The Ultimate South Coast England Road Trip

Last Updated on 14th September 2023

This post about the ultimate South Coast England Road Trip contains affiliate links.

Planning an epic road trip to the South Coast of England but not sure where to start when it comes to creating an itinerary? I’ve got you covered with my ultimate South England road trip itinerary!

The lead-up to two-week our trip along England’s magnificent South Coast was pretty hectic in itself as we headed up to Durham/Darlington for one night, then down to London for a work party and then to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford the following day, before spending the night in St Albans and eventually heading off on an epic South England road trip.

Our trip door-to-door from our house in York was 18 days in total, but the below itinerary for a South Coast England road trip is 14 days as I haven’t included all the bits on either side of the trip that we did as they won’t be relevant to you!

How long it takes you to tick off all the amazing things on this epic England road trip itinerary will depend on where you start your road trip and all the other bits you want to see/do in between, but to get you started, here’s my ultimate South Coast England road trip itinerary for 2 weeks!

Planning your South England road trip last minute?

Check out some of the top tours and attractions to experience on a road trip along South Coast England below!

The Ultimate South Coast England Road Trip - To Cornwall

I’m so excited to share my South England road trip itinerary in today’s post, so if you’re looking for some epic UK road trip inspiration, you’ve come to the right place!

Here is a rough map route that you can follow (our route varied quite a lot with all the little places in between, but if you follow the rough route below, you should have an awesome time on your Southern England road trip!).

How many days do you need for a south England road trip?

I think 2 weeks is the perfect amount of time for a road trip in south England! Two weeks will give you plenty of time to travel all the way from Margate in Kent, along the South England coast towards Devon and Cornwall!

South Coast England Road Trip Map

Unfortunately, Google Maps only lets you put a certain number of stops when planning a route, so there are a few places that it’s missed as part of our Southern England trip, but you should hopefully get a good idea!

South Coast England Road Trip itinerary summary

Canterbury, Margate, Ramsgate
Dover & Hastings
Eastbourne, Seven Sisters & Brighton
Portsmouth
Southampton, Salisbury & Stonehenge
Bournemouth, Old Harry Rocks
Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door & Exeter
Torquay, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Looe
Polperro, Lantic Bay, Eden Project
Truro, Lizard Point, Kynance Cove
St Michael’s Mount, Penzance, Porthcurno Beach
Minack Theatre, Land’s End, Sennen Cove
St Ives, Gwithian Beach, Perranporth, Newquay
Fistral Beach, Port Isaac, Tintagel Castle
Woolacombe & Ilfracombe

Day 1 – Canterbury, Margate & Ramsgate – south England road trip

As I mentioned above, our Southern England trip officially started in London/Watford the day before we visited Canterbury when we went to the Warner Bros. Studios Harry Potter Tour, but I suppose it officially began in Canterbury.

The beautiful cathedral city of Canterbury was a great place to start our road trip as it had a truly quintessentially British feel to it. With the spectacular cathedral, awesome pop-up food market (be sure to try the souvlaki, it was so delicious!) and gorgeous streets to explore, Canterbury is a great stop on any England road trip itinerary for a few hours.

Best things to do in Canterbury – 2-week South Coast England Road Trip

Canterbury Cathedral
Eat at City Feast
Visit the Catching Lives bookshop

Next up, we drove the relatively short 45-minute journey to Margate; a place that I’ve wanted to visit for years! I was so happy to discover that it didn’t disappoint and while I don’t think you really need to spend longer than a day or two there (although I’m sure you easily could!), it’s a fab place to tuck into some fish and chips (get a £5 portion from Peter’s Fish Factory – they’re honestly the best fish and chips I’ve had in a long time) and mooch around the cool streets and along the seafront.

Of course, no trip to Margate is complete without a brief visit to Dreamland Margate, so be sure to factor in some time for a quick whizz around on the rides while you’re there!

We were originally planning to spend the night at a free campsite just outside of Margate but it didn’t feel suitable, so we drove to a little pub in Ramsgate instead where we parked in their car park for the night.

