St David’s is lovely.
Tenby is great.
And to be honest I love most of Cornwall – though Aug will be pretty rammed.

I must agree with CFH about Salcombe, it’s a nice enough little town, but it’s an absolute bugger to park in, and the road does a one-way circuit, so if you happen to miss the car park by the harbour, which is easily done, you have to drive all the way out of town and back in again.
Last time I did that, I found a space up the hill overlooking the estuary and walked back in. Bit of a hike, mind.
Very yottie, too. It’s nicer over the other side, great beach, and there’s a little ferry to take you across to Salcome.
There’s a very interesting little pub in East Prawle, too, the landlord is certainly a character… 😉
It’s really nice to walk along the coast from Torcross to Start Point, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to do it along the beach; longshore drift since the 19th century when the Skerries out in the bay were dredged for Devonport dockyard has seen the beach at Hallsands disappear below the cliffs, and it’s now getting more difficult either end of Beesands, because there’s only a ten-twenty minute window at low tide to get over the rocks.
Watching the tide times is a must.
There’s some great history about the loss of Hallsands village in 1917, and the sisters who owned the hotel there as well as the tragedy at Slapton Sands during practice for the D-Day landings when around 700 men died after their boats were torpedoed by German E-Boats.
I love it down there. 😀

Crail, Fife

There’s a very interesting little pub in East Prawle, too, the landlord is certainly a character…

Pig’s Nose. A classic spot! 😀

Salcombe has changed massively since my days there. Yes, it used to be fairly well to do people who had the nice houses, it’s true, but it had a little more class. The people had the nice houses so they could sail their Salcombe Yawls and the like. Not hoon around on overpowered ribs driven by inexperienced asshats. It’s the difference between a nice XK120 and a Range Rover Sport in white with blacked out windows.

Scarborough is a hovel, as is Brid. They are basically Blackpool on the east coast in that all the smackheads go there for summer. Filey is a bit nicer but there isn’t a massive amount to do, the beach is huge though.

Brighton/Hove(actually) is nice. Brighton can be stupidly stupidly busy if the weather gets hot as all the Londoners head down there to remind themselves that there are places other than London. The Hove end is much quieter. Lots of places to eat though.

I’ll recommend Coverack in Cornwall, only been once but it was flipping lovely.

Changed my mind – August sucks! It’s got the best weather and if you have kids (or are a teacher 😡 ) you are free to holiday. In your head all your favourite places will be in their prime – in reality every other bugger is there too and you are all ruining it for each other.

I reckon in August you’ve got to be prepared to drive further than the crowds – and that means west coast Scotland. Have your seaside town fix in Oban and then do an island hop or work your way up the coast.

Salcombe and Dartmouth. Hope the kids have the right names to fit in!

I’m from South Devon and I wouldn’t recommend either. Cornwall is always full, South Devon has wet weather and the beaches are in the shade in the evenings.

Personally, I’d recommend the Isle of Wight. It’s like Devon, 50 years ago.

+1 for woolacombe

Or tynemouth where are i”m from. 🙂

^ love Hope Cove, spent many a term break there in a little flat overlooking the harbour. Hardly even a village though and a narrow-laned car-infested nightmare in high season unless you walk everywhere.

Salcombe is lovely, was our family holiday every year as a kid, but increasingly/overly-expensive/full of braying toffs in latter years.

South Hams coast is tops. Just whizzo. And there’s Starehole Bottom…got caught down there at night without a torch. If you can roll your Rs you might say I felt imperiled. Imperiled I say.

Discovered Newport Pembs/The Parrog in recent years, absolutely beautiful and a huge sandy beach. It too is becoming a teeny bit like the yachty S.Devon scene but the rot hasn’t set in too far yet. Must be the small council estate acting as a partial deterrent.

Well… I can offer up: miles of sandy beaches, with not too many other people on them, backed up by pine woods, tidal inshore waters – the warmest sea you’ll ever swim in. In the first week of August it’s carnival week – small enough for it not to feel like an overcrowded festival (town pop is 3000 but goes up considerably in carnival week) yet really good for kids with stuff on every day and in the evenings there’s bands on outdoor stages on the town green (they seem to like a lot of reformed bands like ‘The Animals’ or cheesy tribute bands) or open air cinema. Plenty of pubs and restaurants for such a small place but there’s also a beer festival on a sailing ship permanently moored in the quay. It’s a unique experience being on board the Albatros. It’s full of earthy, honest character much like it’s laid back Dutch captain who funnily enough is called Ton. He’s cycle toured all over Europe too.

The place is Wells-next-the-Sea on the north Norfolk coast. It’s where I lived until i moved to Scotland and I’ll be going back there for carnival week. I’m very much looking forward to that as it’s the best place to be for that week of the year.