A Seaside Town in February
I went to a coastal town about ninety minutes from here on a Tuesday in February. The arcade was open. The fish and chip shop was open. Almost everything else on the front had a shutter down and a handwritten sign saying back in March.
There were maybe fifteen people on a seafront that holds several thousand in August. It was four degrees and the wind was coming straight in off the water. I stayed six hours and it was one of the better days I have had in a while.
What is actually open
This is the thing to get right before you go, because getting it wrong turns a good day into a cold walk.
Reliably open: at least one cafe, usually the one the locals use rather than the one on the front. The pub. A newsagent. The chip shop, though possibly only from midday. The pier, if there is one, though often with half the units shuttered.
Reliably shut: anything described as an attraction, most of the gift shops, the ice cream places, and the tourist information office, which is closed in exactly the season when you might want to ask something.
The pattern I have learned is that the businesses serving residents stay open all year and the businesses serving visitors do not. Find the street the residents use, which is usually one back from the seafront, and everything you need is on it.
Why it is better than summer
The obvious answer is fewer people, and that is most of it. But there is something else, which is that an off season resort is a town rather than a destination. In August it exists to serve visitors and everybody in it is playing a role. In February it is just a place where about eleven thousand people live, and you are a slight oddity for being there.
The sea is also better, which I did not expect. Winter swell against a promenade wall is a genuinely impressive thing and it is completely absent in July. I spent about forty minutes just watching it come in over the lower walkway.
And the light. Low winter sun over water, in a town built to face that water, for about three hours in the middle of the day. It is the reason photographers go in February and everyone else goes in August.
The practical problems
Shelter is the main one. Seafronts are designed for good weather and there is often nowhere to get out of the wind for a considerable distance. The shelters on the promenade, where they exist, are usually open on the seaward side, which tells you they were built for shade rather than for February.
Plan your day around two or three indoor points and treat the walking between them as the activity. Six hours of continuous exposure on a winter seafront is more than most people want, including me.
Toilets are the other one. Public conveniences on a seafront are frequently closed for the winter, and the cafe you were relying on may be shut on a Tuesday specifically.
Getting there
Off season train fares to coastal towns are often startlingly cheap, because the operators are trying to fill trains that run empty. I paid less than a third of the August fare.
The trains themselves are near empty too, which makes the journey part of the day rather than the price of it. On the way back I had a table by the window for the whole hour and a half.
Check the last train carefully. Off season timetables on branch lines are thinner than you think and the last service back can be surprisingly early, particularly on a Sunday.
Which towns
The larger resorts stay busier and keep more open, which is a genuine trade off. A big seaside town in February still has things to do and still has a few hundred people about.
The small ones are the real thing. A town of five thousand with a single row of shops and a harbour is close to deserted in February, and if that is what you are after, it is exactly what you get. It also means one cafe, no backup, and a real chance of arriving to find it shut.
I now ring ahead, which feels excessive and has saved two days.
The pier, if there is one
Piers in winter are the single best thing about an off season coastal town and they are also the most likely to be shut.
Where one is open, walking out over water in a February wind is worth the journey by itself. You are further from land than you can get anywhere else without a boat, the sea is doing something violent underneath you, and there is nobody else on it. The one I know best has a shelter halfway along, glazed on three sides, which in winter is effectively a private room over the water.
Where it is shut, it is shut completely and there is no partial version. Check before you travel, because a pier is often the reason to pick one town over another.
Talking to people
An unexpected feature of the off season. In August nobody in a resort town has time to talk to you. In February you are notable, and several times I have ended up in a longer conversation than I expected with someone behind a counter who had no one else to serve.
This is pleasant and it is also the opposite of solitude, so it is worth knowing that it happens. If you want a completely silent day, the off season resort is a slightly odd choice, because being one of fifteen people means you are visible in a way that being one of five thousand does not.
The chip shop at two on a Tuesday in February is a social situation whether you intended one or not.
Where to sit
This is the practical crux. Seafront shelters are cold and often face the wrong way. Cafes close at four or earlier. The pub is warm and is a pub.
What I look for now is a bus shelter on the front, which sounds bleak and is actually ideal: glazed, out of the wind, facing the sea, and completely unused in February. I have spent an hour in one watching the swell and would do it again.
Failing that, the library. Every coastal town has one, it is warm, it is open, and it usually has a window facing something.
