South West Coast Path for Beginners: Where to Start and How Fit to Be

The South West Coast Path has a reputation as England's hardest National Trail, and it is earned — but it was earned by the whole 630 miles, not by every mile of it. Two of the 52 stages are graded easy, 39 moderate, and only 11 hard, and the hard ones cluster in three places you can simply avoid on a first trip. This guide is for someone who has never walked several days in a row and wants to do it here.

Which stages to walk first

The flattest stages on the path, by ascent per kilometre of walking:

Flat is not the same as best, though. Braunton to Instow is level tarmac along the Taw estuary on the Tarka Trail — pleasant, birds everywhere, but not the cliff scenery you came for. So the recommendation for a first multi-day trip is a run of moderate days with the easy ones at the end:

Padstow to St Ives, stages 15–20. Six days, 112.6 km, 2,157 m of ascent in total — an average of 360 m a day, which is gentle by this path's standards. No stage is graded hard, the highest point in the week is 101 m, there is a beach or a village with a café most days, and the last two days are among the flattest on the path, so the week gets easier as you get more tired. St Ives has a station. The itineraries guide has the day-by-day table and the transport.

Woolacombe to Westward Ho!, stages 5–7, if you want three days with almost no climbing: 61.2 km with 416 m of ascent in total, around Baggy Point and Croyde, along Braunton Burrows and the two estuaries, past Appledore to the pebble ridge. Barnstaple station, at the end of the Tarka Line from Exeter, is the railhead for all three days. The Instow–Appledore ferry on the last day is seasonal, with an inland alternative via Bideford bridge.

Marazion to Falmouth, stages 25–29, if you want a station at both ends and a famous headland: five days around the Lizard, 96.7 km, 1,970 m, nothing graded hard.

The stages to leave for a second or third trip are the ones the hardest-sections guide ranks at the top: the Exmoor and Hartland coasts of North Devon (stages 2, 3, 9, 10), Tintagel to Port Isaac, St Ives to Pendeen, and the Dorset days over Golden Cap and through the Lulworth ranges.

How fit you need to be

A typical moderate stage is 15–25 km with 300–600 m of ascent and an estimated 5–8 hours of walking. The climbing is what tires you: the path drops to sea level at each cove and climbs back out, often on steps, and the descents are as hard on the knees as the ascents are on the lungs.

A useful test before you book: can you walk for five or six hours on hilly ground, with a day pack, and feel fine the next morning? If yes, the gentle sections are within reach. If the longest walk you have done recently is three hours on the flat, spend a couple of months building up — the best training for this path is walking up and down hills, not running.

Three things make a first trip easier than the numbers suggest. Baggage transfer companies carry your main bag between overnight stops, so you walk with a day pack — the site's FAQ notes that many walkers use one. Every stage page gives an hours estimate, so you can see before you go which days are long. And the path passes through towns, so on most stages there is somewhere to stop, refill and, if it goes badly, catch a bus.

Finding the way

The path is a National Trail, and National Trails are signed with an acorn symbol on stiles, gates and signposts along the way. For most of a day you also have the simplest navigation aid there is: the sea on one side. The places to concentrate are where the route turns inland — around estuaries, through towns, and where a ferry or a tidal crossing is not running and you are following a detour rather than the coast. The stage pages mark the crossings and the water points; the free app carries all 52 stages offline with GPS.

Ferries and tides

This is the part beginners most often get wrong, because on most trails a river has a bridge. Here the south coast is a chain of drowned river valleys, and the official route crosses them by boat — 17 crossings on 15 of the 52 stages. Eight ferries run year-round, six are seasonal, two (the Gannel and Gillan Creek) are tidal stepping stones or an on-demand boat, and one, the River Erme on stage 37, has no boat at all: you wade it for about an hour either side of low water.

For a first trip the simple rule is to choose a section with year-round crossings or none. Padstow to St Ives has one year-round ferry and the Gannel; Marazion to Falmouth has two seasonal crossings, so it is a spring-to-autumn walk; South Devon, with seven crossings in ten stages, is best saved for later. Whatever you choose, check the operator's own times on the day — last sailings are early by walkers' standards, and several boats are on-demand rather than timetabled. The ferries page lists every crossing and its season.

When to book

Book before you go, not on the day. The path is the best-supplied trail in England because it runs through resort towns, but that is exactly the problem in late July and August: you are competing with the beach holiday, prices rise, and minimum stays are common. The accommodation page recommends May, June, September and October for both availability and price, and it tells you to book the long cliff sections first — north Cornwall, north Devon and the Lizard — because the towns will still have rooms much later.

Order of booking for a first trip: the two ends, then any night on a stretch with a single option, then the rest. If you are using a baggage transfer company, book them once the beds are fixed.

When to go

April to October is the season the site's FAQ gives, and every stage page lists March to October as its best months. Within that, May, June and September have long days, settled weather and quiet paths. Outside it, daylight is short, seasonal ferries stop and the coast takes the weather full on. The best-time guide goes month by month.

Safety basics

The path is not technical — no scrambling, no exposure that needs a head for heights on the official route — but it is a cliff path, and the basics are simple.

• Cliffs. Stay on the path. Edges are undercut and the ground near them is often soft; the stage page for Portreath to Hayle warns specifically of sheer edges at Hell's Mouth, and Seaton to Seatown of unstable fossil cliffs. Do not sit under cliffs or climb them, and give the edge more room in wind.
• Weather. This is an exposed coast facing the prevailing south-westerlies. Shade is rated minimal on every one of the 52 stages, so in summer the problems are sun and water rather than cold; in spring and autumn it is wind and rain. Carry waterproofs, a hat and more water than you think you need — several stages are rated scarce for water.
• Tides. They matter at the crossings, on beach sections such as Braunton Burrows (the stage page says to watch the tides there) and at Bedruthan Steps, which can be closed. Plan the Erme, the Gannel and Gillan Creek around a tide table.
• Steps and descents. Poles help more here than on most trails, for the knees on the long flights down into coves.
• Phone signal. Assume none on the remote stages — those rated 4 for remoteness — and download the offline map before you leave.
• Ranges. Stage 51 crosses the Lulworth firing ranges, open only on non-firing days; keep to the waymarked path between the yellow posts when they are open.

A first trip, in short

Choose Padstow to St Ives. Walk it in May, June or September. Book the beds two or three months ahead, ends first. Use a baggage transfer if you want to. Check the Padstow–Rock ferry time before you cross, and the tide for the Gannel. Then, when you get to St Ives and want more, come back to the best-sections guide and pick the next one.