I’ve written a detailed list of all the places where we stayed on our road trip as we found so many great free sites that I want to share with you to keep your South Coast England road trip costs as budget-friendly as possible!

Best things to do in Margate

Go on the rides and attractions at Dreamland
Eat fish and chips from Peter’s Fish Factory
Enjoy a pint at Margate Harbour Arms

Day 2 – Dover – South Coast England itinerary

Day 2 - Dover - South Coast England Road Trip

The next morning we drove to Dover and we were originally going to spend the day exploring Dover itself and of course, the famous White Cliffs of Dover, but the weather was so terrible that we decided to have a “day off” (remember at this point we’d already been on the road for five days!) and so we parked up at Little Satmar Campsite & Holiday Park for the day/night where we got a bit of work done, as well as some laundry and we had our first shower in three days.

When you’re on a road trip for an indefinite period of time, it can be easy to think that you’ll spend every single day doing something epic and exploring everything you possibly can, but it’s also important to schedule some rest days and downtime as well, otherwise, you’ll inevitably end up with road trip burnout!

Best things to do in Dover

See the White Cliffs of Dover
Visit Dover Castle
Walk to St Margaret’s Bay

Day 3 – Dover & Hastings

While the weather still wasn’t glorious sunshine the next day, it was just about as good as we could hope for given the ridiculously temperamental British summertime, so we had resolved to go out and explore the White Cliffs of Dover regardless of whether it was raining or sunny.

Thankfully, we were blessed with no rain and the occasional glimmer of blue sky and I was delighted to finally see the infamous White Cliffs. I was somewhat slightly underwhelmed by them, especially when I reflect on the trip in hindsight as we saw so many other cooler things, but I do think they’re worth a visit as part of your South Coast road trip in England.

You can park at the National Trust car park for the White Cliffs of Dover (at a flat rate of £5 per car and I think £7 for motorhomes but we got away with paying for a car as our camper is pretty small!) and then enjoy a leisurely walk from the visitor centre to various viewpoints along the coast.

In the afternoon we headed to Hastings which is a cool little seaside town that I’d never even considered visiting until we were in the area.

There are plenty of fun activities for families and kids to enjoy in Hastings, including a crazy golf course, plus plenty of funfair rides and even a mini rollercoaster! You can also take the funicular up the hill to get an awesome view of the beach, pier and sea below.

Top things to do in Hastings – South Coast England Road Trip

Stroll through Hastings Old Town
Play mini/crazy golf near the beach
Ride the East Hill Cliff Railway

Day 4 – Eastbourne, Seven Sisters & Brighton

The next day we drove through Eastbourne and we were planning on parking up and spending an hour or two there, but it didn’t strike us with a desperate need to visit, so we continued driving right through it and made our way to the Seven Sisters Country Park instead.

The Seven Sisters were much more impressive to me than the White Cliffs of Dover and when I saw how cloudy and grey it was outside, I was really gutted at first as I thought it would make the cliffs look rubbish, but the moody weather actually made them look even cooler, so I don’t think it matters too much if you don’t get “perfect” weather as they’re definitely one of the best spots to visit on a south coast itinerary!

To see the Seven Sisters cliffs from the beach, park at the National Trust car park (we paid £3 for two hours which is more than enough time to have a mooch about on the beach and take plenty of pictures of the cliffs) and then walk down the steps to the beach.

Day 4 UK road trip - Eastbourne, Seven Sisters & Brighton

After the Seven Sisters, we drove to Brighton which is a place that’s been on my UK bucket list for as long as I can remember. I recall watching Zoella move there when I was around 13/14 years old and ever since then, I’ve wanted to spend some time there!

Brighton certainly is as lively and hectic as they say it is and it had that big city energy that I absolutely love (it’s why I adore New York so much!). The sounds, sights, smells and people are so eclectic that it can be a bit of a culture shock at first, but there’s so much to see and do and while we only spent one day there, I’m sure you could spend a good few days soaking everything up!

