49 Best Beaches In Cornwall

Start with the wind, then the tide, then the child. A gale from the sea rules out the exposed stretches and pushes you towards the bays. A high tide swallows some beaches almost completely, so Trebarwith Strand Beach in particular wants checking before you commit. Only after that does it come down to which one has the sand your children want.

For families it is often the better half of the year. Beaches are empty, dogs are welcome on more of them, and a storm-watching walk with hot chocolate afterwards is a genuinely good day out. What you lose is lifeguard cover, so swimming stops being sensible and the visit becomes about walking, looking and getting blown about.

Godrevy Head is the standout on this list for that, with seals often visible below the headland, and it turns a walk into something with a purpose for a child who has lost interest in walking for its own sake. Take binoculars if you have them, keep well back from cliff edges, and do not go down to any beach a seal is using.

Then this category cannot help much on its own, since these are open beaches with no shelter recorded against them. The workable version of a wet Cornish week is short beach visits between showers rather than a full day sitting it out, with the indoor part of the day planned somewhere else entirely.