Croyde Bay, located in the North Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty,  is a stunning beach that offers a cool surfer vibe combined with quaint English charm, delightful scenery, coastal walks, and a chance to get away from it all.

This is one of our all time favourite beach destinations in England and we visit often with our kids. This gem is highly recommended for a relaxing, traditional trip to the beach – where you will find tea rooms, surf shops, and the odd pub, while retaining a coastline that remains unspoilt and picture perfect.

If you are coming from overseas to visit the UK this year, adding Croyde and Devon to your itinerary will give you a whole new wonderful perspective of England.

AT A GLANCE:

🌊 Good for surfing and cool beach vibes

🚶‍♀️Walk to Baggy Point

🍻 Have a drink at The Thatch

🦀 Rock Pools

🏖 Sandy beach

Why we love Croyde

Although this place is hardly a hidden gem, Croyde in Devon doesn’t seem to get as busy as neighbouring Cornwall and all the travel chaos that can bring in the summer holidays. So that, as well as being within driving distance for a day trip, is what first drew us to Croyde Bay.

The next bay along from Woolacombe, this part of the North Devonshire Coastline is just stunning, where farm land and green rolling hills surround the bay on all sides, creating a secluded feel. On a sunny day, the bright blues of the skies and sea set off the green hills, making for an amazing view.

Croyde has great surf and attracts lots of surfers, with surf shops and board rental shacks near the beach and in the village, a ten minute walk away. I love the surfer vibe, and get a pang of lifestyle envy with every surf board slinging van lifer that we spot!

The kids love playing in the surf with their body boards, and there are lovely sand dunes to walk in or to play in. There is a wide coarse sandy beach and lots of rock pools when the tide goes out.

It’s a beach with a great mix of things to do – surf, dunes, rock pools, or plain old digging a hole on the beach  (a favourite of ours!)

Unlike some seaside resorts, it has not been overdeveloped, and it has allowed Croyde to grow into a charming beach destination, with all the convience and amenities you need, while respecting the landscape.

Part of this is due to the National Trust owning and maintaining the surrounding beauty area – Baggy Point. Walk to Baggy Point, the lookout over the cliff tops, along the coastal cliff path, or up the hill overlooking the bay, where you can continue all the way to neighbouring Woolacombe if you like.

The National Trust also run a tearoom at the start of the Baggy Point trail, and it has delicious coffee and cakes and a beautiful kitchen garden to relax in.

As well as this beautiful tea room, there are food stalls regularly operating throughout the summer, a shop in the nearby holiday park and the pretty cute village itself to have a wander around, 5 minutes up the road.

So, as you can probably tell, we love it here and think Croyde has it all!

Where to stay

We have started to visit Croyde as a day trip, so when we get a freesunny day, we head straight to the beach! We have been to Croyde for longer trips, though, and can give you an overview of what is available for staying the night or more.

Camping

There are many campsites in and around Croyde, and if you sit in the sand dunes you can see the camping fields from the beach.

Ocean Pitch – A small hillside campsite with toilets, showers, and wash up facilities. Amazing views right by the beach, but very small pitches.

Freshwell Camping – Next door to Ocean Pitch. Again, lovely views, beachside, and a much larger field offering more spacious camping. Not level though- it’s up on a hillside.

Camping@Croydebay – a lovely green campsite with decent sized pitches located at just through the village at the start of the road to the beach.  A short walk / 10 minutes to the beach.

Holiday Park

Ruda Holiday Park, part of the Parkdean resorts chain, has a great spot overlooking the beach and actually maintains the beach and has ownership of the surf shop, toilets and cafe at the beach entrance.

There is also a fish and chip shop, pizza place, arcade and convience store located in the car park of Ruda Holiday Park. There are lots of different accomodation options here, from camping, glamping to static homes and huts.

We enjoyed our stay here but in all honesty it wasn’t our type of thing- we camped here, and there is a pool, arcades and entertainment, and it can get a bit loud at night. We like to get back to basics and nature when tent camping in the UK, so it was a bit too lively for us.

If you like this type of resort, then it’s a pretty good choice. Activites for the kids and a playground too.

The Thatch is a pub in the village of Croyde serving hot food, drinks, and offers comfortable rooms, too. We love the Thatch for a meal or drink and would love to try it as a B&B. They have nice-looking family rooms, although being a pub, I expect it might get a bit noisy!

Holiday Cottages

We have seen some lovely holiday cottages while wandering the streets of Croyde.  While we have never stayed in one ourselves, a couple have always caught our eye and  look beautiful.

One cottage I would love to try are The White House; a cute cottage overlooking the sea on a country road that leads to the Baggy Point Trail. There are lots of holiday cottages to choose from, and a quick Google search brings up lots of options.

Bed and Breakfast

The Whiteleaf looks like a lovely guesthouse and is located on the south side of the bay on the way in to Croyde, close to the beach and all the rooms have balcony’s to enjoy the lovely views.

Hotels

Less than a 10 minute drive from Croyde Bay is the Saunton Sands Hotel, a 4 star hotel on the cliffs overlooking the wide expanse of Saunton Sands, the vast sandy beach south of Croyde Bay. This hotel also has a pool and spa.

To the north of Croyde is Woolacombe Bay, a beautiful beach and vibrant seaside town, and here you will find The Watersmeet Hotel. 4 star, also with a pool.and spa, this historic hotel is also right on the coast with spectacular views ofnthe coastline.

Where to eat

There are loads of lovely street food type places just off the beach, and we love them. The chicken burgers at Cluck Street Food, located at Freshwell Camping are mega, and they also have a Sri Lankan Curry Van selling mostly vegan and vegetarian dishes. Getting some delicious food and sitting at one of the tables on the grass with the sea view has a festival feel and  fits perfectly with the laid back vibe.

We also love the Stoned Pizza Van, which sells really tasty, freshly made stonebaked pizza in a van at the entrance to the beach. We often grab a pizza and sit in the field opposite, eating our dinner, and watching the sunset on the ocean.

There are also a couple of nice pubs and restaurants to choose from in the village, either The Thatch, Billy Buds or the Manor Inn,  which all serve food.

What to do

It goes without saying that this place is nature’s playground, and don’t you find that kids are just entertained and occupied by it all?! The boys spend a whole day on the beach, from 11am until 8pm, and they are engaged and play so beautifully, either digging a hole – the kids always put their dad to work with the shovel! Or making sandcastles, playing the dunes, searching for crabs in the rock pools, wave jumping, and body boarding.

Away from the sea and sand is the stunning cliff top walk to Baggy Point, or the longer version from Baggy Point to  Woolacombe.

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