Best things to do in Brighton

Go up the British Airways 1360 Viewing Tower
Walk along Brighton Palace Pier
Visit the Royal Pavilion

Day 5 – Portsmouth – South Coast road trip

Day 5 - Portsmouth - South Coast England Road Trip

The following day was more of an “admin” day as we’d not had a shower in a good few days at this point, so we stopped in a little town called Havant where we spent an hour or so at the local leisure centre and we also popped into the local Wetherspoon’s where we got 99p coffee and tea refills while we charged our laptops and phones for an hour! See, life on the road really isn’t all that glamorous!

Once we were all freshened up and fully charged, we made our way to Portsmouth where we had a little mooch around before setting up camp for the night on a quiet little road overlooking the harbour in Port Solent. It was an absolutely gorgeous freedom camping spot, and we were treated to the best sunset of the whole trip while we were there!

Top things to do in Portsmouth – 2-week South Coast England road trip

Day 6 – Southampton, Salisbury & Stonehenge

The next day we drove to Southampton which I wasn’t particularly struck on. We only spent around an hour or so there before moving on to Salisbury, although we did eat a yummy gyro while we were there!

Salisbury is a pretty small cathedral city with plenty of cute cafes, shops and little market stalls. It’s probably most famed for its spectacular cathedral that dates back to the 13th century and is home to an original copy of the Magna Carter.

Day 6 UK road trip - Southampton, Salisbury & Stonehenge

After Salisbury, we drove the very short 9 miles (20-minute drive) to the world-famous Stonehenge; a site that I’d never been to before but always wanted to visit. However, tickets for Stonehenge are pretty pricey for my liking and only the night before, we’d been talking to a fellow camper who said that there was a huge country road where dozens of campers stay the night completely for free with an incredible view of Stonehenge right from where you park up.

As we’re typically British tight-arses when it comes to spending lots of money on things we don’t have to, we found an epic spot to park up for the night for free with an epic view of Stonehenge all day/night!

Book tickets to visit Stonehenge here!

Day 7 – Christchurch

The following day we drove to a paid campsite near Christchurch, Bournemouth where we spent the day doing general admin and chores in and around the van, before chilling out for the evening as we knew we had a very busy week or so ahead of us as we gradually approached Dorset, Devon and Cornwall.

Day 8 – Snowtrax Alpine Activity Centre

The next day we spent a couple of hours in a nearby laundrette as the campsite we stayed at didn’t have any laundry facilities and then we headed to Snowtrax Alpine Activity Centre which was just over the road from where we were staying at Longfield Caravan Park.

Unfortunately, they only had availability for one person to take part in snowboarding lessons, so Matt went ahead and snowboarded for the first time while I got some work done in the restaurant area. We then went for dinner at a local Toby Carvery (which is very overrated!) and then drove to a little layby just outside of Bournemouth where we parked up for the night.

Day 9 – Bournemouth, Old Harry Rocks, Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door & Exeter

Day 9 of our South Coast England road trip was our busiest and best day so far as we did and saw so much! Firstly, we drove into Bournemouth for an hour at around 9 am as we were awake early and we knew we had a busy day ahead of us so we wanted to get in before the crowds hit and the whole town was virtually empty when we arrived!

After that, we went headed for the South West Coast into Dorset National Park and our first stop was the Old Harry Rocks walk from Studland. This was probably one of my favourite things we did on the entire trip and the rock formations are crazy impressive, I’d recommend heading there if you’re a fan of the White Cliffs and Seven Sisters.

We only paid for two hours at the car park (£4) which was plenty of time for us to walk to the rocks and back. You can walk to South Beach as well, but we weren’t too bothered about doing this.

Our day just kept getting better and better after that as we headed to Lulworth Cove car park where we paid for 4 hours of parking for £5. We didn’t realise at first that you could park at Lulworth Cove and then walk to Durdle Door (we were originally going to drive and park at Durdle Door car park), but it’s well worth the walk, even if it is insanely exhausting!

