The UK’s best and worst seaside towns

If you want the perfect British seaside holiday, choose Wales, Scotland or the North East of England. 

Our survey of almost 5,000 Which? members suggests that holidaymakers love unspoilt beaches, gorgeous scenery and peace and quiet, rather than the crowded hot spots in the South East or South West.

For the fourth year in a row, Bamburgh, a Northumberland village with a population of around 400 people, can call itself the best seaside town in the UK, beating more than 120 other UK towns and villages.

Three Welsh towns – Portmeirion, St Davids and Llandudno – appear in the top 10, while there's no Cornish town in the top 15. 

The five highest-rated towns are in the North East (Bamburgh and Tynemouth), Wales (Portmeirion and St Davids) and Scotland (St Andrews). 

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The UK's best seaside town

Bamburgh received the full five-star ratings for its beach, seafront, scenery, tourist attractions, and peace and quiet. It also clinched an outstanding 86% overall destination score. Visitors loved the spectacular views of Bamburgh Castle, standing guard on a rocky outcrop above miles of sand and windswept dunes.

'Bamburgh Castle is probably the most impressive castle in the British Isles,' one visitor said, while many others praised the 'wild, beautiful beach' and the handful of excellent pubs, restaurants or cafés in the tiny village itself.

Stay at one of the UK's best seaside hotels

The UK’s worst seaside towns

At the opposite end of the table was the Welsh town Bangor, which scored just 42% and one-star ratings for food and drink, tourist attractions, and shopping. It received just two stars for everything else and was described as 'drab' and 'run down'. 

However, it was praised as a good base for visiting the 'fabulous' scenery and coast of North Wales. 

Other traditional seaside towns also did poorly, with Great Yarmouth, Blackpool, Clacton, Skegness, Bognor Regis and Southend all among the lowest rated.

Famous names such as Bournemouth and Brighton appear mid-table, although Bournemouth does get four stars for its beach.

Wales’ best seaside town

The best seaside destination in Wales, Portmeirion in Gwynedd, is also one of the UK’s most unusual holiday villages. It was dreamed up in the 1920s by Welsh architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who described it as a ‘home for fallen buildings’.

Inspired by Italian towns such as Portofino on the Mediterranean, Williams-Ellis designed extravagant, Italianate buildings complete with brightly coloured domes, colonnades and towers.

Visitors loved the architecture and its setting above a wide, sandy estuary – giving it five stars out of five for its tourist attractions, scenery and seafront. It got a destination score of 83%.

Scotland’s best seaside town

St Andrews in Fife got an excellent score of 82%. The beach – a two-mile stretch of sand 15 minutes from the centre – received five stars out of five, as did tourist attractions and scenery.

Visitors loved wandering the town's cobbled streets and alleyways to discover ice-cream parlours, bistros and artisanal food, as well as specialist knitwear and second-hand bookshops. It also got four stars for shopping.

Northern Ireland’s best seaside town

Portstewart in Londonderry/Derry was the highest-rated town in Northern Ireland, with a score of 76% and five stars for both its two miles of beach and its scenery. 

It’s equally popular with families and surfers. Cars can park directly on the beach, allowing easy lugging of windbreakers and picnic hampers. The town itself was also popular, with half-timbered, pedestrianised streets lined with small shops. It ‘has a lovely feel to it’, one visitor told us.

The UK’s best and worst seaside towns: the full list

Find out how your favourite coastal town fared in our table below.

How to book your seaside town hotel

Booking.com is the best site to use for finding a hotel, according to our survey of the best hotel booking sites. It also has an excellent, four star score for price transparency. 

However, it's not necessarily the cheapest way to book. We've found that it's usually cheaper to look on a range of booking sites, as well as the hotel's own website, then phone up the hotel to see if they can match the cheapest deal you've found.

If you do book with a booking site, beware of unexpected emails asking for more money or for you to confirm your details. We've seen numerous complaints of attempted fraud against users of Booking.com and other sites.