Sea pools give you the thrill of sea swimming minus the dangers of the open water – and they’re often a sight to behold, a beautifully illustrated book has revealed.

Showcasing 66 ‘saltwater sanctuaries’ around the world, Sea Pools by Chris Romer-Lee is described by publisher Batsford Books as ‘a celebration of sea-swimming’.

With each turn of the page comes a wave of anecdotes and facts about sea pools that are dotted along coastlines everywhere from Cornwall to Australia. On top of that, the tome is swimming in breathtaking photography. 

‘Whether they are hewn from rock or cast onto a natural rock shelf these pools always solve a problem: providing safe access to water,’ Romer-Lee writes in his tome.

He adds that there’s an ‘unfettered joy to be found in entering sheltered tidal waters cradled by a concrete or rock enclosure, protected from the turbulent sea beyond the walls and yet still being nourished by rich saltwater and marine life’. 

Scroll down to dive into a selection of these spellbinding sea pools for yourself…  

The average Briton might visit a handful of seaside resorts over two years – but one travel writer tasked herself with exploring a staggering 40 coastal towns in that space of time.

Revealing everything she discovered along the way, Madeleine Bunting documented her travels – which took place from 2020 to 2022 – in new book The Seaside: England’s Love Affair.

Speaking to MailOnline Travel, the author reflects on the experience, shedding light on the town that surprised her the most, the resort she found to be ‘stunning’ – and the town that left her feeling ‘bewildered’…

What inspired you to do this project?

Madeleine says: ‘I always love the seaside and when my sister told me that Scarborough had fallen on hard times, I remembered the glorious visits I made there on school trips in the late sixties. We all know seaside resorts have high levels of deprivation but I became curious…’ 

The author said she started to wonder about ‘how poor’ certain seaside towns had become and why they’d faced ‘such a long steady decline’. She also wanted to find out, she reveals, ‘which towns have managed to turn [their fortunes] around’. 

How did you choose which towns to visit?

‘Born in North Yorkshire, my childhood holidays were on that coast, so I had to start there,’ Madeleine reveals.

She continues: ‘Skegness was where my husband had his early childhood holidays and after that, I kept going round the coast anti-clockwise. Sadly, I couldn’t get everywhere and there are lots of towns I would have loved to have added in – Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft for example.’

Summing up her thoughts on the counties she toured, Madeleine says: ‘Essex was full of surprises, Kent was fascinating and I’ve always loved the Sussex coast. Because my focus was the big resorts, I didn’t cover Cornwall in-depth.’ She adds that ‘Blackpool and Morecambe made a very satisfying finale’ to her travels.

In each town, where did you stay and what did you do?

Madeleine says: ‘My aim was to sample every kind of accommodation so I stayed in hotels, holiday camps, hotels and Airbnbs.’

She continues: ‘In every resort, I swam and ate fish and chips, walked the promenade and talked to anyone who would talk to me. I had wonderful conversations with strangers who sometimes ended up telling me their life stories.’

How have seaside towns changed over the past century?

‘That’s a huge question – and the whole book is about that process of change,’ Madeleine says.

She reveals: ‘The odd thing is that [English resorts] probably have as many visitors as they did at their peak in the 1950s – 13million visit Blackpool annually – but they don’t stay for that traditional two-week holiday, which was the mainstay of the towns’ income.’ 

Have towns changed for the worse in any way?

Madeleine says that in some places, there are ‘pockets of deep deprivation with issues around substance abuse’ and ‘low life chances for those born in the town’ – both of which are ‘painful results of economic decline’.

Which is England’s best seaside town?

Madeleine reveals: ‘[This is] such a tough question because I enjoyed so many of them but I think Scarborough is stunning and full of intriguing reminders of its glamorous past.’ 

And the worst?

Madeleine says she can’t single out one seaside resort as the worst, but she admits that visiting Padstow in Cornwall ‘was a bewildering experience’. 

While there, she saw ‘a few streets packed with people who couldn’t get into the expensive restaurants, which are booked up in advance’. She also found that Padstow’s ‘crazy house prices’ mean that ‘locals no longer live in the town’. 

