Preparing to visit Cornwall – Part 1

Introduction

Preparing to visit Cornwall is the subject of this post. We discuss the reasons why we chose Cornwall, identify planning challenges, reveal our desire to to self-publish a Cornwall eBook and print book, and we list the initial resources we have gathered.

Importantly, we need to start planning now in order to book flights and accommodation as Cornwall is very popular and we are travelling from Australia.

This post is the first in a series of articles about our 2020 UK holiday to Cornwall.

Reasons to visit Cornwall?

Clearly stating our reasons will be helpful in preparing to visit Cornwall. They include an interest in small fishing villages, the lure of Cornwall’s scenic coastline, and good restaurants – all highlighted in various TV programs we’ve watched.

On previous UK holidays I became fascinated by the small fishing villages that dotted Scotland’s East Coast and parts of Northern Ireland’s east coast. After I discussed this with an English friend and he pointed to similar fishing villages in Cornwall. So that piqued my interest. There are certainly plenty of them, perhaps too many! Everybody seems to talk about Cornwall’s picturesque coastline as well.

Furthermore, our thoughts turned to Cornwall after watching Rick Stein’s “foody” videos on SBS (Special Broadcasting Service, Australia). Consequently, we set ourselves a goal of dining at his Rick Stein’s Padstow restaurant. Subsequently, we saw a TV series called Alex Polizzi: Chefs on Trial. One restaurant to feature was Amelies in Porthleven, Cornwall. So, the goal of visiting Amelies restaurant was added to the list.

Also, across time we have watched Doc Martin (Port Isaac) and Poldark (many locations including Charlestown) which have alerted us to the picturesque scenery of Cornwall.

As you can imagine the lure of Cornwall has grown to the point where we must go!

Our Cornwall preparation challenges

Most of our overseas holidays have been to the UK and major cities across Europe (e.g. Athens; Prague; Istanbul; Bucharest; Budapest; and Barcelona) (See our related eBooks). However, this time we are visiting an English county and there are many attractions competing for our custom.

The main questions, which we will address in this series, are:

  1. What will be the theme(s) of our trip?
  2. Where should we visit? Compromises?
  3. How long will our holiday be? What will the schedule look like? Do we have time?
  4. What type of accommodation will best suit our needs and where?
  5. What type of transport is required? How do we get there? How do we get around?
  6. What holiday budget is required? Can we afford it?

Our eBook self-publishing approach - Part 1
Our eBook: Six Days in Prague can be found on:

Amazon (Kindle US), Amazon (Kindle UK), Amazon (Kindle AU), and Amazon (Kindle CA)

Smashwords (EPUB), Smashwords also distributes to Oyster, Scribd, Yuzu, Blio and Inktera (formerly Page Foundry) and reaches OverDrive (world’s largest library ebook platform serving 20,000+ libraries), Baker & Taylor Axis 360, Gardners (Askews & Holts and Browns Books for Students), and Odilo (2,100 public libraries in North America, South America and Europe)
Kobo; Apple iTunes; Barnes and Noble

Note: Also available in print and PDF format from Blurb Bookstore

A Cornwall eBook

We think this visit to Cornwall would be a terrific subject for our next eBook and provide a fresh perspective for my photography. Furthermore, in preparing to visit Cornwall we will need to take account of this goal.

Our travel eBooks, which document our holidays, are a mixture of words and photographs. Therefore, taking interesting photographs will be a prime challenge for me. Moreover, we would like to prepare a printed book this time as we did for our Prague trip. It will be a stretch goal but an achievable one I believe.

Resources

We have identified some initial resources to start our Cornwall preparation. No doubt we will collect more as the journey progresses. These resources are listed below:

Websites

  1. https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/england/articles/the-most-beautiful-towns-in-cornwall/
  2. https://www.oceanbluecornwall.co.uk/11-picturesque-cornish-villages-youll-want-visit/
  3. https://www.cornwalllife.co.uk/out-about/places/cornwall-s-prettiest-harbourside-towns-and-villages-1-5183857
  4. https://www.cornwalls.co.uk/top_ten/fishing_villages.htm
  5. https://www.visitcornwall.com/about-cornwall/blogging-cornwall/10-best-spots-photography-cornwall
  6. https://www.stayincornwall.co.uk/handbook/13-most-instagrammable-locations-cornwall

Books

  1. Burton, Adam, 2016, Photographing Cornwall and Devon, fotoVUE, United Kingdom
  2. Bowness, Ellen, 2018, The Photographer’s Guide to Cornwall, Long Valley Books Ltd, United Kingdom

Summary

We posted a series of articles on our blog about “Why should we visit Athens” in preparation for our trip to Athens. We found the process was very helpful in clarifying our thoughts and brought a useful focus to our trip and the subsequent eBook. Hence our desire to document “Preparing to visit Cornwall”.

Why don’t you sign up for this series and join us as we travel along this path?

Have you been to Cornwall? Do you have any advice for us? We’d like to hear from you.

Visit our travel Blog

Read our planning posts for Athens

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