Lulworth Cove itself is so beautiful and there are plenty of ice cream shops and fish and chip eateries to sate your appetite and a walk down to the cove, as well as up to the little viewing point can’t be missed either!

Durdle Door is arguably one of the most famous natural landmarks in the whole of England so you can imagine that my expectations were pretty bloody high and I was so relieved when they were not only met but vastly exceeded too; Durdle Door is so awesome and definitely worth adding to your south England road trip itinerary.

After our incredibly busy day of exploring epic sights on the South Coast of England, we then drove to Exeter for the sole purpose of ticking the letter ‘X’ off our AtoZ UK road trip bucket list. OK, so Exeter doesn’t quite begin with the letter ‘X’, but it was as close to it as we could find, so we made do! We didn’t spend very long in Exeter as we arrived after 7.30 PM so there wasn’t really an awful lot we could see or do, so we drove to the Ten Tors Inn; a lovely pub about halfway between Exeter and Newquay where we had a few drinks and then stayed in the pub car park for free overnight.

Day 10 – Torquay, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Looe

After the incredibly busy antics of the day before, day 10 was slightly more chilled but we still did a fair bit of driving; first of all through Torquay. Torquay was positively jam-packed with tourists as it was a pretty nice day after we’d been having a fair few cloudy days, so we didn’t spend too long there, but it seemed like a nice enough place and I’d probably recommend spending a little longer there than we did if you get the chance.

It’s a great place to stop on your way to Cornwall to break up the journey a bit.

Top things to do in Torquay

Kents Cavern Prehistoric Caves
Visit the Babbacombe Model Village
Spend some time at Meadfoot Beach

We then drove over the Dartmouth Crossing; you can drive around so you don’t have to go over the crossing (a 3-minute drive-on ferry that saves you about 25 minutes and costs £6.70 one way), but I think it was worth doing as we wanted to see Dartmouth which is a beautiful, albeit pretty tiny town and it just seemed much easier and more convenient.

Once we’d had a little mosey around Dartmouth, we made our way towards Plymouth which we pretty much drove straight through as neither of us was particularly bothered about seeing or doing anything there. I have heard a few good things about it though, so it might be somewhere that you allow a little more time for as part of your road trip in south England.

By this point, we’d officially arrived in Cornwall and that evening, we’d had a bit of a faff trying to find a free place to stay for the night and the first few places we tried were terrible, so after consulting my trusty park4night app for the millionth time, I came across a campsite that was only £5 each per night with an additional fee of £3 for electric hook-up. We headed there, got some chips from the on-site fish and chip van and had an earlyish night ready for the following day’s antics.

Day 11 – Polperro, Lantic Bay, Eden Project, Truro, Lizard Point, Kynance Cove

This day turned out to be our busiest in terms of distance and steps walked (we did over 30,000 steps and covered more than 20km of walking!). We woke up and made pancakes (check out my ultimate guide to the best campervan meals that aren’t boring!) and then headed off to Polperro; a beautifully quaint seaside town.

There’s not a tonne of things to do in Polperro, but it is a very sweet little village with plenty of yummy places to eat and of course, myriad places to try a famous Cornish pasty! We parked at Polperro Car Park and paid £5 for 3 hours which I believe was the minimum amount of hours you could get. I definitely don’t think you need to spend 3 hours in Polperro, but I’m sure you could find plenty of ways to kill the time and it’s a very cute spot to add to your coastal road trip in the UK.

Lantic Bay South Coast England Road Trip

Our next stop was Lantic Bay which was another one of my very favourite spots on our South England road trip as the views of the bay on the walk down to the beach are absolutely phenomenal. You can park in the National Trust car park which costs £2 for 1 hour or £4 for up to 4 hours. We were only going to put £2 in and spend an hour there as it said that’s how long it took to walk the circular route but the ticket machine gave us a ticket that lasted until midnight which was awesome!

