5 Best Coasteering Locations in the UK: Pembrokeshire, Cornwall & Beyond

Ask us to pick one activity to do in the UK for the rest of our lives and this is the one. Coasteering has everything. Salt water, sea caves, a scramble along a cliff edge, and a ledge with your name on, about six metres above the surface.

There is a particular sound a group makes when the first person goes off a jump. Half cheer, half shriek. Then everyone else lines up, because nobody wants to be the one who stayed on the rock.

The UK happens to have the best coasteering coastline anywhere, which is no accident, given the whole sport started here. Below are the five locations we come back to again and again, along with the centres we trust to run them.

What Is Coasteering?

Coasteering means travelling along a rocky coastline using whatever the sea gives you. Swimming through gullies, scrambling over barnacled rock, riding a surge into a cave, and jumping off ledges into deep water. No boat, no board. Simply you, a wetsuit and a stretch of coast most people only ever see from a footpath above.

The sport grew up on the Pembrokeshire coast in the mid 1980s, when Andy Middleton began running sessions from the Twr y Felin outdoor centre in St Davids. The centre trades today as TYF Adventure, and yes, you are able to book a session at the place where all of this started.

Why do people fall for coasteering so hard? Because the ordinary rules stop applying. Everything you were told about staying away from the edge and out of the water goes out the window for three hours. You end up somewhere no path reaches, in a cave lit green from below, with seals watching you from twenty metres away. Beginners love the sport because progress happens fast. Experienced coasteerers love the sport because no two tides give you the same route twice.

Coasteering Safety & Charter Guidelines

Here is the serious part, and please take this one seriously. Coasteering belongs in the hands of a qualified provider, every single time. Guides read the swell, know exactly how deep each pool sits at each state of the tide, and choose the route around the conditions on the day. Look for a centre licensed by the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA) or signed up to the National Coasteering Charter (NCC), which is backed by the RNLI and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Wetsuit, buoyancy aid, helmet and grippy footwear come as standard.

Right. On to the good bit.

1. Coasteering Pembrokeshire (Wales)

An easy placement, this one. The UK holds an embarrassment of brilliant coasteering spots, and coasteering in Pembrokeshire still tops the lot. Not only because the coastline is stunning, there is something rather lovely about going to the place where coasteering in Wales began.

Pembrokeshire Coast sits as the only truly coastal national park in the UK, and the geology does the rest. Black volcanic rock, arches, blowholes and caves cut into cliffs by the Atlantic. Abereiddy delivers the headline act: the Blue Lagoon, a flooded slate quarry linked to the open sea by a narrow channel, ringed by quarry walls and turned an unearthly turquoise by the mineral in the water. The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series has held rounds here, which tells you something about the drop.

Then the wildlife. Grey seals haul out along this coast in serious numbers, and autumn sessions often run past pups on the rocks. Offshore, Ramsey Sound pushes one of the fastest tidal races in Britain through a gap in the cliffs.

Our recommended providers for coasteering in Pembrokeshire:

TYF Adventure run sessions from St Davids on the coastline where coasteering was invented. Half day trips of around three and a half hours, three difficulty levels from age eight upwards, all specialist kit included, and free waterproof photos so you have proof of the jump.

Tenby Adventure cover the softer, sandier south of the county around Tenby, with kayaking alongside the coasteering. A good shout for families basing themselves in town.

Activity Pembrokeshire pair coasteering with sea kayaking, so a group split between adrenaline seekers and gentler souls keeps everybody happy.

2. Coasteering Dorset & the Jurassic Coast

Home to wild and prehistoric scenery, coasteering in Dorset is an adventure every coasteerer has to experience at least once.

The Jurassic Coast runs 95 miles from Exmouth to Old Harry Rocks and became England's first natural World Heritage Site back in 2001. The rock records around 185 million years of the planet's history laid down in order, so the ledge you are standing on holds fossils older than anything you will meet on land all day.

Two spots stand out for us for coasteering Dorset routes:

1. Portland: Offers limestone platforms dropping straight into clear water, with sessions running out along Portland Bill.

2. Dancing Ledge (near Swanage): Arguably the finest coasteering venue in England, a huge shelf of quarried rock where Victorian workers blasted a tidal pool into the stone for a local school. Caves, ledges at every height, a proper natural swimming pool and water deep enough to keep your knees intact.

