Cornwall Road Trip: Exeter to Falmouth (3 Days)

Cornwall is 283 kilometres of drive and a great deal more of coastline, because the road never goes where the sea does. The peninsula is granite, the lanes are older than cars, and the whole trip works best if you accept early on that the map’s timings are fiction.

Day 1 — Exeter to Tintagel along the north coast (99 km)

West on the A30 across Dartmoor’s northern edge, into Cornwall near Launceston — no bridge, no toll, just a county sign.

Then north-west to the coast at Tintagel, where a castle ruin sits on a headland joined to the mainland by a footbridge, and the Atlantic does the rest. Boscastle and Port Isaac are along this coast if the day is going well: harbours built into clefts, with the road down to them steeper than it looks.

Day 2 — Down the coast to St Ives (96 km)

Southwest past Bedruthan Steps, where stacks stand out from the beach at low tide, and on toward the far end of the county.

St Ives is the night: a fishing town that became an artists’ town because of the light coming off the water on three sides, and it still has the Tate to prove it. Park at the top and walk down — the harbour streets were not built for this.

Day 3 — Land’s End, the Mount and back to Falmouth (88 km)

The last of the land. Land’s End itself is a car park with a view, but the road to it through Zennor and the coastal moors is the best driving on the trip.

Round the tip to St Michael’s Mount, a tidal island you walk to at low water and take a boat back from when the causeway floods, and finish east at Falmouth, on one of the deepest natural harbours in the world.

The toll you only pay on the way out

Cornwall has one toll: the Tamar Bridge at Plymouth, and it is charged eastbound only — you pay to leave, not to arrive. £3.00 by card, £1.50 with a TamarTag, motorcycles free, and no cash accepted at the booth.

This route comes in on the A30 at Launceston, which is free in both directions, so the bridge only matters if you head home along the A38. There is no vignette in the UK and no other toll on this drive.

The two things that actually cost you time

Single-track lanes. Much of the coast is one car wide with passing places. Pull into the ones on your left, and reverse when you are the one closer to a gap — that is the local convention, not a courtesy.

Saturdays in summer. Mid-July to the end of August, Fridays and Saturdays are changeover days and the A30 fills with the whole county arriving and leaving at once. Travel before 7am or after 7pm on those days, or move midweek and ignore the problem.

What it costs

Use the cost calculator to price fuel and nights for your exact dates. Note that this drive prices in pounds, not euros — the calculator handles the currency, but the beds in St Ives in August will still be a surprise.