for road side strawberries. The first destination was Bude and according to the sat nav it should only take us 4.5 hours. However we got stuck in traffic due to accidents and closed roads so the drive took us closer to 6 hours in the end. Bude is the first major town on the north side of Cornwall and has been voted as the best UK coastal resort a couple years back. Apparently it has also been around since the Bronze Age. Overall it had a very nice beach scattered with boats as the tide was out. Also you had these giant rocks in the distance and although but didn’t climb them as I was too busy taking photos of boats. We then walked into the town centre which took about 5 minutes, did a quick loop and decided to cut this visit short and head to the next spot. From Bude it was a very short drive to Boscastle Harbour which I’ve been to before and is one of my favourite stops along the north Cornwall coast. The sun was out, it was warm so for the first time we dropped the roof on the MX5 for this drive and went for a chilled drive. Boscastle harbour is a natural inlet protected by two stone harbour walls built in 1584 and is the only significant harbour for 20 miles. We parked in the man car park and then walked down towards the sea
Unfortunately the shops were closed as we were late, but if you get here earlier definitely grab the honeycomb ice cream… your life will never be the same after. As you get closer to the sea, you will need to climb on top of the walls and rocks. In the dry this is fairly easy, just watch out for loose rocks but in the wet i would imagine it would be very slipper so would really suggest taking care or at least wearing the right foot ware. Once you do get to the top, you will be greeted with an amazing view of the sea and the cliff edges. If the tide is at the right level, you will also be greeted with the blow holes which look quite cool. If you walk a little further down, there is a bench you can sit on and just soak in the views. After this, we walked back to the car and then proceeded to drive to the next stop. This is where my plan started to fall apart a little…. The next stop was meant to be Tintagel Castle followed by Padstow. However given the hour and a half delay in getting here it meant we would have to drop the Castle entirely And just drive straight to Padstow. Padstow is known as one of Cornwall’s great foodie destinations so we decided to grab dinner at the famous rock Steins Fish & Chips before exploring the town. This is where the plan fell apart even more. When we got to Padstow and parked up, we quickly realised that the queue for the famous fish and chips was quite long. In the end it took us an hour to get our food and eat it which left no time to explore the town as the sun was starting to set and we still had a 45 minute drive to our overnight stop in Newquay. With a slightly disappointed mood, we decided to leave Padstow for another time and head to the hotel in Newquay. However as always with life for every negative there is a positive and because we left earlier, we found this little gate on one of the country roads that had the sun coming through. On top of that, a little further down the road we found an amazing viewpoint to pullover and watch the sunset before going to get some sleep.
Day 2 - Eden Project, Mevagissey, Charles Town
The second day was meant to start with a quick wander round Newquay however the night before I was reading about Eden Project and although I had tickets, I found that it gets extremely busy. So with that in mind, we abandoned Newquay and drove straight to the Eden Project. The Eden Project is effectively a giant greenhouse and is split into two main parts.
The first part has plants from the rainforest and the second is more based around the Mediterranean. Although this is not a photography spot nor is it everyone’s cup of tea, I am really glad I went. It was so relaxing to walk around and for a brief moment I even felt like i could be in some jungle or in South of Spain. After about an hour and a half, we have seen everything we wanted, jumped back in the car and headed to our next stop. At this point we were also really glad we scrapped Newquay and came earlier as it was getting packed. The second stop of the day was Mevagissey and having not been there or really researched it that much, we were so happy and pleasantly surprised that we stopped off here. Mevagissey is a small fishing village with history dating back to 1300. It is also a busy and active fishing hub with over 60 registered fishing boats that offer trips along the coast. This is exactly the first thing we did as we saw a boat with 2 spare seats about to depart just as we got into own. The trip was under £10 and for 30 minutes of cruising around the beautiful coast line it was well worth it. We then got back into the port and spent the next hour and a half walking round the streets, eating pies, chilling on the pier and trying to not get attacked by the seagulls. From then on, we jumped back in the car and headed towards Charles Town. Charlestown does not date back as long as some of the previous places and was mainly known for vessels that carried China Clay. However the vessels soon outgrew the size of the port and had to go else where. The harbour was then bought by a sailing company who hired their boats out as TV and movie sets
This place is very small and much smaller than Mevagissey. As a matter of fact 30 minuted to an hour is more than enough if you just want to wander and have a look around. We walked down to the harbour and onto the beach for a bit, had an ice cream and then headed back to the car. Just before leaving, I saw these nice pastel coloured houses with a palm tree in the front garden. With Charlestown done, we slowly cruised all the way down to St Ives which would be our final base for the remaining few days. We checked into the hotel and then went into town for a bit to have a look around and get some food. This is where we ran into some trouble… Pretty much every restaurant was 100% booked up with no room at all. The only way to get a table was to hope / wait for a cancellation. Everywhere was just so busy that even the queue for take away was nearly 30 minutes. I am sure if you went further away from centre of town you could find something but just before giving up we popped back into the fish and chip shop that had the longest queue and low and behold they had a table that was free, so we jumped at that opportunity. Grilled cod and chips was good and with our stomachs full we headed back to the hotel, grabbed a book and went to bed.