What’s so special about England’s relationship with seaside resorts?

‘We’re island people, nowhere is far from the sea,’ says Madeleine. 

She continues: ‘All of us have a special relationship with our many coastlines. Readers are now writing to me with their own biographies of where they went when… my aim was to prompt that, so I am delighted.’

Elaborating on this ‘special relationship’, the author notes that ‘we visit the coast at key moments – to scatter ashes, to get engaged, that type of thing’. 

Which town surprised you the most?

Madeleine says: ‘There were surprises everywhere: the Lincolnshire beaches are vast; Southend had crystal clear water; Margate’s charm; Folkestone’s stunning gardens; Blackpool’s Comedy Carpet; Morecambe’s Midland Hotel. 

‘The list just goes on and on; our coastline is hugely varied in its geology, architecture and history.’

Are there any resorts you predict will get a new lease of life in the future?

‘There is huge potential in many coastal towns with the right infrastructure of good public transport [and] digital links,’ says Madeleine. 

She continues: ‘Many of them have charming period housing which is relatively cheap; for families, they could offer a wonderful quality of life. Hybrid working can open up new possibilities.’

The author recalls: ‘I met a young Indian couple working in Scarborough; he was an engineer and she was a landscape architect. Professional, highly educated and loving North Yorkshire’s coast. They filled me with hope of a new dynamic future for these beautiful towns on our coastal edge.’ 

Are there any you predict will be lost to time?

The author says that there is ‘very little left of’ New Brighton in Merseyside ‘except a tea shop with lots of framed photos on the wall of its incredible history when ferries loaded with visitors crossed the Mersey for day trips’.

For three years in a row, Bamburgh has been named the UK’s best seaside town in an annual ranking by Which? – with the Northumberland village scoring an impressive 88 per cent in this year’s survey.

The Lincolnshire beach resort of Skegness, meanwhile, has floundered at the bottom of the table for the past four years running, this year tying for last place with Clacton-on-Sea with a dismal score of 48 per cent.

But what is the difference between the best and the worst? And is the worst really that bad? I’m holidaying in both Bamburgh and Skegness, along with a friend, to find out. 

In the former, there are ‘magical’ views and a ‘knockout’ beach, but some surprisingly high prices. While in the latter, there are shots of Jagermeister in the morning, littered cigarette butts – but an impressive bounty of amusements. Read on for more…

SKEGNESS

BEACHES AND SEAFRONT

Skegness’ Blue Flag beach is huge, sandy and a clear hit with families, who have heaps of room to spread out and throw down their picnics, buckets and spades. We see a pair of detectorists scouring the sand, a paraglider floating overhead and children bodyboarding in the sea. Some empty cups and crushed McDonald’s packaging are littered here and there on the sand on Saturday afternoon, but by Sunday morning it’s cleaned up and the beach is spotless.

The pier itself – which dates back to 1881 – is pretty, festooned with fairy lights and with old-timey writing spelling out ‘Skegness’. And it’s about to get an ambitious makeover. A noticeboard unveils plans to turn it into ‘an exciting and educational visitor attraction’ with ‘stylish glass dome shelters’ and pockets of greenery.

FOOD AND DRINK

Around the seafront there’s stall upon stall selling doughnuts, ice creams and booze-infused slushies, while the smell of fish and chips wafts from the cafes. On first impressions, everything seems sugar-coated or deep-fried, but a handful of stalls sell fresh shellfish too – dressed crab and tubs of mussels for just a few quid.

And a star turn comes in the form of Tarantino Restaurant, the town’s Italian eatery. It’s packed on Saturday evening, but we manage to get a table and have an excellent dinner – truffle arancini (£5.90) and calamari (£8.90) to share, with tricolore salad (£7.90) for mains and a lovely bottle of Sicilian Miral Nero d’Avola (£22.50).

ACCOMMODATION

Our berths are at the Savoy hotel on North Parade, a handy spot a few minutes from the seafront. It costs £99 to book through Booking.com. 

The welcoming staff let us check in early and while the room itself has no frills, it’s clean and comfortable.

