The Best Things to Do in Cornwall in Winter

We love winter in Cornwall and reckon it might just about be the best time of year to visit. The reasons live in our companion post on why winter is the best time to visit Cornwall and they all boil down to: the crowds are gone, the air is at its clearest, the light is dramatic, the cottage rates drop and the locals come out to play. This piece is the practical companion: the actual things you should do when you decide to come.

What follows is twelve activities that work in winter, ordered roughly from outdoors-and-active to indoors-and-cosy, ending with a deliberately festive section because Christmas in Cornwall is a properly distinctive experience.

Walk an empty beach

Cornwall is built around its beaches, and winter is when you actually get them to yourself. With over 300 to choose from, the only difficulty is picking one. Gyllyngvase for an easy town beach with the cafe still open year-round, Maenporth for a sleepier pick five minutes further south, Castle Beach for the rockpooling at low tide, Sennen Cove at the very tip of Penwith for an exposed wide-sand walk on a windy day. The crisp air and lower sun angle gives Cornish beaches a different character entirely in December than in August.

For the wider list see our guide to the best beaches near Falmouth.

Walk the woods

Cornwall has some genuinely magical woodland walks that come into their own once the trees go bare. Tehidy Country Park near Camborne is the classic, with robins and roe deer in winter and a small lake at its centre. Trelissick estate above the Fal estuary is another, with the riverside walk down to Roundwood Quay particularly atmospheric in low winter light. The Argal Lake circular (our walk guide) is two flat miles of reservoir-side path with overwintering swans, herons and wildfowl through January and February.

Watch a storm

Winter is when the Atlantic shows its teeth, and Cornwall has some of the UK's best places to watch it happen. From the safety of the cliff path, the spectacle of swell smashing into headlands or sweeping up beaches that look like millponds in summer is genuinely one of the great free experiences anywhere on the British coast. Porthleven is the headline storm-watch spot, with the harbour wall taking a battering on big swells. Other reliable watch-spots include Pendennis Point, Lizard Point and Crackington Haven on the north coast.

Our storm-watching guide covers six of the best, with the safety caveats that go with each.

Hike the South West Coast Path

The 422 miles of the SWCP are at their most dramatic in winter, when low sun angles and crystal-clear post-rain air give visibility that summer simply cannot match. Pick a clear winter day and the views from the headlands stretch further than at any other time of year. The Lizard Peninsula, Penwith and the north coast between Pendeen and Sennen all reward the effort, and the Gylly to Maenporth coast walk from Falmouth is a perfectly accessible short option.

For more, see our guides to the best South West Coast Path walks and walking the Salt Path stretches in Cornwall.

Surf properly

Many of Cornwall's surf beaches are surfer-soup in summer and properly empty by November. Winter is also when the swell is at its best, with consistent Atlantic groundswells hitting the coast from deep ocean low pressure. Even beginners benefit from the off-season: most surf schools stay open, lessons are smaller and instructors have more time. The trade-off is the kit, full 5/4mm wetsuit, hood, boots and gloves are non-negotiable from December through March.

For the spot list see the best surfing spots in Cornwall.

Christmas events at the National Trust houses

This is the one that surprises most visitors: Cornwall's National Trust houses go all-out at Christmas, and the December programme is genuinely worth planning a trip around.

Trelissick House above the Fal estuary is dressed top to bottom from late November through to early January - candlelit garlands wound down banisters, the dining room laid for a 1900s Christmas dinner, fir-and-berry centrepieces on every surface, and a Santa's grotto running through advent for younger visitors. The evening light trail through the woodland is one of the more atmospheric Cornish winter experiences.

Lanhydrock near Bodmin runs its own widely-loved Edwardian-Christmas programme through December. Cotehele on the Tamar valley is famous for its enormous Cotehele Christmas garland, a 60-foot installation of dried summer flowers in the Great Hall that's been running since the 1950s. Each property has its own programme and atmosphere, and a National Trust membership pays for itself fast across a Cornish Christmas week. See our National Trust guide to Cornwall for the full property list and the December events calendar.

