Cornwall without a car
 

I have always wanted to visit Cornwall--for the sites from the tv series I have enjoyed (Poldark, Doc Martin) and for the history and beautiful coastline. I am hoping to fly to London from the US, and then find a way to have 2-4 days in Cornwall, with a guide, or a guided tour. If I can can get to Cornwall from London via public transport, and take the tour from there, great; if the tour leaves from London, so much the better. I don't want to drive. I have been googling a lot. I've found Poldark-oriented tours, tho those don't necessarily include places I've had in mind, such as Porthcurno. I've also found tours that include Port Isaac, but I haven't found a tour that combines both those areas and perhaps adds in Tintagel or other historic sites. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

This tour doesn't hit many (any) of the telly film locations but is a nice 5 day small group tour starting and ending in central London covering mostly Devon and Cornwall.

https://www.rabbies.com/en/england-t...nds-5-day-tour

I do want to see the sights I mentioned, and that tour is unfortunately longer than I have time for. Thank you for the reply.

Cornwall is quite a way from London. It's really a full day's journey there (and then again back), so if Janis's suggestion is too long for you, I'm afraid you may struggle.

Sorry if I was not clear. The tour suggestion above doesn’t include the sights that are my motivating reasons for visiting. I do understand that I need to allocate a day’s travel each way from and to London. I’d like to look into options to and from Truro or Newquay. Perhaps there are options from Heathrow to Cornwall, and then Cornwall to London?

Here are some options on Rome2rio.com:

https://www.rome2rio.com/map/London-...rnwall-England

Thank you.

You will need to take trains from/to London (there are no trains from LHR to Cornwall - nor anywhere else other than in to London) and no flights from LHR to Cornwall.

Here is a company that does both single day trips and and multi-day tours in Cornwall https://www.tourcornwall.com/tours/

Thank you.

There are flights from LHR to Newquay.

From LHR you can take a bus/coach to Reading and a train to Cornwall from there. See https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ for train times, but be aware it will want you to take the train into London and then out again.

Not currently -- any Newquay flights are from/to LGW

You may be looking at old FlyBe destinations. They used to fly the route but FlyBe went into administration/closed up and were bought out in 2020. They are back in business starting this month but AFAIK there are no plans for a Newquay route. Any LHR flights to NewQuay will take 6 to 20+ hours with at least once connection (like @ Manchester or Dublin) and cost hundreds of $$/££

I personally prefer the transfer at Paddington but there's not that much difference. The trains from LHR in to Paddington do run more frequently than the coach to Reading and I like boarding the train at its origination point rather than at Reading but that's just a personal tic ;)

There are a couple of morning flights that fly From LHR through MAN, BA transferring to Loganair. Or she could take the bus from LHR to LGW and fly from there.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...da858b6e29.png

That is what I posted -- flights w/ transfers through MAN etc with a travel time in excess of 6 hours. The train is faster than that and a lot less hassle. And bus to LGW and the extra security etc makes that a lot less convenient and slower than the train. Flying simply makes no sense if one is landing at LHR.

, . . And - anyone who flies through MAN by choice is in for a headache. Apparently it's been a total zoo and worse than even LHR.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61031379

There is a flight with a duration of 4:30 hrs, faster than the train which has multiple transfers.

As Zebec would say, I am done. 🙄

Depends on where in Cornwall you want to go. Heathrow to Plymouth via Paddington is 3:45, with the one change at Paddington. Your 4:30 flight requires a change at Manchester, and doesn't seem to exist on the random day in May that I checked. Also, climate change.

Over the last 60 years I've struggled with MAN a lot, I've used LHR and LGW and the rail system. Traveling LHR/LGW to Newquay is "interesting" (British for, damn silly but you could) as a solution, but at the end of the day you are at Newquay airport with a bus that will eventually get to the train system. Using MAN is a "possible" (British for even stupider than "interesting") but very much second best to the LGW/LHR bus and flight link. Above both, the train system is just so much easier (British for the obvious solution) why would you use an inefficient, slow and stress focused aircraft when you can just take the train. I'm always a bit nervous about linking a bus element to a journey to Cornwall, it nearly always goes wrong as the roads from Exeter are just so under sized.

Welcome to two countries divided by a common language

Hi Elaine--You are now an honorary member of an exclusive club--WITHOUT A CAR ORG.

My husband and I REFUSE to drive in UK and Europe. We figured the last thing decent UK/EU citizens need are two old US codgers at the wheel who have just had a pint (or five) at the local.

YOU CAN DO THIS!!!!!

We did two trips to Cornwall (and without COVID, would have been doing a third) without a car. You can click on my name or the links below to see the trip reports I wrote, but here are some basics:

• We pre-bought BritRail South West passes
• We flew US to Heathrow, landed in the A.M., railed it to Paddington, and trained it to Plymouth for our first trip.
• A guide we had engaged picked us up in Plymouth and took us to two destinations we could not do by rail. Then he dropped us off at our next hotel, from which we could do most of our other points of interest.
• At a later point, the same guide picked us up and drove us to the Poldark, Point Isaac things we wanted to see and plopped us back in Plymouth.

The guide we engaged we loved---James Coulton (https://selectsouthwesttours.com/)--but he is often booked. He's a great guy and probably would give you leads to find another if he is engaged.
Let me know if I can be of any other help.
AZ
First Trip Link: https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...-done-1655407/
Second Trip Link: https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...a-car-1668838/