Day 3 - St Ives
One lesson I learned from the NC500 trip I did a few months ago is that for every few days driving, you need to have one day of no driving at all in order to avoid burning out. So day 3 we decided to spend exclusively in St Ives, have a bit of an explore and do a few touristy activities along the way. St Ives is one of the most popular destinations in the UK and has also been voted one of the best UK seaside towns. It is certainly one of my favourite parts of the country. We started the morning by the harbour, the tide was in and the weather was magnificent, so I took the opportunity to send the drone up and get a few shots of the town. The first activity was a trip out in the boat to look at seal island. For this we used the boat called Dolly P and the guys who were running it were a great crack, very knowledgable and made the whole experience so much better. This was a 45 minute trip out to a small collection of rocks where you always get grey seals. They did say you can also see dolphins, sharks and even whales but there is no way to predict where or when and it is just sheer luck.
Although i learned some interesting facts about grey seals, like they can dive deeper than submarines and their milk is like 60% fat I don’t think i will win any awards for wildlife photography any time soon. Talking of photography, this is where the telephoto zoom lens came into its own and i was so glad i had it with me. We then cruised back to harbour and overall we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. After the boat, we spent a little while just walking round the town and exploring. The next activity of the day was a quick train journey from St Ives to St Earth. Although it is a commuter train, we were told it had some amazing views. And given tickets were only £4 and the journey only 15 minutes each way, it was a no brainier
The journey was nice and for sure something to do if you have a bit of extra time or just want to sit down somewhere for a bit but with a changing view. However not sure I would do it again unless i am arriving in St Ives by rail anyway. At this point, the clouds started to close in so we headed to Tate St Ives just out of curiosity having visited Tate in London many times. Not much i can say about it other than it was nice to have a look round and if the weather sucks it’s a good place to spent an hour or so. After Tate we headed down to the beach opposite, walked along for a bit, collected some shells and just chilled out. Given that all restaurants were fully booked and the weather was a little dull we got some take away afternoon tea and headed back to the hotel to watch a movie.
Day 4 - St Michaels Mount, Mousehole, Minack Theatre, Lands End
This day was jam packed and actually all worked out with even a great surprise right at the end. We started the day with a drive to St Michaels Mount. St Michaels Mount is a small civil parish of Penzance that resides on a tidal island. The only way to get on the island is by either walking along the causeway during low tide or by taking a boat when the tide is in
Ive been here twice and personally I like to time the walk with the tide coming in, so that the last half or so of the walk the water level is just below the knee. But do make sure you time it right so that you don’t have to swim back. Once on the island, I highly recommend checking out the gardens. There is a fair bit of climbing to do but it is well worth it and you get some great views of the surrounding area. Unless you want to explore the castle, there isn’t much else to do so this is where you can either walk back or if the tide is in, get on one of the boats. From then on we drove down to Mousehole.
