St Ives in August - yes or no?

[Trumpsgoneloco]

Cant go abroad this summer so I'm thinking of a family break in Cornwall in Aug. I like the look of St Ives. How busy does it get? Is the weather very unreliable? Is there loads for a wide variety of ages?

If you stay west of St Ives, then Portheras is a stunning rural beach that is also like Spain! But it has no facilities and is very rural (you walk down a footpath to get there). It's a beautiful walk down to the beach, where you can enjoy the sea and play on the rocks if you have DC, and even spot a seal! Sennen Cove is also a lovely long beach.
For a harbor alternative, Mousehole is absolutely beautiful and not far from Penzance. Penzance is ok, but busy in a non-idyllic way iyswim!! St Just is a nice little village. Lots to explore surrounding it and only 30mins from St Ives.

Just to say that the train can be and is often absolutely rammed full in the school holidays.

No. I went once in august. Tiddly little lanes rammed with slow walking people. Total nightmare.
It's nothing like brisk London busy.

I used to live in carbis bay (about 10-15yrs ago before the hotel complex sprawled so much!) and now live elsewhere in Cornwall and still love st Ives but as others have said would Never go in school hols now if I had a choice!

You are definitely better staying outside and going in for a couple of days instead - if you stay somewhere on the Trainline it's super easy too; we also used to mostly walk in to St Ives along the coast path route (actually practically a road in places) from carbis bay, very beautiful.

Biggest downside is that like many places in Cornwall you're a bit stuck if the weather is crap but more so in st Ives as there really isn't much apart from beachy stuff to do 🤷🏼‍♀️

We've actually just come back from a day out to Penzance and marazion which I also Love (jubilee pool, promenade, st Michael mount, lovely independent shops but cheaper!) so worth a thought?

Also, if you live in London and you're not planning on moving around much once you're here, I'd defo recommend coming by train. I'm a local and I sometimes have to drive into the centre of St Ives for work, and it definitely gives me sweaty elbows in holiday season (not as bad as Mousehole or Fowey, mind you).

A definite NO from me. St Ives is a gridlocked, overcrowded nightmare in July & August. Avoid.

I have been a few times and always the last week in July (when schools break-up). It is busy but not a problem. I just find it has become a bit scrappy since Covid. I go to other places now.

Not st Ives but do look st st Agnes or overpack which is super cute too

Definitely no!

Well, Penzance is a real town, with a proper community and a beating heart. Poor St Ives is hollowed out by tourism :(. So, PZ is not a picture perfect fishing village with white sand beaches like St Ives, but it has beautiful Georgian and Victorian terraces, an amazing outdoor pool, subtropical gardens, good pubs and restaurants and a great promenade. It does lack a really nice beach though- its beach goes all the way to Marazion and St Michael's Mount, but at the PZ end is definitely a bit meh.

No it’s heaving! First half of September they have a music festival - much more pleasant

ah OP, I live in the west country and to be honest I’d never advise anyone comes here in August due to the weather. August here is the start of the storm season and it can get very rainy and windy. May/June is honestly best for coming on holiday.

where are you? I would actually suggest the south east at that time of year.

We went last August and have no regrets, stunning place & well worth it

@BlackboardMonitorVimes I've only visited Cornwall once (a long weekend at the Scarlett, so didn't see much!), many, many years ago. The dc have never been. I would like to know it better & realistically it has to be during the school holidays.

I also look at the aspects webcam every day! Aspects is a really good place to look for accommodation, OP.

if you think of London, and you think of the south bank, that’s how busy the two main shopping streets are during an August afternoon, by which point you’re on the beach.

but not so heaving in the morning or evening.

lots of people will tell you it’s ‘heaving’ but it certainly appears heaving if you arrive during the afternoon on a day trip!

parking spaces are indeed tight, and there are some pitfalls to avoid. Make sure your parking space is not in a garage (St Nicholas court for example, built in the 1970s with underground parking that’s extremely difficult for today’s cars and ditto piazza).

Also make sure the car parking is on site and not a mile away up a tough hill at the rugby club (it will still be advertised as allocated parking!).

There are some properties that have allocated parking at the station or porthgwidden beach, those are a good compromise. It’s impossible to park in the island car park in August so don’t be fooled into that. Barnoon isn’t much better.

fwiw even some ‘narrow’ spaces are ok as long as they are in a line from left to right and not abutting a cliff. I drive a Honda CR-V which is a fairly big car and it’s reasonably easy to park in our ‘narrow’ space just because the spaces are in a line.

Go to Moray in Scotland. It’s a wee microclimate which is sunnier and dryer than the rest of the country.

That's really helpful @Confusedformer.

Book eating out now, we didn't and lots of places just couldn't get in, even pubs. We managed lunches out and snacky tea of hungry, or fish and chips.

10 and 11 years old is doable. Young kids and a pushchair has you close to a breakdown with the amount of people and how small the shops and pavements are.

Can you go earlier? Or ideally in the May half term? You may be lucky with the weather, and I hope you are. If you are hoping for dry heat then it is unlikely, if you don’t care and are happy for some stormy days (the storms normally last a day or two - keep an eye for them coming over the Atlantic from the carribean) then it’s fine. But it’s worth knowing and being prepared. To be honest a hot sunny West Country day is better than anywhere else in the sun (I am biased) simply due to the rain induced green of the place.

For us, August is warm Autumn.

With regards to the crowds, yes there are loads of people, (Grockels) but personally I love that. Its all part of the fun. You are no longer in a London traffic jam trying to get to the office, you are in a roadside sight seeing position with all the time in the world. …and also the locals are all going the other way to our ‘secret’ hang outs 🤣

I'd go outside St Ives.. maybe have a day there ( go on bus ).. plenty of lovely places in the area.

Absolutely not. We stayed nearby and got the train in, all the shops were rammed, the beach was rammed, all available space was taken up by people eating pasties or fish and chips. Most restaurants were full. I've never been back and wouldn't recommend it. Out of season on a cloudy day would be best.

And hire wetsuits for the duration if you don’t own any. There’s a shop called Wind A Sea on Fore street that’s cheaper than hiring them at the beach. You can keep them all week, it’s about £45 per suit.

definitely book restaurants. There are some excellent choices, I’m happy to recommend if you do book to stay, I spent years going there with my own children. And then stupidly bought a holiday let just as they no longer wanted to come on holiday with us any more. Well, not unless it’s a cruise!

There are five beaches. The two big ones are most certainly not rammed. That’s really ridiculous. Busy yes, not rammed.

Porthgwidden is a smaller beach and that could be conceivably described as rammed when the tide is in and it’s a warm August day.

Westminster bridge is rammed on a Saturday afternoon, the tube is rammed at Leicester Square at certain times of day. Standing at the front of a concert can feel rammed. I gave never once felt like that in St ives in August and nor have I ever thought it was like autumn!

Nope. I went in February half term. Out of season. Was still super busy!!