Places to visit in East Devon – A three day East Devon itinerary [2024]

By Gemma Tedaldi | Published: 1st August 2021 | Updated: 20th November 2023

Having always ventured to North Devon rather than East Devon, we decided enough was enough and set out on a 3 day East Devon itinerary. Boy we were surprised at just how beautiful the coastline of East Devon is.

East Devon may be more well known for its pebble beaches and quaint villages, but as the start of the Jurassic Coast, it is also a great place to hunt for fossils. So as the only Natural World Heritage Site in England spending three days exploring the area couldn’t be better.

Planning Your Trip? Use our favourite travel resources below:

Accommodation: We recommend Booking.com

Rental Car: We recommend Rentalcars.com

Travel Insurance: We recommend World Nomads

Flights: We recommend Kiwi.com

Tours: We recommend Get Your Guide

Places to visit in East Devon – A three day East Devon Itinerary Map

3 Day East Devon Itinerary

Day 1 – Budleigh Salterton & Sidmouth

To start the three day East Devon itinerary, we’re heading to the west of this stretch of coastline to Budleigh Salterton. Famed for its links back to Sir Walter Raleigh, (an Elizabethan explorer), and known for its salt panning, which was one of the main ways people earned a livelihood according to Doomsday records hence the origin of ‘Salterton’, Budleigh Salterton is the perfect place to get a real feel for East Devon.

With a 2 mile long pebble beach overlooked by numerous colourful beach huts and ancient fossilised tree roots peeking through the vivid red sandstone cliffs that this area of East Devon is so well known for, Budleigh Salterton is one of the most beautiful places to visit in East Devon, just be aware of the nudist beach to the west!

Park at Lower Station Road behind the back of the Town Hall, EX9 6RW. Not only is it free, but it means you get to walk through the heart of this wonderful town to get to the beach too. On your way from the car park to the coast, pop by The Crusty Cob for some pasties and pastries to keep the hunger at bay whilst you explore – the apple puffs are delicious!

Before heading to Branscombe, and your accommodation for the night, be sure to stop by Sidmouth for a wander about this Regency seaside town. With a pebble beach, which is great for rock pooling when the tide is low, and the Millennium Walkway stretching alongside, Sidmouth is a wonderful place to stop for an hour or two to take in the view. Plus, there’s a Roly’s Fudge shop… if you know you know!

Day 2 – Beer & Seaton

Day two and we are off to explore some of the more well-known places to visit in East Devon, Beer and Seaton. Starting off in Beer, quite possibly the quaintest seaside village going, with its bright white chalk cliffs and crystal-clear waters nestled between the red rocks on either side.

This village has some of the most beautiful clifftop views, the views from Jubilee Gardens across the bay are especially beautiful, and it is well known for its pebble beach and the fishing boats that haul themselves up it, (as a working beach you can often watch the fishermen come in with their days catch or even head out on a mackerel fishing boat and catch your own dinner!).

Beer also has a picture-perfect high street full of independent shops you’ll find nowhere else and numerous walking routes to explore the South West Coast Path and beyond. It really is one of the nicest places to visit in East Devon. Park at Cliff Top, EX12 3AQ for the day, it’s a steep walk down to the village and back up again, but it is a large spacious and cheap car park.

After exploring Beer until your heart is content, follow the South West Coast Path out of the village along the cliff tops east towards our next destination on our list of places to visit in East Devon, Seaton. Located at the mouth of the River Axe, with two vast beaches overlooking Lyme Bay, a bustling town centre and a beautiful promenade and harbour to walk around, Seaton is the polar opposite of Beer in every way!

For something a little different to do, hop on the Seaton Tramway out from the town centre through the Seaton Wetlands Nature Reserve and out along the historic tracks to Colyton. These narrow-gauge heritage trams make you feel like you’ve been transported back in time, exploring the countryside via a rickety vehicle with the odd dinosaur thrown in… We are on the Jurassic Coast after all!

If you want to get in the water here, which we did after a long day walking and exploring, make sure you’ve got some footwear with you that you can get wet. Like most of the beaches in East Devon, the beach is a pebble beach, not sand, and they are really quite difficult to walk on barefoot. Some people can manage it just fine, but it is a hell of a lot easier to walk in and out of the sea with shoes on, especially whilst you are being buffeted by the waves on a very sloped beach!

Planning your own trip to East Devon? Make sure you check out our Travelling Tedaldi Amazon Store Travel Guides for all your guidebooks and maps. (We’ve done the hard work for you and linked all the things we used to plan our trip!)

Day 3 – Branscombe & Lyme Regis

Only a short drive from the campsite, Branscombe is a unique old village now owned by the National Trust and is often thought of as the longest village in the country due to its clifftop streets that head all the way down to the sea. Numerous thatched cottages and stone buildings line the way, with a beautiful church and dovecote at the heart of it all. Don’t park down at the beach however, it can be really expensive, so opt for arriving early and getting a spot in the National Trust car park in the village instead.

Now on to the final stop of the places to visit in East Devon Itinerary, Lyme Regis. Although technically Dorset, not East Devon, it makes for a beautiful final stop and the perfect place to hunt for fossils, fossils and more fossils! Explore the town centre and the River Lym first, parking at Woodmead Car Park, (it can get busy quickly if it is a nice day so get there early!), then follow the footpath along The Lynch alongside the river to the Town Mill and right into the heart of Lyme Regis.

Be sure to walk along Marine Parade and up into Langmoor and Lister gardens for views over Town Beach before heading for The Lyme Bay café for some of the most incredible fish and chips with a seaside view you will find. Just watch out for the seagulls trying to steal your food…

After refuelling, head off around the coast from Town Beach, east to Church Cliff Beach and finally the vast East Cliff Beach which extends all the way to Charmouth. This is where we stop for fossil hunting! With numerous ammonites to be found, as well as the remains of ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, this beach will get you looking for fossils whether you want to or not!

