Where to live by the seaside, that’s not a tourist trap?

I miss living by the sea. Up to a point. Sea frets are utterly crap though. My parent’s house in Sunderland was almost exactly 1 mile from the beach and about 40m elevation. You could see the fret rolling up the street at about 2pm on what would otherwise be a beautiful sunny afternoon.  Almost with the inevitability of the tide. It would usually co-inside with the BBQ getting up to temperature. You’d lose up to 5°C in a matter of minutes.

For some bloody stupid reason I bought a house in Blyth. Lovely house, again a mile from the beach but this time at 6m elevation. The frets wouldn’t just roll in, they’d simply switch on. Like the dimming during an eclipse. You’d be sat there, beer in hand in the garden, in the sun and suddenly you couldn’t see the roof of the house, the end of the garden, the bottle opener. You could go and get a hoodie, but what you really needed was a ski jacket and a torch and a towel to wipe the instantly deposited moisture off everything.

If you drove inland just a tiny bit it’d clear off. Even Cramlington which is all of a mile further inland would be basking in sunshine and several degrees warmer than we were.

We had a week in Weymouth over half-term, with the kids, and loved everything except the traffic – it was brutal, especially coming home.

Yeah, well, once you get south of Warminster, the roads are all narrow and winding, with very few places you can get past anything slow moving, and that’s pretty much true of the whole of the south of England; get below the A30/303, and you’re stuffed. I drove those roads many times for two years, and it’s pointless being in a rush. On my way back up the M5 once, there had been an accident between the entrance and exit to Taunton Dean services northbound, and someone had put a car and caravan across all three lanes southbound a bit further down. It added three hours to my journey home from wherever I’d picked the car up from, a five hour journey home. It involved trying to get through Taunton then up over the Blackdown Hills. It wasn’t a fun day.
All along the south Devon coast around South Hams is lovely, but if you wanted to go from, say Kingsbridge to Dartmouth, find a bus or truck to follow, ‘cos everyone else will have to give way to it.

I like it around there, Burry point, Pembrey, Pendine and over to Tenby, nice areas, and you have Saundersfoot and Tenby as smallish towns, other side as you say Llanelli, probably best to be inland by a few miles for ease of logistics and then just simple journeys to the coast

Llanstephan’s a nice little place, or was when I stayed there many years ago. Back then, the pub always closed on a Sunday, and the locals spoke Welsh. Fairly easy to get around to Pendine, and Laugharne, and the beaches between Amroth and Saundersfoot.

@swdan The thing is, Felixstowe was huge in Victorian times and a lot of the older areas and buildings are really nice. The only problem is that no one wants to visit the place any more and so it is chronically under-invested. It is literally _just_ the port now.

As you say though, there are relatively few places on the coast in Suffolk that you can have a beach experience. Southwold and Aldeburgh have huge issues with second home ownership and gentrification, Orford and Woodbridge too (even though they are more estuary than coast) and the smaller villages are just not suitable. Leiston has Sizewell and significant problems and, before you know it, you’re either in Norfolk or Essex.

Portobello in Edinburgh.

Not a tourist trap, nice, 15 min on the bus into Edinburgh, 45 min to tweed valley in the car, 1h on thr bike to the pentlands

I grew up there and question why I left every time I go home to see my folks.

Relatively expensive housing?

@willard absolutely, as a child growing up there in the 80s I didn’t really realise how run down it was getting as I just enjoyed being by the sea but as I got older you could just tell it was falling apart. I left properly just over 20 years ago and didn’t really miss the place apart from being close to my family. However in the last few years there has been money flowing back in, the seafront is improving with new things being built and the town is getting a better high street albeit The shops reached a proper low a few years back so anything is an improvement

North Oregon.

The joys of Weymouth, a poor road network, it’s about 13 miles from my house, and I try and avoid going there in the summer of school holidays.

I live 2 miles from Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, we venture to the coast outside of school holidays and it isn’t too bad, we went to Studland last week at 7:30pm and shared the beach with a handful of others for a couple of hours, whilst the dogs played and the daughter swam.

I work in Bournemouth and am lucky I can walk along the seafront back to the train station, and decompress if it’s been a tough day.

Whilst I love the coast, I find that most of what I like is available from a nice river or two, luckily we have a nice river on the edge of our village, has a little sandy bit like a mini beach, clean, deep parts so you can swim and not many people to disturb you.

In reality how many times would you go to the coast if it was more accessible? If only a few times a month or less, what about looking at somewhere close but with decent transport links which tends to lack in seaside locations.

It’s 15+ years away but if we were retiring now I think we’d go for a nice caravan on a seasonal pitch for April to Oct, which would have the advantage of being able to move every year so as not to get too bored with one particular area.

Then back home for some cosy winter vibes until Christmas followed by a lengthy long haul holiday to the tropics in Jan/Feb time, back in time for the nights to start getting longer and almost ready to get back out in the caravan.

Why not Morecombe?