TOURIST ATTRACTIONS AND ENTERTAINMENT

A map in the centre of town is supposed to outline the town’s highlights, but it’s been partially torn away – although a sign in its place assures that a ‘new map is coming soon’.

It doesn’t matter, as it’s easy to see that Skegness – or Skeg Vegas as it’s nicknamed – is chock-a-block with attractions, starting with the endless arcades and bingo halls. There’s an ‘Upside Down House’, several mini golf courses, pedalos for hire and the Altitude44 climbing course, which bills itself as ‘the UK’s tallest urban ropes course’. At the heart of the seafront is the Skegness Pleasure Beach theme park, home to candy-coloured dodgems, a Ferris wheel, a ghost train, and more. It’s a kind of paradise for kids.

Our visit coincides with the annual SO Festival, which sees open-air plays hosted in Tower Gardens and performers taking to the streets.

A handful of historic sites take you back to Skegness’s Victorian heyday, from the neo-Gothic clocktower to the fountain crowned by the town’s ‘Jolly Fisherman’ mascot, who had a starring role in a 1908 advert with the now-iconic slogan ‘Skegness is SO bracing’.

The standard of evening entertainment is more of a grey area. I ask a bartender if she has any tips for where to go on a Saturday night in the town, and she recommends a bar called ‘Busters’. When I ask her if it’s any good, she shrugs and replies that ‘it is what it is, it’s Skeggie’.

SCENERY

The town is a peculiar mishmash of Victorian heritage and rainbow-coloured shops selling bucket hats and vapes. It isn’t the prettiest but there’s a kitschy charm to it.

Sitting on the beach, the main view is of the Lincs Offshore Wind Farm 8km (five miles) off the coast. Some may find the wind turbines an eyesore but they’re impressive – signage on the beach informs bathers that they can ‘meet the annual electricity needs of more than 300,000 households’.

The beach is at its most scenic when you wander south, away from the ruckus of the fairground rides towards the quiet of the Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve, where skylarks, waders and brent geese can be spotted, depending on the season.

SHOPPING

If you’re looking for a bargain, there’s a bundle of charity shops and stalls selling trinkets and seaside staples. In one shop, I’m tempted by a feather-trimmed cowboy hat, while another has some strange hyper-realistic dolls on display, which seem to stop passersby in their tracks.

PEACE AND QUIET

There’s a stag party doing shots of Jagermeister on our train at 9.30 in the morning. When a hen do boards they convince the bride-to-be to do a shot with them. They then announce that everyone should avoid the train toilet because one of their group ‘dropped his guts’ in there. It seems like a bad omen for the rest of the trip.

But when we get to the town, the hen and stag parties trickle off into the bars, and holidaying families and pensioners are the ones that fill the streets. While it’s busy in the daytime, it’s quieter than expected on a Saturday night, and actually quite peaceful and empty on Sunday morning.

VALUE FOR MONEY

Skegness is a good shout for a budget beach break. I see uber-cheap pints for £3.50. You could easily get lunch for under a fiver – there are places selling haddock and chips for £4.50 and egg baps for £2.20. For dessert, you could get a 99 ice cream with all the trimmings for around £2.

And the pricing takes into account the variety of holidaymakers who love Skegness. One place advertises a ‘senior citizen special’ – cod or haddock with chips, bread and butter, and a cup of tea for £6.99. Kids’ meals, in some restaurants, are priced at as little as £2.30.

TRANSPORT

It’s no hassle to get there by train. LNER takes us from London’s King’s Cross station to the town of Grantham, before we change on to one of the relatively frequent East Midlands Railway trains to Skegness. The view from the window seat is picturesque as you near the coast, cutting past a sprawl of green Lincolnshire fields and the chocolate-box Heckington Windmill.

OVERALL VERDICT

The flashy attractions and sugar-loaded snacks at every turn make the place a sensory overload, but that’s part of its charm. It’s not for everyone but it’s a winning recipe for many, with Skegness welcoming 2.3million visitors a year. The holidaymakers I see there seem to be having a blast.

A waitress at a cafe in the town tells me that ‘lots of people knock [Skegness]’ but that it can be ‘lovely’ when it’s quiet. ‘Everyone is really friendly,’ she adds.