Although it is spelt mouse hole, it is actually pronounced muzzle … yeah I was confused to start with too. Just like the other towns, this dates back to 100s of years ago and is a working and thriving fishing village. In particular I like how small the entrance to the harbour is and how the walls close the entire thing off from the ocean. This place was a joy to walk around and explore even though the weather was still a little gloomy. Like many of these small villages, it was surprisingly quick to walk around and take some photos. Once we were finished here, we carried on to the next destination which was the Minack Theatre. The theatre actually sits right on the south west coast path and if you just get on the trail and walk literally 20 seconds, you will have an amazing view of the cliffs and beach below. We ended up just sitting there for like 20 minutes and just taking photos and enjoying the view. This is also where the telephoto lens came in really handy.
After this we went into Minack Theatre which dates back to just after the First World War and to this day is active with many plays. I am not a theatre fan so I only stopped here just to look at how it is all carved into the side of this cliff. As great as it looks, I am not sure about navigating it at night after a few glasses of wine. As nice as it was, once you sort if seen it for a bit, there wasn’t much else to do so we headed off to the final stop of the day.
The final stop was of course the tourist hotspot of Lands End….. don’t bother. The whole place felt like a tourist trap and sure you get some nice views of the coast, the sea and the cliffs but you can get that view in many other nicer places too.
By all means pop in for a photo with the sign but that’s it really. After this, we drove back to St Ives in the hopes that on a Sunday evening we could finally find a restaurant to sit in. However …. Negative… everything was booked up again. Not all was lost however as one of the locals suggested we walk to Porthmeor Beach where we can grab a pizza and a glass of wine. Honestly I am so glad we did because by the time we finished our food, the sun came out and we decided to just walk up and down the beach while watching this beautiful sunset. We then went all the way to the top where the church is for the final part of sunset and looking back, this was my favourite part of the trip. Totally unplanned, unexpected, very relaxing and without a doubt the best ending to a fantastic trip.
Mistakes & Lessons
The first mistake was to not leave enough buffer time for the long drives to and from London. On both occasions we got stuck in heavy traffic that added nearly 2 hours to our journey. Of course you can’t plan for it but going forward i will always try to add an extra hour to the ETA when planning
The second mistake is trying to cram too much in. In the end we dropped like 30% of the planned stops because we physically didn’t have the time. This was due to me really underestimating how long the driving would take but more importantly how long we would spend in each town. This then led to a sense of urgency and rushing when we spent too much time in a town we liked…. Which is just not fun at all. I honestly think that on a road trip like this 3 stops per day is more than enough assuming an early start and a late finish…. Any more than that is just stressful. The last mistake was not planning ahead for food which in turn meant not booking anywhere and effectively being stuck with take away options for the majority of the trip…. All be it very nice take away options on the beach. If there is one thing I would like you to take away from this is that you will never have a road trip go 100% according to plan. Each time something will happen that will slightly alter your plans. It is all a learning curve and with each road trip you will learn more and more. As long as you don’t get frustrated, keep an open mind, go with the flow and learn from any mistakes you will have a fantastic time.
What Would I Do Differently Next Time
If I were to do this trip again I would do the following. First of all I would still start in Bude however I would drive up the day before or at least drive half way the night before and get a cheap motorway hotel. That was I would be in Bude in the morning and remove any risk of getting delayed on the road. Talking of getting delayed on the road, I would also add a solid 30 minute buffer for shorter drives and 1 hour buffer to longer routes. After Bude I would then still visit Boscastle and then pop into Tintagel Castle. I would then get to Padstow for late afternoon and book an overnight hotel there too
This will give me plenty of time to explore the town during sunset without having to go elsewhere. The following day I would still go to Eden Project but I would go even earlier and I would still go to Mevagissey. However this time I would also get the Mevagissey to Fowey ferry and explore Fowey.
I would skip out on Charlestown and after returning from Fowey on the return boat I would drive straight to St Ives and chill. For my down day in St Ives I would scrap the train journey and Tate and weather permitting would do some kind of water activity such as paddle boarding. As for the seal boat trip I would happily do that again as that was great.
The rest of the time i would simply just walk around. For the final day I would still do St Michaels Mount, Mousehole and a flying visit to Minack Theatre just to see the views. However would totally not bother with lands end and instead I would go to the path that I mentioned earlier, just next to the Theatre and walk down to that amazing beach.
If you want to do this road trip, then I really suggest making it a week if you can so that nothing feels rushed. If you only have a long weekend, I would actually say pick one place and stick to it for the few days.
