nothing fixed | 7 nights | from $2,320 per person
A Cornwall Vacation Package With Nothing In The Diary
A Cornwall vacation package that books beds and a car and stops there. Seven nights in one place on the south coast, no guide, and one appointment all week.
What nothing fixed means here
We book seven nights in one place near the south coast, a small car for the whole week, and after that we stop. There is no itinerary document because there would be nothing to put in it. You get up, look at the sky and the tide table, and decide. A Cornwall vacation package built this way is mostly a set of keys, an address, and a map with pencil marks on it.
- Hours already spoken for
- Zero on six of the seven days. The week contains two timed obligations in total, both to do with keys, and neither lasts longer than twenty minutes.
- The earliest you must be somewhere
- 10 a.m., on one morning only, when the car goes back before your journey home. Every other day starts whenever you get up.
- The longest stretch that is yours
- From about 4 p.m. on arrival day to 10 a.m. on the last morning: 162 hours with nothing in them but sleep and whatever you choose.
- Who chooses where you eat
- You do, at breakfast, every day. The only thing with any authority over your plans is the tide table, which closes two of the beach walks for about five hours out of twelve.
- What happens if you skip a day
- Nothing happens, because there is nothing to skip. The beds and the car are paid for as a block, so a day spent reading in the kitchen costs the same as a day on the path, and no money comes back either way.
- Who this shape of day does not suit
- Anyone who will not drive single track lanes. Hedges stand 8 feet high, sightlines are about 30 yards, and passing places come every 200 yards, so you will reverse uphill several times a day. It also suits nobody who wants a plan handed to them, or company beyond the person they arrived with.
The last row costs this company bookings and stays on the page anyway. A shape of day that does not suit you is far cheaper to find out about here than on the third morning.
What the $2,320 buys you
- Seven nights in a single stone cottage, two bedrooms, 1.2 miles from the coast path, priced on two people sharing.
- A small car with unlimited mileage for eight days, picked up on arrival and handed back on the last morning. An automatic gearbox adds about $190 and has to be asked for 21 days ahead.
- Off-lane parking for one vehicle at the cottage. This matters more than it sounds: the nearest public spaces are 600 yards away and are full by 9 a.m. through August.
- A 1:25,000 map of the 34 miles of path either side of the base, marked by us with the three sections that climb hard and the two that are flat enough for a bad knee.
- Written notes on twelve places to eat within a 25 minute drive, with the four that stop serving food at 8 p.m. flagged.
- A number that reaches a person who has driven those lanes, for the whole week.
What sits outside that number
- Getting to the country. Round trip air fare runs $780 to $1,150 per person from the east coast outside high summer, plus roughly four hours of driving at the far end.
- Every meal. Two meals out a day comes to $60 to $90 per person.
- Fuel, about $70 to $95 for a week of short drives, and any road toll on the way down.
- Gardens, boat trips, surf lessons, and anything else you talk yourselves into over breakfast.
- Travel insurance. We neither sell it nor arrange it. Buy your own before the balance is due.
What it costs
from $2,320 per person
- Covering
- 7 nights, one base, one car, an empty diary.
- Assuming
- Two people to a room, unless the six rows above say otherwise for your case.
- Pushed up by
- The month, the grade of room, how late you leave it, and how many of the hours you want somebody else to hold.
- Fixed when
- An operator puts it in writing with its own name on it. Until then it marks the bottom of a range that genuinely happened.
You settle with the operator, through whatever system they run. This site gathers nothing and no card ever arrives at this company.
The months that work, and the ones that do not
May, June and September are the three we place most people in. Daylight runs to about 9:30 p.m. in June, the path is dry enough to walk in trainers, and the lanes are busy without being blocked. April and October both work if you accept that a third of your days will be wet and that some kitchens shut two evenings a week.
July 20 to August 31 is the stretch we argue against. Cottage rates run 40 to 60 percent above the figure on this page, the single track lanes queue nose to tail from mid-morning, and every beach with a car park near it is full by half past nine. You will spend the week reversing for other people's cars.
November through February we simply will not sell as this shape of trip. Dark at 4:30 p.m., sections of path closed after storms, and too few open kitchens to make a car and an empty diary add up to anything.
What is still open when you book
Four things get settled at confirmation: which of the two bases you take, since one sits above a cove with 92 steps down to it and the other does not; whether the gearbox is manual or automatic; whether you arrive on the Saturday changeover or midweek, which changes the cottage but not the price; and whether the car meets you at the airport or is left at the cottage with the key in a box.