Newquay’s paid attractions are decent and entirely optional. The reason to come is the coast, and the coast is free: more than a dozen beaches within a few kilometres, two headlands, a tidal estuary, the South West Coast Path running through the middle of it, and some of the most dramatic industrial ruins in Britain a short drive away.
If you can get here and park, a week in Newquay need cost very little.
All of them are free. The only cost is parking, and several of the best have free car parks.
Towan, Great Western and Tolcarne are the town beaches, reached by steps from the cliff, all sandy, all lifeguarded in season.
Fistral, on the far side of Towan Head, is the surf beach and one of the best-known in Britain.
Crantock, across the Gannel, is National Trust with free parking — a wide bowl of sand with the estuary running through it and dunes behind.
Polly Joke, beyond Crantock, has no road, no facilities and no lifeguards, which is why it is the quietest good beach near the town.
Watergate Bay, north-east, is three kilometres of continuous sand.
Mawgan Porth, Holywell Bay and Perranporth complete the run.
Our beaches guide covers which suits what.
Towan Head, twenty minutes from the town centre, has the Huer’s Hut on it — the small whitewashed lookout from which a watchman scanned the sea for the shadow of a pilchard shoal and shouted hevva to launch the boats. It is free, it takes ten minutes, and it explains what this town was before surfing.
Pentire Head, across Fistral, is open grassland with a free car park, cliffs on three sides and a view over the mouth of the Gannel.
Both are free, both take about an hour, and between them they give you the best views in Newquay.
The tidal estuary on the town’s southern side is free to walk along and completely different at each end of the tide. At low water it is a plain of sand crossed by seasonal footbridges; at high water it is a creek full of boats.
Walking out along it and back, timed to the tide, is one of the better free hours here — but check the tide table, because the crossings become unusable and people do get caught out.
Trenance Gardens, in the valley below the zoo, are free: formal planting, a boating lake, a play area and a café, with the viaduct above.
Killacourt, on the Crescent above Towan Beach, is a small green with a view.
The South West Coast Path runs through Newquay and is free for its entire 1,014 kilometres. The best free sections nearby:
Crantock to Polly Joke and Holywell, south-west, through National Trust dunes and cliffs.
Lusty Glaze to Watergate Bay and Mawgan Porth, north-east, above continuous sand.
Bedruthan Steps, eight kilometres north-east, where a line of slate stacks stands in the surf below a high cliff. The clifftop path is free; only the National Trust car park charges.
St Agnes Head to Chapel Porth past Wheal Coates, sixteen kilometres south-west — a tin mine engine house standing on the cliff face above the sea, National Trust and free to visit. It is the most photographed industrial ruin in Britain and it costs nothing.
Our walks guide has the routes.
Free, and better entertainment than it sounds. Fistral is a serious wave and on a big swell the standard of surfing there is high enough to be worth watching from the sand or from the headland above. In winter, Atlantic storms put swell into the bay that draws people to the clifftop specifically to watch it.
The Boardmasters festival in August brings a professional surf competition to Fistral and a music festival to Watergate Bay; the surfing at Fistral is free to watch from the beach.
Grey seals are regular along this coast and are frequently visible from the headlands and from Bedruthan. Dolphins and, in early summer, basking sharks are seen from the cliffs. Choughs — the red-billed crow that is Cornwall’s emblem — have returned to the St Agnes and Bedruthan cliffs and can be seen for nothing.
The rock pools at Towan and around the town beaches at low tide are free and genuinely good.
Parking, and it is the one real cost. The free options are the ones to know: Crantock Beach (National Trust), Pentire Headland, Mount Wise, Fistral, Manor Long Stay, St Georges Road and Tregunnel Hill. That is a better free-parking list than most Cornish resorts manage.
Newquay also has its own railway station three hundred metres from the town centre, at the end of the branch from Par, and buses to Truro every half hour, which removes the car problem entirely for anyone prepared to walk to the beach.
Start on Towan Head at the Huer’s Hut for the view along the coast. Walk round to Fistral and along the sand, then over Pentire Head and down to the Gannel. Cross at low water — or go round — to Crantock, take lunch on the beach, and walk on to Polly Joke through the National Trust dunes. Come back the same way, or take the bus from Crantock.
That is about twelve kilometres, four beaches, two headlands and an estuary, for the price of nothing at all.
Worth checking before you pay. Crantock Beach, Carnewas at Bedruthan, Wheal Coates and St Agnes Head, Trerice and a string of coastal car parks along this coast are all National Trust. The beaches and the clifftops are free to everyone; what membership buys is the parking, which on this coast is the whole of the cost.
For a week based in Newquay, National Trust parking at Crantock, Bedruthan, Chapel Porth and Holywell alone will get close to covering a membership.
The first free day went south-west. The second should go north-east: walk or bus to Lusty Glaze, follow the coast path above Watergate Bay with three kilometres of sand below you, and continue over the cliffs to Mawgan Porth. Bus back, or carry on to Bedruthan Steps for the stacks and the National Trust clifftop.
That is a full day of some of the best cliff walking in Cornwall, with beaches all the way, and it costs a bus fare.
Newquay’s calendar has a good deal in it that costs nothing to watch. Boardmasters in August brings a professional surf contest to Fistral, and the surfing is free from the beach and the headland even though the music festival at Watergate Bay is ticketed. Gig rowing — the six-oared Cornish pilot gigs raced from harbours all along the coast — has races through the summer and they are free to watch from the harbour.
Beyond those, the town runs a run of seafront events through the season, and the surf competitions at Fistral through the year are almost all free to spectate.
Yes, all of them. Only parking is charged, and Crantock, Pentire and Fistral all have free or National Trust car parks.
More than most Cornish resorts: Crantock, Pentire Headland, Mount Wise, Fistral, Manor, St Georges Road and Tregunnel Hill.
A whitewashed lookout on Towan Head from which a watchman spotted pilchard shoals and called the boats out. Free and open.
Yes. It is National Trust land on the cliffs near St Agnes, free to walk to, with a charged car park.
Walk the coast path from Crantock to Polly Joke, or watch the surf at Fistral on a big day.