Packing up after a festival is a chore, even more so with children. Earlier this week, my husband and I were sweeping clothes off the tent floor into bags, looking underneath for any remnants of food that might do for breakfast before we left Camp Bestival in Dorset. Two tangerines, some instant noodles, a mini box of cereal and a can of ginger ale (no milk) – didn’t pass muster.
Like much of the country, Dorset is in drought and at 9am it was already hot. “Right! Let’s go down to the sea” was the solution. “We’ll find something to eat there.”
The festival takes place in the grounds of Lulworth Castle, three miles up the road from Lulworth Cove. If we got a move on, we could be in the sea within half an hour.
Despite showering before we left, we all had that feeling of crystallisation peculiar to the end of a festival – the heat, the dust, the lack of sleep.
Milling wheat in the bread making tent (Photo: Camp Bestival)Over the past three days, our nine and seven year-old had scaled a climbing wall, taken trampolining lessons, made tiny clay teacups and magic potions, learnt how to mill grain into flour (and enjoy the gingerbread it was baked into), mastered circus skills, rode crazy bikes, watched Morris dancers, street performers, fire artists and joined an ashtanga yoga class. All of it – and plenty more – was included in the ticket.
That was in between watching tribute act K-Pop Forever, the Tibetan Monks of the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, Black Grape, Billy Ocean, De La Soul, Fatboy Slim (dressed up as fish and chips) and more.
Late nights, early starts and long, hot, busy days – it was little wonder we were all so tired.As we joined the back of the slow-moving queue out of the car park, a friendly marshal stopped to ask where we were heading. “You’re the first people I’ve spoken to this morning who aren’t going to Cornwall!”
Busy days rolled into late nights (Photo: Camp Bestival)If ever there was a summer to enjoy the British coast, this is surely it. And while we were only nipping down the road to the Jurassic Coast, we have made a virtue of Camp Bestival’s perfect positioning in previous years by extending our stay in the south-west of England. We’ve found that buffering the action-packed festival with a gentle stay relatively nearby makes the perfect summer break with no airport hassles.
Driving from our home in London to Cornwall usually takes around six hours, but from Dorset it’s around half as long. A few years ago we carried on from the festival and drove through the magnificent, rolling Dorset National Landscape along the A36, admiring the view of England’s only natural World Heritage Site – the Jurassic Coast – to our left as we pushed west to Trevone Bay near Padstow in Cornwall.
Here, we settled in at a holiday rental by the sea, washing off the festival fatigue (and dirty clothes) and reminiscing about the fun we’d had while toasting s’mores on the west-facing beach at sunset. By the end of the week we’d settled back into relatively normal sleep patterns and felt more prepared to head home.
Trevone Beach near Padstow in Cornwall (Photo: Education Images/Getty)Another year, with just a babe in arms, we hired a Seventies VW campervan and drove to the New Forest, where we were able to get to grips with the van’s sleeping arrangements for a few nights (not entirely successfully) before continuing on for an hour to the festival. Our pitstop had introduced us to a corner of the national park near Burley where water meadows laced the landscape astride the River Avon and we saw only birds and butterflies.
We’ve also stopped at Studland Bay, a popular beach around half an hour’s drive from the festival on the Isle of Purbeck. It was another hot day and the sandy strip was busy, so this year we wanted to try the shingle cove down the road instead.
Lulworth Cove is a horseshoe shaped bay on the Jurassic Coast (Photo: All Tsyganova/Getty)The car park warden warned us that the cove would be busy, but once we were out on the road we breezed down without any traffic and found space in the car park. The village of West Lulworth is picture-perfect – the narrow main road is lined with perfect stone and thatch cottages, former coastguard houses, a couple of pubs, cafes and seafood restaurants (the hatch serving crab and lobster burgers by the cove caught my eye). Had we more energy, we would have joined the trickle of hikers on the coast path to Durdle Door, but not today.
Despite the buzzy atmosphere, we found space for our towels and staggered like zombies down the shingle to slosh ourselves into the cool water. It was heaven. And breakfast? A round of home-made ice creams followed by fresh fish and chips. Perfect.
Early bird tickets for Camp Bestival 2027 (29 July to 1 August) are now on sale, priced at £225 per adult for weekend camping, £157.50 for teens, £130.50 for ages 10-12, £110.50 for ages five-nine, and free for under-fives. Instalment plans and buy now, pay later are also available.
Hence then, the article about i got the most out of a festival by turning it into a summer holiday by the sea was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( I got the most out of a festival by turning it into a summer holiday by the sea )
Also on site :