The Best Dog-Friendly Beaches In Cornwall

There’s so much to do with your furry best friend in Cornwall; the county’s renowned for being dog-friendly, after all. Even so, there are a lot of beaches that are closed to dogs in the summer, which usually means from Easter until October 1st. So, if you’re off to Cornwall with your pooch for your summer holibobs, take a look at the best dog-friendly beaches I discovered from my wanderings.

Nahla’s tail curl rounds pertly and proudly when she sinks her paws into the sand. Seeing her trot around on patrol, ears pricked and tongue lolling out the side of her mouth always makes me smile. The digging, the running into the sea and the chasing around with other dogs. What more can a doggy ask for?

The dog-child let me bury her in the sand. Bonkers animal.

Newquay

The beaches of Newquay allow dogs and they’re stunning. If your dog is off-lead, you just have to watch out for the surfers. There are so many surf schools constantly in and out of the water, so this may either freak your dog out, or in the case of Nahla, I had to stop her from joining in! She was well up for catching some waves. It’s also a fab town to wander around afterwards: as it’s a surfer’s mecca, surf shops line the streets, as well as tattoo and piercing parlours, reflecting its younger and edgier vibe. The day we went, the sun was thankfully shining and we chilled in the outside area of Walkabout. It has huge, squishy bean bags to sprawl out on and looks out over the sea. Perfect spot for a cool beer and a bowl of H2O for the hound.

Holywell Bay

Just a few minutes drive away from Newquay was my favourite beach of the trip – Holywell Bay. It has so much to explore – sand dunes with meandering paths, a long stretch of beach and there’s a snack hut for the daily ice-cream craving, as well as bodyboard/surfboard hire. I also noticed some enterprising individual was hiring out large, round discs for sledging down the steep sandbanks. Ace.

You can access the beach by either parking at The National Trust car park for £5 or, if you can squeeze on the St Pirans Inn pub car park, they charge £3.50. From there, it’s a 5-minute walk across the grass and dunes. The best thing about Holywell Bay is that if you keep walking away from the crowds, you find secluded coves where you feel like you have all of nature to yourself. I walked as far as I could and got cosy in a nook in the cliffs. Nahla could bounce around without annoying anyone and I could sunbathe in peace. Enjoy a moment of secluded calm as the sun sets over a shimmering horizon and take in the sounds of the marine birds calling to each other. Duporth

I made the mistake of typing this place into Google Maps on my phone and got big, frowning eyes from the bear when I kept being sent round and around in circles. This is a beach you can’t drive to. Ah. You have to park at Charlestown, a pretty little harbour with some impressive ships, and take the South West Coast path about a mile west (there are wooden signs all around the SW Coast Path, so you don’t need to know your bearings!). It’s only a small beach, but it’s a good spot to play fetch after you’ve wandered around Charlestown.

Charlestown and the South West Coast Path that leads to Duporth

I’d say Charlestown is the draw and Duporth is somewhere for your dog to let loose; the route also provides some impressive, panoramic views with old forts along the way. Just a note about Charlestown – there aren’t many dog-friendly pubs, so go for lunch al fresco at The Pier House and look out at the harbour. It’s also worth heading in the other direction of the SW Coast Path towards Carlyon Bay for some doggy-friendly trails: narrow paths give way to wide-open green spaces for some decent bombing around (maybe only my dog bombs).

Trebah Gardens Beach

The private beach at Trebah Gardens, Polgwiddon Cove, is a piece of secluded delight. The water is so clear and worth getting your toes wet from the shingle beach. Get your chops around a moreish ice cream from the Boathouse while you take a load off and look out at the maritime scene. If you want to access this beach, you have to visit Trebah Gardens, which is well worth a trip.

Dogs are allowed on leads along the paths of real flower power. The colours are knockout and, as is the case with Cornwall’s vistas, the gardens reminded me of a land untouched by humans, when nature ruled the Earth. I felt like I was in an H.G. Wells novel, hurled into a land before time.

Nahla splashing around at the private Trebah Gardens beach

In the summer, the giant gunnera are thriving. I was joined by a couple of mates the day I visited these gardens, and we felt like we were in ‘Honey, I Shrunk The Kids’ as we skipped through the gunnera passage, shouting skywards, “Dad! We’re in the rhubarb patch!”.

Claire’s a crouton in a giant salad

These are just a few highlights – Cornwall has so many dog-friendly beaches to enjoy and we went to plenty more than those that made it into this feature. Which are your favourites?

A good site I used to find doggy beaches is Cornish Coast – click here for a map of beaches where dogs are allowed.

Camping In Cornwall With A Dog

The little furball has firmly lodged herself into my heart and lifestyle now.

That face… Heart-melter

We’ve had a good few adventures with the little smelly brown bear already, taking her to cottages in the countryside for long walks and rests by the fire in convivial inns. From staying in an old Piggery in the Peak District to relaxing in a country home by the beautiful Norfolk coast – to name just a couple of her jaunts – she’s a well-travelled hound.