Eden Project South Coast England Road Trip

We didn’t originally have The Eden Project on our list of things to do in Cornwall as part of our road trip and even though I’ve always said that I wanted to go, I completely forgot about it until we drove past and decided to pop in for a nosy.

I will say now that it is massively over-hyped. I don’t know if it’s because we’ve been to Gardens by the Bay in Singapore which truly blew my mind and then The Eden Project paled into insignificance compared to that, or if it’s just not our thing but I don’t think it’s worth the money at all. If flowers, plants and trees are your kinds of thing, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, but we just found that a ticket price of £32.50 was pretty hefty for what it actually is.

Lizard Point ultimate south coast england road trip itinerary and travel guide

Once we’d driven through Truro, we made our way to Lizard Point which positively blew me away and I think I preferred it to Land’s End! 😱

The scenery at Lizard Point is truly magical and even though we weren’t blessed with great weather during our visit, I think the storminess of the sea and the sky made it look even more impressive. You can pay to park at the National Trust car park for Lizard Point, but you can park for free (with a recommended voluntary donation of £3) just in Lizard itself on the grassy area in the main square. We didn’t arrive there until after 7.30 PM and there was virtually no one else around which made the whole experience even more remarkable.

Kynance Cove ultimate south coast england road trip itinerary and travel guide

As it was getting dark, we knew we were pretty pushed for time but we wanted to see Kynance Cove that evening as the following morning was forecast to rain for the entire day, so after Lizard Point, we drove the short 10-minute journey to the Kynance Cove car park where we quickly paid £2 for 1 hour and hurried down to the beach.

Kynance Cove is a place that I’ve seen looks truly magical in glorious sunshine and blue sky weather and unfortunately, it was pretty stormy and getting quite dark while we were there so my pictures don’t quite do it justice, but I still thought it looked incredible regardless. I’d love to revisit it on another Cornwall road trip to see it in all its fabulous glory.

We stayed in the Mullion village car park that night but we didn’t get there until after 9 PM so it was pretty much pitch black by the time we got there.

Day 12 – St Michael’s Mount, Penzance, Porthcurno Beach, Minack Theatre, Land’s End, Sennen Cove

The weather the following day was absolutely dreadful and we both had a lot of work that we needed to finish before the end of the week so we spent about 4 hours in a Wetherspoon’s in a little town called Helston while we waited for the rain to stop and the cloud/fog to clear so that we could go and see St Michael’s Mount.

Unfortunately, as we visited so late in the day, we couldn’t walk across to see St Michael’s Mount up close as the tide was in, so we just saw it from Marazion Beach instead. If you can, I’d recommend trying to time your visit here when the tide is out so that you can walk across to the island. The causeway is only open for a few hours each day, depending on the tide times, so check the website before you visit.

Afterwards, we drove briefly through Penzance where the weather was still pretty shocking so we didn’t hang around too long and instead continued all the way to Porthcurno where we parked up and walked to the viewing point for Porthcurno Beach, right next to the Minack Theatre. The water at Porthcurno Beach was absolutely stunning and so blue and clear, despite the weather not being too great earlier in the day.

We were going to go inside the Minack Theatre as we thought you could just have a look around it, but you have to buy tickets to a performance to go inside so we didn’t bother and instead just enjoyed the view of the coastline from the nearby clifftop.

Once we’d had our fill of the beautiful beach views, we headed to arguably one of the most famous places in Cornwall and indeed, in the UK; Land’s End. We didn’t realise beforehand but we’d managed to coincidentally time our visit to Land’s End with one of their fireworks shows and as you don’t have to pay anything extra (just the £7 car entrance fee), we decided to stay all evening to watch the show!

Of course, Land’s End certainly is incredibly cool and well worth a visit, but I think that places like Lizard Point, Kynance Cove and Lantic Bay look cooler…

While we were at Land’s End, we also walked on one of the walking trails so that we could see Sennen Cove from the Mayon Cliff Old Coastguard lookout point.