There seems to be a problem with littering and parts of the town look a little run down. I see lots of cigarette butts scattered along the streets, for instance. If a little TLC was injected into the town – and visitors took more care to pick up their rubbish – Skegness could be restored to its glory days. Perhaps the restoration of the pier will herald a turning point.

While waiting for a table at Tarantino Restaurant, I get speaking to another first-time visitor in Skegness. I ask her what she thinks of the town, and she describes it as a ‘strange little place’. In her words, it’s ‘bizarre and excellent at the same time’. I second that.

SCORES OUT OF FIVE: Beaches and seafront – 3. Food and drink – 3. Accommodation – 3. Tourist attractions and entertainment – 5. Scenery – 2. Shopping – 3. Peace and quiet – 2. Value for money – 4. Transport – 5. Overall score – 66 per cent.

BAMBURGH

BEACHES AND SEAFRONT

I’m not surprised Bamburgh’s beach gets five stars in the Which? survey – it’s a knockout. There’s no litter. The sand is pale gold and soft underfoot – almost tropical. The water is clear and a shade of blue that you rarely see in the UK. A barista in the village tells me that she believes it’s the area’s water quality that makes Bamburgh (pronounced ‘bam buh ruh’) so popular.

I see clusters of families paddling in the sea and building sandcastles, but the beach is so vast and long that it could never feel crowded.

The cherry on top is the sight of Bamburgh Castle – built atop a mammoth heft of rock – looming over the beach. I chat with one local woman who describes it as the ‘best sandcastle in England’.

FOOD AND DRINK

It’s surprisingly expensive to go for dinner in Bamburgh – most restaurants have main dishes around the £20 to £30 mark. The place to go is Michelin Guide-recommended fish restaurant The Potted Lobster, but it’s fully booked on Saturday night. I end up going for a pub dinner in The Castle Inn as its menu has the cheapest prices, but regret it when my underwhelming veggie burger (£14.95) arrives at the table. It has an inviting beer garden, however.

Lunch options are better. The sign for the ‘Butcher, Baker, Sausage Roll Maker’ marks the entrance to R Carter and Sons butchers, where you can get ‘three bangers in a bap’ for a bargain £3. Their sausages have been voted the finest in Northumberland, it proudly notes. Plus, the business is a piece of Bamburgh’s history – as the sign hanging outside says, ‘it’s been carnivore heaven since 1887’.

ACCOMMODATION

I pay £125 for a night in Hillcrest House Bed & Breakfast right in the village. It’s a sweet little place if somewhat dated. 

Friendly owner Malcolm and his son seem to go the extra mile for guests – two cyclists seated near me at breakfast are presented with the kippers they’ve requested, even though they aren’t on the breakfast menu.

TOURIST ATTRACTIONS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Bamburgh is a honey pot for history enthusiasts. The big attraction, naturally, is Bamburgh Castle, which recently doubled as a Nazi stronghold in the new Indiana Jones blockbuster. A day ticket is £15.50 for adults and a family ticket is £41. You get mesmerising views of the sea from the canon-lined ramparts. Kids seem transfixed by the haunting dungeons in the belly of the castle, which are filled with mannequin prisoners.

Free-to-enter, meanwhile, is the fascinating St Aidan’s Church, which dates back to 635AD. A must-see is the eerie church crypt, wherein lies a row of ossuary boxes containing the bones of 7th and 8th-century locals.

The graveyard holds an ornate monument to Grace Darling, a local lighthouse keeper’s daughter who rose to fame when she helped to rescue survivors from an 1838 shipwreck. There’s also a museum dedicated to her, though it’s closed during our visit.

A poster in the village advertises an upcoming sandcastle building contest (the theme is ‘sea creature’) and there’s a playground, a golf course and cricket matches at the pavilion – complete with signs warning to ‘beware of flying cricket balls’. It’s all very endearing, but you’d run out of things to do after a day or two if you didn’t have a car.

SCENERY

The sight of the castle soaring over the village is spectacular. As for the village itself, it looks like a filming location for Midsomer Murders, with flowers clinging to the walls and couples playing croquet on the pavilion.