Please be aware though, that the cliffs all along this beach, called the Spittles, are part of the biggest landslip in Europe so that makes them extremely unstable, even whilst we were there, they had a mini rockfall, so keep a safe distance from them whilst searching for fossils. The beach also gets cut off at high tide so make sure you know when the next tide comes in.

Where to stay in East Devon

We would highly recommend staying at Coombe View Farm Campsite in Branscombe as not only is it in a great location to get in and around East Devon on foot along the coast path or by vehicle, but it is a lovely, relaxed campsite with plenty of different camping options. If you’re lucky you may even end up with a pitch that has a sea view!

If you would rather a little more luxury than a campsite, (even though the one we stayed at was wonderful!), then check out Booking.com for the best accommodation options, or click on the map below.

Places to visit in East Devon

📍 Budleigh Salterton

📍Sidmouth

📍 Branscombe

📍 Beer

📍 Seaton

📍 Seaton Tramway

📍 Colyton

📍 Lyme Bay

All of these locations can be easily visited as part of a 3 day itinerary in East Devon.

Best beaches in East Devon

Now East Devon isn’t exactly known for the same beaches as in North Devon. To be honest, if you are after a sandy beach then East Devon isn’t really the best place to go. Sandy beaches in East Devon are few and far between.

The beaches in East Devon are mainly pebble but even so, there are still some beautiful beaches throughout the area. Some of the best beaches include:

📍 Budleigh Salterton Beach

(just be aware that the very west of the beach is a nudist beach!)

📍 Sidmouth Beach

📍 Weston Beach

📍 Beer Beach

📍 Seaton Beach

On the very eastern edge of East Devon also lies Lyme Regis Fossil Beach and Monmouth Beach, both perfect for, you guessed it, fossil hunting.

Places to visit in East Devon – A three day East Devon Itinerary FAQs

Is East Devon worth visiting?

East Devon is definitely worth visiting, as not only does it have some wonderful beaches and great hiking, but the area is also well known for its fossils as it is part of the Jurassic Coast. You might get some of the bigger and more well known fossil locations just a short drive away, but East Devon itself is often overlooked for fossil hunting.

Where is East Devon?

East Devon is located on the south coast of England, between the city of Exeter and Lyme Regis in Dorset.

How to get to East Devon

East Devon is actually relatively easy to get to, it’s the getting around that can be more difficult! Coming from further north or east either the M5 or A303 are the most direct ways of getting to East Devon. From the southwest, the A30 or A38.

Due to the terrain and the area being an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, there aren’t any train lines running through the area. The nearest train stations are in either Exmouth to the very west of East Devon, Honiton to the north, or Axminster to the east. Once at them, there are buses throughout the region but they can be few and far between.

How to get around East Devon

Ideally, you will want a vehicle to get between destinations, as there aren’t fantastic public transport options, but once there is it really easy to get around on foot. We drove to Beer to explore then walked along the coast path to Seaton. You can also walk between Branscombe and Beer and Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth.

When to visit East Devon

The best time to visit East Devon is any time from May through to September for the warmer UK weather but if you want to avoid peak tourist season and school holidays, opt to visit in early May or late September. Over the autumn and winter months, although the weather may not be as sun-filled, it is actually the best time to hunt for fossils!

Is East Devon nice?

This often gets asked as tourists generally tend to stick to the sandy beaches around North Devon or South Devon rather than the pebbles of East Devon, but yes, East Devon is most definitely nice! With numerous tiny coves to explore, beautiful waters to dabble in, and of course, fossils to find, East Devon is one area of the UK that is stunning wherever you explore along the coastline.

What is East Devon known for?

Historically East Devon was the central hub of lace making in the UK, nowadays it is well known for its vast pebble beaches and Jurassic coastline.

What areas are East Devon?

East Devon is located, unsurprisingly, the furthest east in the county of Devon, between Exeter and the county borders with Dorset and Somerset. It also has two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty to discover East Devon AONB and the Blackdown Hills.

Tours in East Devon

If you are after a bit of adventure during your time in East Devon but don’t know where to start, check out these tours on Get Your Guide:

Where is the Jurassic Coast in Devon and where to find fossils

The Jurassic Coast runs from Exmouth in East Devon all along the coast to Old Harry Rocks in Dorset so anywhere along this stretch of coastline is Jurassic Coast so you can technically find fossils anywhere.

You can find fossilised trees in Budleigh Salterton’s cliff faces, echinoids in the fallen chalk at Beer Head, and of course ammonites all over the beach in and around Lyme Regis. You just need to know where to look to find some that haven’t been seen before…

If you are going fossil hunting just be aware of the possible danger of falling rocks, it’s not worth risking your life for a fossil!

Conclusion: Places to visit in East Devon – A 3 day East Devon itinerary

Well, there we have our places to visit in East Devon, a three day East Devon itinerary. Now you know where to go in England if you want your pick of beautiful coves, cliffside walks, and fossil hunting!

Not had enough of Devon? Be sure to head on up to North Devon and Exmoor to get a completely different view of what Devon is like – think of fewer pebble beaches and lots more sand! We’ve got itineraries for both North Devon and Exmoor so have a read and get planning your own trip to Devon.

Gemma Tedaldi

Gemma is the owner and author of The Travelling Tedaldi, a travel blog helping travellers to discover the best road trips and travel itineraries throughout the UK and Europe. When she isn’t writing about her favourite travel destinations, she can often be found out exploring local hikes or planning future trips.