coastal walks
Summer Walks in Cornwall
Fill your lungs with fresh sea air, take in giddy coastal views from the top of towering cliffs, and kick
24 July 2024
Bodmin
Cornwall’s ancient county town sits at the gateway to the wild Bodmin Moor, where windswept tors and prehistoric stone circles give way to Cornish village life.
Less polished than the coastal resorts, Bodmin trades the shoreline for rolling moors, legends, historic inns and easy access to some of Cornwall’s most dramatic, empty landscapes.
Where Cornwall’s coastal town boast beaches, Bodmin boasts rolling moors, dramatic tors and heathland where cattle and wild ponies graze. Pack a picnic, lace up your walking boots and discover prehistoric stone circles, plunge into deepwater quarries and uncover Cornwall’s wild side away from the shoreline.
When you’re ready to rejoin civilisation, cosy inns and village life beckon. Stroll the medieval streets of the ancient county town, or wend along the Camel Trail back into Wadebridge and Padstow.
Bodmin serves up proper moorland adventure alongside market-town charm. Rough Tor and Brown Willy are both worth the climb, and nearby, the Cheesewring is just one of several Bronze Age stone circles scattered across the heathland.
History runs deeper still at Bodmin Jail, Jamaica Inn and the Bodmin & Wenford Railway. Lanhydrock and Cardinham Woods offer some of Cornwall’s best mountain bike trails, and Colliford Lake beckons for coldwater adventures.
Bodmin’s pubs and cafés serve hearty Cornish fare made for moorland adventures. Tucked in the trees at Cardinham, the Woods Café serves some of the best homemade cakes in Cornwall (we think), while the multi-award-winning Blisland Inn serves a Sunday roast worth planning your weekend around (book ahead).
If you’re cooking at home, you can source farm-to-fork produce straight from the source at farm shops dotted around Bodmin’s edges.
From off-grid retreats to cosy inns, Bodmin offers a quieter, more affordable base than the coast – with easy access to both moor and sea.
Pitch a tent at South Penquite, a two-hundred-acre organic farm high on the moor powered by solar panels and a wind turbine, hideaway in a woodland cabin with a wood fired sauna at Cabilla, or hunker in a moorland inn with food, drink and fireside comforts on tap.
If we’re not out catching sunset atop a tor, picnicking and waiting for an autumn murmuration, we’re lying under dark skies after a wild swim on a moorland lake. When it’s wild and windswept we tunnel through the woodland to Golitha Falls, then prop up the bar at Jamaica Inn and let the smugglers’ tales do the talking.
Fill your lungs with fresh sea air, take in giddy coastal views from the top of towering cliffs, and kick
Are you feeling the chill and tempted to hibernate in front of Netflix until springtime? Pah! That’s simply not how