AIBU to ask for UK beach essentials and hacks?

Take a double fitted bed sheet & put things in the corners to weight it down & stop sand getting on to it. A cheap shower curtain to put in the bottom of a hole you've dug & fill with water so you don't have to keep getting up to take the little ones in the water. Cool box with ice packs, pop up tent, chairs or one of the folding tables with bench chairs attached, Fly swatter, spare clothes so when the kids get wet they can travel home warm & dry.

Yes to bright colours, mine all have neon rash vests. Safer in the water too.

I like to take a beach shelter tent. One without a groundsheet, is easily long enough for an adult to lie down in, and has a door or flap on both sides so that you can adjust for ventilation or prevailing wind.

Have bright coloured T-shirts so you can spot them.

I’m in the minimal camp - rucksack or large bags with food, suntan cream, drinks, bucket, spade, blow up ball, etc.

Have two lots of suntan cream, one for your accommodation and one for your bags, so you don’t forget them.

Park away from any piers, it’ll be less crowded.

I also advise going early, to avoid crowds.

I always take a bag of small toys for the accommodation - patterned car mat and cars they don’t usually play with, so they seem new when on holiday. I kept these aside just for holidays.

We prefer a wind break and the cheap parasol/base that you fill with sea water, I hate the tents they’re so stuffy. We have a really good cool box that has a pull along handle and wheels and a hard top with drinks holders. We also have a pull along trolley which is so handy, the babies have even napped in there over the years. I’ve attached links to similar. Always bring beach shoes for the weaver fish! I never understand the weird locals vs tourists mentality in the UK 😂 we’re from Suffolk and have a lot of tourists in the summer months on our beaches who everyone complains about and we then go to Cornwall every year on holiday and get complained about. We literally are all local, we share a tiny island 😂🙄

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https://amzn.eu/d/0erKVYwx

We swear by this type of beach chair. Super comfy.
https://amzn.eu/d/004EA7fm

Totally agree with this!

I used to put all three of my kids in the same bright coloured T shirts (Bright Orange) and take one of those wind socks on an extending poll, we had a bright orange nemo clown fish. I could spot them a mile of but they could find me as soon as they saw their finding Nemo.

Water shoes to guard against weever fish

I hate great big beach towels, bulky, heavy, hard to wash and dry quickly etc. I use a big sheet, blanket or tarp to sit on, and quick drying lightweight microfibre towels.

If I was rich I would get lovely Dock and Bay. As I am not I use Decathlon or Mountain Warehouse.

Ear buds / headphones if you want music!!

Can I beg everyone NOT to take flying rings / frisbee rings as a beach toy? They are a common cause of seals getting their heads stuck and suffering horrible injuries. Just use a frisbee.

Flying Rings Campaign 2025 — The Seal Alliance

There's definitely 2 types of people: take everything people and take as little as possible. I'm in the latter camp, my favourite seaside holiday ever was staying in a house in Whitstable that opened onto the beach so we could go straight out from the house in our swim gear for an early morning swim and be sitting on the balcony with a coffee by the time the beach started to get busy

Essentials for a normal situation where the house isn't in easy reach: long sleeved swimsuits with shorts so the kids can wear them all day and go in and out of the sea without risk of sunburn. Swimming shoes so they can go anywhere without risk of cutting their feet on a rock or stepping on a jellyfish.

Also: A couple of picnic blankets. Towelling beach robes to make changing significantly easier. Sunglasses. Suncream. Loads of food and drink, a few ice blocks to keep things chilled. Buckets, spades, crabbing net.

Some beaches in Dorset allow bbqs which is really lovely to do in the evening

A previous poster said 'inflatables for the sea'. Never, ever, ever do this. It is dangerous.

See, we travel as light as possible when going to the beach...and we go a lot.

Towelling hoodie per child, a couple of Foutala/Dock & Bay style towels, picnic blanket perhaps, hat each, sun spray, mini cool bag with water bottles/snacks, goggles, spare swimmers/pants, crocs or wetsuit shoes. Lots of plastic bags to separate wet from dry, use as a bin bag etc. Wipes. If super sunny, some UV brollies that fold small like umbrellas.

A ball, spade, body board.

Kids wear swimmers (plus rash vest) under clothes to go down there, wear whatever water shoes they need, carry their own body board. Everything else just goes in a big beach bag.

Don't scrimp on parking, if the nearest car park charges I pay it not to have to lug everyone back at the end of the day.

I don't take packed lunches, I take loads of snacks (mix of healthy and not) and be prepared to buy something extra, or an ice cream etc. The latter is good bribery for when you leave..."come on then, time to go, we'll grab an ice cream on the way".

We sometimes go all day, but more often then not just for a half day, few hours etc. We can do that cause we're so close, but what we take rarely goes above that.

These are great!

We are not beach day people, we are beach 2 hour people. The idea of carting a days worth of food to eat while sand gets blown in to it does not appeal!
We go down for a couple of hours with a towel, book and suncream and leave when everyone’s had a swim or two and chance to
chill. When the dc were small we added buckets and spades bought from a shop on the way.
We are low key low packing type of folk.

The latest scientific reviews don't find strong evidence that talc is a human carcinogen (take a look on proper research websites like PubMed). The only link is a small shaky association with ovarian cancer that's likely due to bias in how studies were done. This said, most of the talc you can buy in the supermarket these days is made from cornflour, not talcum.

We live near the beach and go all the time, and honestly you can spot the ‘beach hack’ families a mile off, carrying all the plastic crap that no-one really needs at the beach. Plus they are arriving as we leave (usually about 1pm - we go early, get there for 8:30, have a lovely time while the beach is quiet, have our picnic, then leave to go home to our lovely quiet sunny garden as all the tourists arrive).

The stuff we take to the beach is:
-wetsuits (proper ones not from the supermarket, but if your kids aren’t going to be in for hours swimming, don’t bother with wetsuits - they’ll just happily splash about at the waters edge in their swimsuits - remember a badly fitting wetsuit is colder than no wetsuit)
-towelling robes (to sit on and change under, we take 2 for a family of 4 and share)
-surfboards / transition boards
-picnic & plenty of water
-suncream
-boy2 always takes a rugby ball and/or football

Thats it. Oh, plus a plastic beach bucket if we’re going somewhere with rock pools - no nets as hands are the best things for scooping craps / blended out of rock pools to look at (and then return).

Rash vests in a bright colour. Completely avoid the risk of sunburn on the shoulders and back. Plus easy to spot.
large beach mat that lets sand through
Use a container or bag as a mini foot bath before going onto the mat.
organising pouches in the main bag for sunscreen.
Freeze a bottle of water to chill the rest.

As a local to the beach most importantly please please bring a bin bag or carrier bag and take your rubbish home or to a big council bin! Too many leaving it on the sand. 😔

Other than that beach shoes in case of weaver fish or sharp shells or rocks. Something to sit on picnic blanket or camping chair. Suncream and hats for all and swim suits. Beach toys and a book for yourself.

First think I would do personally is download the safer seas and rivers app from surfers against sewage and check the beach is safe for bathing.

I assume they mean baby powder.

Yes ive never used talc for that. Just water and towel

Wetsuits! I have a child that gets cold easily on the beach. He will wear a shorty wetsuit if the weather isn’t roasting otherwise he gets miserable. Also plenty of spare clothes agin re the point of being cold - once he is wet he gets cold

Decent bucket and spade!