Day 13 – St Ives, Gwithian Beach, Perranporth, Newquay, Fistral Beach, Port Isaac, Tintagel Castle

The following morning we drove through St Ives and genuinely spent about 40 minutes driving around the entire town to every single car park but there was not a single place to park in the whole place! I’ve heard great things about St Ives so I’d definitely be interested in heading back there again (properly) one day. If you do manage to add St Ives to your South Coast England road trip travel itinerary and you find a car park space, please let me know how it is 😉.

South Coast England road trip Gwithian Beach

Gwithian Beach was our next stop and we parked at a little free car park just a couple of minutes’ walk from an awesome walking trail that took you right on top of a (small) cliff that overlooked the beach. I’m gonna be bold and say that Gwithian Beach is probably the best and most beautiful sandy beach we saw on our whole trip and it was surprisingly empty, especially considering how pristine and lush it was!

Perranporth South Coast England road trip

Next up was Perranporth which is a place that I’d been to on holiday with my family when I was really young but I didn’t remember it at all. The beach here is also beautiful but it was absolutely heaving when we visited; it was our fault that we timed our South England road trip with the summer holidays 😂.

We did eat some delicious cheesy chips in Perranporth though and I have to say, I’m a much bigger fan of Southern chips from the chippy; they’re much crispier and generally yummier than the ones we have up North! No one tell my fellow Northerners though 😜

A drive through Newquay and a stop at Fistral Beach were next on our two-week Southern England road trip itinerary and I was pretty excited to see the hotel from The Witches film that I loved as a kid.

We didn’t go inside the hotel, but it was cool to see it from the outside and remember all the scenes that were filmed there. Fistral Beach itself is also lovely, although again, it was positively teeming with people!

Port Isaac South Coast England road trip

Port Isaac was another lovely little fishing village that we spent an hour or two in on this day of our road trip and while there aren’t tonnes of things to do there, it is very quaint and cute and worth popping by if you have time.

Tintagel Castle South Coast England road trip

Our final “official” stop on our epic 2-week Southern England road trip itinerary was incidentally (probably) my favourite place on the entire trip. As soon as we approached Tintagel Castle from the short walk from the King’s Arms pub car park that we were spending the night in, I was truly blown away by how spectacular and captivating it was.

We didn’t get to Tintagel Castle until after 8 PM as it was pouring rain just a few hours before and we wanted to be able to see it clearly.

Unfortunately, this meant that the bridge to access parts of the castle was closed (which was actually kind of a blessing as we didn’t have to pay to go to the viewpoint!), but we could walk right down to the beach below and also admire the breathtaking views from several viewpoints above.

Tintagel Castle truly is like a scene from Game of Thrones and the landscape here rivals almost every spot we’d seen on our trip so far; if you get the chance to visit Tintagel Castle and the village of Tintagel itself, DO IT!

Day 14 – Woolacombe & Ilfracombe – Cornwall road trip itinerary

Day 14 - Woolacombe & Ilfracombe - South Coast England Road Trip

On the final day of our 2-week Southern England coastal road trip, we ventured to Woolacombe and Ilfracombe where we mosied on the beach for a while and then headed across to Castle Cary to spend the afternoon/night with our friend who we met while travelling which was truly the perfect way to end our South Coast England road trip.

I’ve always been one to seek adventure in far and distant lands, but our recent road trip around Southern England has truly taught me that there is beauty everywhere; you only need to look for it.

I’ll be sharing so many more pictures and top tips for every place we went to in upcoming posts over the next few weeks in the form of dedicated travel guides, so if you’re looking for more in-depth guides to places like Canterbury, Margate, Brighton, the Jurassic Coast, Cornwall and more, be sure to keep checking back on my blog over the next few weeks as I have so much content planned!

Related posts:

Pin for later – South Coast England road trip

The Ultimate South Coast England Road Trip - Canterbury To Cornwall

Which spots would you most like to visit on a two-week South Coast England road trip? Let me know in the comments or on Instagram at @imjustagirl_16.

The Ultimate South Coast England Road Trip – 2-Week Itinerary