Our recommended providers for Coasteering in Dorset:

Jurassic Watersports know Dancing Ledge inside out, having worked the site through glassy flat days and six foot swell, so sessions still run when others cancel.

Cumulus Outdoors also work out of Dancing Ledge, with a challenge by choice approach and two qualified instructors per group. Strong on families, schools and larger parties.

Land and Wave cover both Portland and Swanage, with a ten minute walk across to the Portland Bill cliffs from their meeting point.

3. Coasteering Devon (North & South Coast)

North Devon takes the raw force of the Atlantic full in the face, and the coastline shows every bit of the battering. When booking coasteering in Devon, expect sea caves, gullies, arches and hidden coves you will never reach on foot. The whole stretch forms part of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, so the water is clean, the wildlife is everywhere and the scenery is properly wild.

Baggy Point near Croyde offers the most varied playground, with features the guides have named over the years like the U Bend and Swirly Gully. Round at Hele Bay near Ilfracombe the jumps go higher and the swell funnels into a feature known, accurately, as the Washing Machine.

Our recommended providers for coasteering in Devon:

H2Outdoor (North Devon) run Baggy Point and Hele Bay, licensed by the AALA and members of the National Coasteering Charter. Sessions from around £40, minimum age eight.

Ilfracombe Watersports Hub (North Devon) sits in Larkstone Cove beneath the cliffs of Hillsborough, with coasteering, kayaking, paddleboarding and open water swimming all run from the same slipway. Handy if you fancy trying several things across a weekend.

Sea-N-Shore (South Devon) are worth knowing about for the other side of the county. Based in Salcombe on the South Devon coast, they run coasteering around the sheltered creeks and cliffs of the South Hams, a gentler proposition when the Atlantic swell shuts the north coast down.

4. Coasteering Cornwall

Cornwall gives you more coastline than any other county in England, and roughly a thousand ways to get into the sea from a rock. The north coast takes the Atlantic swell head on, meaning coasteering in Cornwall carries a bit more energy than most, and the water in high summer turns an outrageous shade of blue.

Newquay is the surf capital of the UK and the routes here follow the same rugged headlands, with names like Adventure Gully. Further up the coast, Bossiney Cove sits between Tintagel and Boscastle, a hidden beach of golden sand and turquoise water backed by caves, with dolphins and seals passing through often enough to be worth watching for.

Our recommended providers for Coasteering in Cornwall:

Cornish Wave Adventure operating out of Newquay since 2012, this AALA-licensed provider specialises in small-group coastal adventures along Towan Headland and "The Gazzle," offering everything from gentle "Coasteer Lite" routes to wild cliff jumps, sea cave exploration, and surf combo weekends.

OA Surf Club run sessions at Bossiney Cove with more than twenty years of coasteering behind them and AALA accreditation. They also have accommodation, so a group books the coasteering and the beds in one go.

5. Coasteering North Wales (Anglesey)

Finishing our list of top spots for coasteering in Wales, we head to a coastline plenty of people drive straight past on the way to the mountains. Anglesey holds some of the finest sea cliff scenery in Britain, with rock worn into caves and arches and swell rolling in off the Irish Sea.

Sessions for coasteering North Wales lean towards the adventurous end: deep water entries, defensive swimming through the waves, hauling yourself back out onto the rock, and for anyone brave enough, jumps of up to ten metres. Add the mountains of Eryri rising behind you across the Menai Strait and the setting is hard to beat.

Our recommended provider for coasteering in North Wales:

Snowdonia Adventure Activities have been running Anglesey coasteering since 2011. Three hour sessions, minimum age twelve, thick five millimetre winter wetsuits and a habit of keeping the group moving so you fit in more jumps and spend less time shivering.

Planning a Coasteering Experience in the UK

Looking for tailored support in finding the right coasteering experience for you? We are here to help, always.

Choosing between all of these is genuinely difficult, and a long list of options starts to feel overwhelming pretty quickly. Which is exactly why we offer our free activity planning service. We take the time to understand what you are after, then build you an activity plan using our UK travel knowledge.

Your time away is special. We are here to make sure you book the best of what you came for. Get in touch today on our Activity Planning & Contact Page.