I am thinking about traveling to the Southeastern coast of England in the next couple of months, can anyone recommend a trip to Brighton or should the place be avoided. I have looked online and it is difficult to find pictures of the city or good tourist information. I know it is a popular seaside destination for the British but is it attractive, interesting, and how is the surrounding area!
Thanks for any tips in advance.

Brighton is well worth a visit if you are in London; even if Brighton is better in summer than winter.

It takes less than an hour on the train from London Victoria.

It is not the most attractive place but is not unattractive. There are parts of Brighton that are very nice, but some of the seafront and the pier is very tacky (but fun nonetheless).

Brighton is good in the evening if you are young (but the trains back to London can get very crowded late at night on a Saturday in summer).

If you are gay you are going to Britain's gay capital.

I visited Brighton for the afternoon my last time in the UK. My brother and I drove from London.
We spent a nice June afternoon at a pub sitting in the sun.The pub overlooked the beach and was great.
We visited the pier and I won 5 pounds much to my brother's disgust.

Camp, tacky, kitsch, fun.

Everything a classic seaside town should be. Good shopping, the sea, what more can you want? The winter when the beach is empty, the sea swirling, and the gales blowing is much more fun than the summertime!

Hi
Brighton has become increasingly trendy in the last few years with house prices through the roof. It is particularly famous for its Royal Pavilion. Website www.royalpavilion.org.uk will give you plenty of info. Brighton also has The Lanes - a series of shopping alleys specialising in jewellery. Another site is www.visitbrighton.com This site has a picture gallery and plenty of tourist info. You'd have fun there but it would be far from the top of my places to visit!
M

We chose to stay in Brighton for the last 2 nights of a UK trip - primarily for the ease in getting to Gatwick for our departure flight.
But after doing some searches and exchanging email with a cab driver that I found on one of the newsgroups, I began to look forward to Brighton more than just a convenient stop to Gatwick.
We had a great time - could walk everywhere - had some good food and enjoyed the seaside stuff. We even liked the pier - enjoyed the British slots that gobbled up our coins. It was cold, but some brave souls were splashing around .
Happy travels!

The Royal Pavilion is worth the visit all on its own - make that two visits - but fortunately there are other fun things too. In late winter or spring the seashore and pier can be a little forlorn, but I think it's great then. Decent shopping in a nice old town area, fresh air...not a bad day trip from London at all, or overnight if you have time.

It's mostly good for blowing all the culture stuff they ram down your throat up in that London out of your mind.

But the Pavillion (George IV's palace while his dad was still alive) is probably the only royal palace in Europe most of us could really stand living in. Often excellent and, by the standards of the monarchy industry, unstuffy.

The Brighton Museum (entry free) in the Pavillion grounds is extraordinarily quirky. A bit on the Dirty Weekend, another bit on Brighton's homosexual history and a great bit on 18th century local pottery (see how Brightonians at the time depicted the Americans and the French). As well as great art deco things and whatever other oddities they've chucked in since I was last there.

If proper culture's what you want, there is a Festival in May, during which (apart from the theatrical stuff by Basque fire-eating stilt-walkers performng in Hungarian that the EU makes obligatory for town festivals)200 or so of the town's artists keep open studios.

Inevitably 99% missable. But worth kissing a lot of frogs, since there is always the odd prince or two among them.See the Brighton Festival and the Brighton Festival Fringe sites

Surrounding, the Seven Sisters are just about the best bit of cliffs in SE England (and a truly bracing round walk: the area makes excellent walking territory). The Long Man of Wilmington is one of those huge male cut-outs in chalky turf whose history no-one can agree on: but there is some evidence the Romans knew about him. Some terrific medieval painted churches (there was a church painting school in Lewes). And just a lot of nice, rolling, English countryside with nice English villages (though it feels a bit more suburban than, say Gloucestershire or Suffolk)

All this and an hour back to London.

I'd definitely go along with those recommending a day trip to Brighton - my mom and I went there last April and I loved it. It's worth it for the Royal Pavilion alone, the place is amazing. I'm still blown away by the dragon chandelier in the dining room - I HAD to get a postcard of it in the gift shop since like most places you can't take picture inside. Also came across another intersting item in the shop - an object (how do I put this delicately?) that resembled a phallic symbol, but with a very pretty floral design - finally figured out it was a pull for a ceiling fan lamp - I had to buy it and it's now on the ceiling fan in my bedroom.
And as the others have mentioned, the beach, pier and shopping are lots of fun. We also took the tour bus which you can get on at the train station, it takes you around Brighton & the surrounding area - lots of lovely Georgian architecture to be seen, and it's one of those hop on, hop off all day buses. I'd say Brighton was one of my favorite days ever in the UK. Go for it! Oh, and the town has a website at www.brighton.co.uk

"London-on-sea" as it's known round these parts, it's a popular weekend destination for Londoners in need of bracing fresh air and lively nightspots, so you may want to go midweek. Many London commuters live here, and it has great shopping/eating/drinking and clubbing. It manages somwhow to combine cool with kitsch - you'll see a mismash of trendy young things and old grannies eating cockles on the pier. The seafront is a perfect example of what the British do best or worst ? amusement arcades, bucket and spade shops, kissmequick hats, whilst back from the seafront you'll find elegant Georgian squares and trendy boutiques. I think it would give you a really interesting insight into a cross section of Britishness.

Inman American who lived for 5 years in Brighton. A must see is the Royal Pavilion, gorgeous home go King George the 4th. Also if you love shopping get lost in the Lanes...and the Seafront never disappoints people watchers, do watch out for the Huge Seagulls! Brighton is campy and very different from London and the prices and people are different too, but I loved it!

Loved the Pavilion but found the town itself dreay (it was June but not a pleasant day) and reminded me of very old fashioned seaside resorts you would see in photos from the 1890s or so. Not much else to see and do.

(Caveat: I grew up on Long Island, 20 minutes from incredibly gorgeous public beaches - mile upon mile of pure white sand in front of protective dunes and without a lot of junk, except a boardwalk at one or two of the parking fields - so most european beaches are very disappointing.)

This thread is from 2004!

<<so most european beaches are very disappointing.>>

May I ask, nytraveler, have you ever been to Europe?

Odin -

Have you ever spent time on the beaches on Long Island?

And yes, I have been to europe more than 100 times - although naturally not to beaches most of them. But I have found most (obviously not all) beaches to be sub par.

First many are pebbles or even rocks - not sand

Many of the sand beaches are very grainy and dark, not the consistency of sugar and pure white and broad beaches not foofed up with boardwalks, nasty food stands or even in the middle of towns

And some that locals may consider sand I would call mud

And the Med beaches typically don't really have much in the way of waves (vs the pounding surf of the north atlantic)

I know there are some decent and some excellent beaches in europe - but of the ones I have seen in the UK, France and Italy most are definitely sub par (the beach near Marbella was not bad - not great, but not bad)