Cornish New Year

The Falmouth New Year's Eve fireworks over the harbour are the local event, with thousands gathering on the seafront for one of the best bay-side display backdrops in the country. The next morning, hundreds of half-asleep locals walk down to Gyllyngvase Beach for the New Year's Day swim, which has run for decades and is a genuinely communal Cornish experience. Wetsuit optional, hot chocolate not.

Mousehole's harbour Christmas lights down on the south coast near Penzance run from December through early January, and the village is at its most photogenic in dusk light with the lights reflecting on the water. Falmouth and Truro Christmas markets in early December are the other staples on the calendar.

A pub day

When the weather turns, the right move is a Cornish pub with a wood-burner and a proper plate of food. The New Inn at Mabe, The Halfway House at Rame Cross, The Working Boat on Falmouth's harbour, Pennycomequick in town, and The Star and Garter above the high street all run wood-burners through winter and serve seasonal menus. Most Cornish pubs are at their best in January, when the pace is slow and the tables stay free.

For the full eat-and-drink guide, see the best restaurants in Falmouth and Penryn.

Indoor escapes

For days when the weather genuinely closes in, Cornwall has plenty of indoor options - and most of them get noticeably less crowded in winter:

• The Eden Project ice rink runs from late October through early January, set against the Biomes for one of the more dramatic skating backdrops anywhere in the UK.
• The National Maritime Museum Cornwall is a properly thorough rainy-day visit at any time of year, and quieter through winter than in summer.
• Pendennis Castle has indoor Tudor and WWII interpretation alongside the headland walls.
• The Cornish Seal Sanctuary is in pup season through late autumn and into winter, when the rescue work is most active.

Stargazing

Cornwall has one of the lowest light-pollution counts of any UK county and includes one of the country's few International Dark Sky Landscapes at Bodmin Moor. Through winter, the longer nights mean stargazing starts at a sensible hour, and the colder, drier air gives the best viewing of the year. From Bodmin's open moorland on a clear December night you can see thousands of stars with the naked eye, the Milky Way arcing overhead and the occasional satellite or meteor cutting through.

The wider Cornish coast and countryside also delivers, with any rural beach or clifftop giving usable skies on a clear, moon-free night.

Take photos

The combination of low sun angles, dramatic Atlantic weather and almost-empty beaches makes Cornish winter a quietly excellent destination for landscape photography. Sunrise sits at a sensible 8am in December, sunset at 4:30pm, so even the lazy can catch golden hour without setting an alarm. Storm-and-light combinations on the Lizard, the empty curves of north-coast beaches, the Falmouth harbour at dusk and the Bodmin tors all rotate through Instagram and Cornwall photo books for good reason.

Stay in (the actual best one)

After all the suggestions above, the best thing to do in Cornish winter is, honestly, sometimes nothing. A Cornish cottage in January with a wood-burner lit, the kettle on, the rain doing whatever it's doing outside the window and a stack of books or a film queue. The day in no rush, just the two of you. There is a reason most cottage shoulder-season bookings are couples, and that reason fits in front of a fire.

Plan your winter break

A few practical resources:

• The case for the season: reasons to visit Cornwall in winter.
• Storm-watching specific: the 6 best places in Cornwall to watch storms.
• Beaches: the best beaches near Falmouth.
• Walks: the Falmouth walking tour (4-mile town itinerary, good in winter clarity), the best South West Coast Path walks, walks near Falmouth and Penryn, the Argal Lake walk.
• In and on the water: the best wild swimming spots in Cornwall, the best surfing spots in Cornwall.
• Safety: the Cornwall seaside safety guide.
• Evening culture in town: The Cornish Bank (winter gig and comedy programme), The Princess Pavilion (Christmas pantomime, winter theatre), Verdant Brewery and Taproom in Penryn (pizza-and-beer afternoons).
• Day trips and indoors: a day trip to St Mawes by ferry, visiting the Eden Project, the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, Pendennis Castle.
• Couples and seasonal siblings: Cornwall for couples (the slow Falmouth weekend), spring in Cornwall, why an autumn visit to Falmouth is perfect for couples.
• Weather and timing: the Cornwall and Falmouth weather guide.

For winter availability and shoulder-season rates at Trewena (typically 25 to 35 per cent below peak), see our booking page or drop us a message.