22 Best Beaches In Kent

The bays around the north-east corner. Botany Bay and Joss Bay are the classic version: chalk headlands at either end, sand in the middle and enough enclosure that a small child stays visible. That shape also concentrates people, so on a hot weekend they fill up. The marsh beaches further south have sand too, but spread flat and wide with nothing framing it, which is a different experience entirely.

Big and open. Dymchurch Beach and Dungeness Beach sit on flat land with little to break the wind, and with the tide out the water is a long walk away over level ground. Small children love that and parents underestimate it, so agree a boundary before anyone runs off. Dungeness Beach in particular is shingle, not sand, which is hard going with a pushchair and unforgiving on bare feet.

For a calm-water day, yes. The Street and Isle of Grain Beach face into sheltered water instead of open sea, so the waves are smaller and the whole thing feels less exposed on a breezy afternoon. What you give up is the sand. These are shingle, mud and saltmarsh shores, better for a paddle and a poke about than for a bucket and spade, which suits a looker more than a swimmer.

An enclosed bay, every time. A headland at each end gives a two-year-old an obvious edge to their world and gives you a smaller area to watch. The open marsh beaches are glorious for older children and exhausting for parents of toddlers, purely because the sight lines run for as far as anyone can be bothered to run. Samphire Hoe Beach is a special case: it sits below the cliffs and getting down to it is part of the visit, so check the approach before promising it to short legs.