People visit beaches on warm days - crowds, hell

[TunaMayoP]

Never understood this thing when we have warm weather, people think “ooh let’s go to the seaside”.

Roads get clogged, parking is a struggle, massive queues to buy ice cream, food and to
use what few toilets the beach has and super crowded. This is my hell.

I think the main reason is that, in England at least, the coast has the most 'right to roam' access, plus on popular beaches there are usually facilities like toilets and cafes, and of course there's access to water which is what so many people want in hot weather! There is a right to roam in only 8% of England, much of it in remote areas of mountain, moor, heath and down, rather than the places the majority of us live.

And even where we do have access, what we can do is limited; often with no right to swim or cycle, camp, or canoe. Our footpath network is brilliant but unevenly distributed and insufficient, offering a right of passage with no right to be; only to pass through.

This is very different in Scotland (not sure about Wales) and vastly different across much of Europe. So it's not at all surprising to me that people are desperate to get to a beach when it's hot, where else could they go to get access to water in most of England?

You can’t understand why everyone isn’t the same?!

Plenty of quiet beaches too, they just tend to have steps and no facilities

It is reasonable to go to the seaside on a sunny day IMO.

A really crowded beach with bad parking etc is my personal idea of awfulness. But people like the beach, they like somewhere with a pier to walk on, loos, and fish and chips. So places like tha5 will be busy on a nice day.
I live in the middle of nowhere with the choice of 30 almost empty dog walking beaches and 2 busy oness. I’m very lucky….

The former is what I hate! Love very quiet beaches. I live 65 miles from a beach

I hear you!
I'd rather go to a drizzly windswept beach by myself and enjoy my garden on a sunny day.

Well, me too, but I grasp that my personal preferences aren’t everyone’s.

YABU. There are so few days where the weather is glorious you take it when you can. Plus most English beaches are fine, especially if you leave to get there early (I’ve been in Whitstable before 8) and take a picnic. Nothing I’d like more than to be sitting on a beach today instead of being in an office!

Plus the same could be said for anywhere really in decent weather- national parks get really crowded as do “sights” like Trafalgar Square or Westminster. Unless you’re going to sit in a darkened room all day you sometimes just have to get on with it!

I like beaches to walk along at sunset but can’t say I’m one for sitting on them all day, and resort beaches packed with umbrellas and sun loungers are my idea of hell.

I grew up over an hour away from the beach and I used to love it when we got to go for the day. There’s just something about being by the sea that hits my soul, as corny as it sounds.

I now live about two minutes away from the sea and I’m there every single day. I absolutely love it. Even on the busiest days on the busiest beaches, you can find somewhere where there aren’t a ton of crowds.

My personal hell is theme parks - queuing up for hours to spend three minutes on a ride makes absolutely zero sense to me!

So true.

So don't go?

I live in a busy tourist area in North Wales and it's crazily busy at the moment. We are off to the beach today and we are going a bit further out because we have local knowledge of which beaches get busy and which are hidden away. But I don't begrudge anyone that heads to the (very lovely!) busy beaches on one of the rare beautiful days we get in Britain.

Did this come as a shock to you? It always amuses me how people move to a glorious beauty spot and then moan that others want to come and see it! Agree they should aim to be considerate but logically not everyone will be.

I work in very central London so spend half my day dodging tourists trying to take a selfie with a taxi, bus, telephone box and Big Ben and feeding the squirrels WTF is that about but I just accept that’s because I work in a very well known place. And it’s for a limited time.

So why do you then? And if you don't when why worry? I mean sure it would be great to go when it's -10 the water is 'beautiful' but considering the whole point of some people holidays is to fly to Spain etc. to go to the beach or have fights over sun lounges at the pool this surprises you?

I live about two hours from the nearest seaside in any direction. I do sometimes go out of season when it's cold and damp but it can't be compared to going when the weather is fine and you can sit comfortably on the sand or (my heaven) swim in the sea. It's frustrating when we have lovely weather and I am stuck at work! On the all too rare occasions good weather coincides with me not being at work, I want to make the most of it.

Because people want to keep their bits from freezing off?

I didn’t ‘move there’ I was born there, so was my mother. Also please point out where I said it ‘came as a shock!’ When you’ve had drunk screeching teens throwing up in your garden after ‘partying at the beach’,have rubbish strewn everywhere or are unable to just go to the station for work as normal come and spout your shite then

You just need to explore more beaches until you find ones a bit quieter. Bournemouth is too busy for us, so we go a small ways down the coast to a quieter beach, or cross over to Studland Bay and go to a beach there. On busy summer days there’s still traffic but definitely quieter than central Bournemouth and plenty of fun to be had. Or if you don’t like the idea of crowds at all just don’t go to the beach at peak sunny season.

You can have your pick of quiet- ish beaches and easy parking if you're prepared to walk a mile. Just a mile. That's all it takes.

(source: Cornish resident. Although we did walk down through the fields to a little cove the other day to discover it was high tide and people were lined up along the high tide line in regular little knots about 2 metres apart to have their parties and BBQs, so it's not foolproof. Word must have got out at the nearby university, as they mostly looked like students).

Do share. I won’t tell anyone…

Erm I also lived in central London for 10 years so had plenty of that thanks! But guess what when I had enough of it I took the revolutionary step of moving house! Not griping about it “God it’s so awful living in London, all those crowds of people coming in to work, go to shows and art galleries, see world-renowned sights, burying food and drink, taking public transport, having world class medical treatment and socialising. Why won’t they go home- London is for locals!”.

Don't be silly, people aren't going for the crowds, everyone is thinking individually that they'd love a sunny day on an empty beach, picturing clear sands and tranquil ocean. On a hot day at a beach with lifeguards, food stalls, parking and toilets obviously many other people will have had the same thought. Yes you could walk to a quieter beach with no lifeguards or facilities but while I've got kids I go to the main beaches for safety and tolerate the busyness. I've lived by the beach all round the UK and I go all year round and it actually can get just as crowded in the winter with people walking dogs and flying kites if you go somewhere with facilities. Yes there's always an empty cove round the corner but I'd rather stay safe in case of an accident, the sea can be dangerous and that cove could be empty for a reason. I used to live near a very busy Cornish beach with a stunning one round the corner that was always empty in summer. Tourists were regularly caught in the riptides at the empty one, thinking they'd found a hidden secret the locals had somehow missed. There's usually a good reason one beach is more popular than another.

indeed!
Nothing more to be said!!! 😂

Now I'm seeing Tubbs and Edward in a shack at the entrance to the car park, greeting all the day-trippers with, "This is a local beach, for local people. There's nothing for you here."