I think dogs deserve a holiday as much as humans do; they must get fed up of routine and want to sniff new smells and pee in new spots. If only we had such simple desires, eh?

Travelling with your pooch is great fun, but it has its limitations of course. It can be a bit frustrating wandering around to find a dog-friendly pub or to find a dog-friendly beach in the summer.

I bundled Nahla up for a long road trip down to Cornwall for some camping, pasties and cream tea (she may have tasted a few crumbs). It was just the two of us, which does add another dimension of difficulty to travelling with a dog, mainly when you need to wee. I hate leaving her tied to a chair leg, while she frowns at the spot she last saw me. But I’ve learned to answer the call of nature quickly and people are generally kind and offer to watch her for a minute.

She is a fab companion and was the warm furriness I needed at night in the tent. You’re never alone when you travel with a dog; you just become do-lally after no human contact and start having full-blown conversations with them. It’s the socially acceptable version of muttering to yourself.

Getting There

I’ll post highlights of dog-friendly Cornwall, but for now, I’ll share my experiences of the camping and the journey there, to help make the long route bearable for you and your four-legged friend (because Cornwall is generally a long way for most of us!).

Driving with stops easily takes 8 hours from the north and the midlands, so I decided it would be kind to us both to break the journey into two and make an overnight stop halfway down. That made it somewhere around the Cotswolds, which I could reach in about 3 hours. With a lunchtime set-off, that gave us the late afternoon for a long walk to stretch the legs and to relax before spending the next day on the M5 and the A30.

I discovered Colgate Farm in Cheltenham during my research, which was perfect for an overnight stay. It was ideal for dogs: Nahla was allowed to run around freely, which she happily did with the farm’s little troupe of doggies. It’s also on the Cotswolds Way, so is a gateway to excellent walks. We stayed in the log cabin, which looks out onto glorious hills. It’s not a luxury option, but is a decent base for exploring nearby attractions and the walking routes.

Nahla’s walk at Colgate Farm in the Cotswolds

After trundling along the Cotswolds Way as dusk fell, I relaxed in the cabin while Nahla tired herself out by exploring the new smells and sights.

They leave the place stocked with breakfast goodies so you can eat at your own pace and when you like. There’s also a bench outside so you can make a brew and just have a moment of peace, listen to the birds and take in the countryside. If you want to stay connected to the outside world, there’s free wifi.

Accommodation costs £50 per person per night and wagging tails cost £5 per night.

The Campsite

Halfway point achieved, we pressed on down to our campsite near St Agnes – Blue Hills Touring Park.

If you’re looking for a pool and a clubhouse, this isn’t for you. But neither is it a field with a portaloo. This site offers you the back-to-nature experience you want from camping, but also has some modern comforts to remind you it’s a holiday, not a survival exercise. It has a decent toilet and shower block – and the water is nice and hot, so no dancing around in an icy trickle. They also offer you a fridge space if you haven’t brought the entire contents of your home and need somewhere to keep your bacon. I opted for electrical hook-up too, so I could charge my phone and blow up my air bed.

The campsite is nicely out the way to feel like a break from the rush, but then again, that’s Cornwall all over. It’s a short drive from the cosy village of St Agnes, which has everything you’d need – newsagents, gift shop, butcher, florist, pubs, restaurants and takeaways. Importantly if you’re travelling with your pet, it has a vet, which we ended up in…

It’s also a 5 minute walk away from the beach or the cliffs, which, if you’ve just arrived after hours of being in a car, make you stop and breathe a silent ‘wow’. Once I put the tent up and made the canvas palace ready for the week, I took Nahla for a local reccy around the cliffs of Perranporth Airfield.

From there, you can follow the South West Coast Path a few minutes down to Trevellas Cove, a good beach for your dogs to play on. It’s out the way and too rough to swim, so all the day trippers and surfers are elsewhere. Or if you’re up for a few miles of walking, you can hike to Perranporth beach, where there are dog-friendly areas, surfing and rock-pooling.

This site is a good base to explore Cornwall from – I got familiar with the roads really easily without a satnav. Although I didn’t get it right every time and mumbled silent prayers when I ended up on a cliff-side lane in the pitch black, only just a tad wider than my car (and it’s an ickle Fiat).

The weather was shocking the week we were there (mid-July 2015), which does make camping rather difficult. I almost wept at not being able to get my stove going to make a cup of tea in the rain and practically snogged the lady who turned up one morning with a coffee van. The night of harsh rain and lightning wasn’t much fun for us either; I don’t know whether I was comforting Nahla or the other way around.

But there’s nothing you can do about that – you know you can’t bank on the weather in the UK, but generally, Cornwall is as good a bet as you can make. When the sun did come out it, you felt like you were a long way away from the UK and you wonder why everyone hasn’t tried to squeeze on that little foot of the country. The sea is blue! The beaches are bountiful! The smell of neoprene is in the air, oh my!