When the sun starts to set, we stand atop a hill beside the castle – a perch once voted ‘one of the UK’s top 10 lunch spots’ – and admire the scenery. The view, with the Farne Islands archipelago fading into the horizon, is nothing short of magical. There’s no doubt Bamburgh deserves the full five stars it was awarded for scenery in the Which? ranking.

SHOPPING

There’s not much in the way of shopping, but that’s down to the village’s size. The main shop is a teeny deli called The Pantry that sells local produce such as Northumberland cheeses and preserves. For souvenirs, you can pick up prints and postcards in the Bamburgh Castle gift shop.

PEACE AND QUIET

Bamburgh’s popularity and its tiny size are at odds with one another – it can get jampacked in the daytime. We can’t get a seat at The Copper Kettle Tea Rooms at lunchtime as it’s full up. A whopper queue of families and dog walkers forms on the main street, stemming from the Wyndenwell café – the town’s purveyor of ice creams. But it seems the majority of visitors are daytrippers, as once dusk falls, it’s sleepy and silent.

VALUE FOR MONEY

I’m taken aback by the restaurant prices in the village – even coming from London. Lots of travellers would be priced out of a visit. The cost of accommodation, on the other hand, is standard. Generally, however, it doesn’t compete with Skegness’s cheap and cheerful prices.

TRANSPORT

We catch an LNER Azuma train from London King’s Cross to Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost town in England, speeding past the isle of Lindisfarne and its 16th-century castle as the train traces the Northumberland coast. From the town, the X81 bus to Alnwick – which runs a few times a day – takes us straight to Bamburgh.

OVERALL VERDICT

I can see why Bamburgh ranks in first place time and time again. It offers an enchanting cocktail of beautiful scenery and magnificent historic sites. A local woman tells me that travellers typically overlook Northumberland in favour of Devon or Cornwall, but ‘once they’ve come and seen what it’s like, they keep telling their friends and coming back’. The steep restaurant prices are off-putting, however. I’d recommend renting self-catering accommodation or dining in nearby village Seahouses, where prices are more reasonable.

All in all, Skegness and Bamburgh are worlds apart, but they each have a unique appeal – and seem to be luring holidaymakers in their droves.

SCORES OUT OF FIVE: Beaches and seafront – 5. Food and drink – 3. Accommodation – 4. Tourist attractions and entertainment – 5. Scenery – 5. Shopping – 2. Peace and quiet – 4. Value for money – 3. Transport – 5. Overall score – 80 per cent.

Sugar daddies are wolfing caviar blinis. Bottles of Moet are flowing in nightclubs. All perfectly normal in Sopot on the Polish Riviera.

This seaside town has had a South of France feel ever since Frenchman Jean Haffner founded a sauna and beach cabins here in 1823.

The big difference from Cannes or Nice — aside from the temperature — is that everything is remarkably good value. I’m staying at the Sofitel Grand Sopot hotel in the heart of the resort, where former guests include Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

Come August, rooms here cost £200 a night, falling to £80 in low season. You could hardly get lunch in Cannes for that.

Sunbeds line Sopot’s 2.5 mile-long beach, leading to Europe’s longest wooden pier, which acts as a kind of catwalk above the sea. Bikini-clad women clutch chihuahuas while sleek yachts dock alongside. Hipsters in Ray-Bans saunter up and offer jetski rides.

Beyond the pier is Mamuszki 15, a restaurant with 200 beach chairs on the golden sand. It has its own sauna and Balinese massage studio, sited where Jean Haffner built his original bathhouse two centuries ago. Lunch is Baltic herrings grilled to perfection, with a dill consomme.

That costs a fiver and you can use the restaurant’s private pool, too. In the 1920s, some swimmers went nude. That’s because Sopot belonged to the Free City of Danzig (nearby Gdansk), which was later incorporated into the German Reich.

During the Roaring Twenties, Deutsche Luft Hansa would deposit moneyed holidaymakers directly on the beach via a seaplane from Berlin. Sopot featured saucy cabaret, but most activities were mass displays of muscular positivity. Period photos show pier-diving contests, group gymnastics, beach archery and Wagnerian opera shows. Sopot was fancy even then.

It’s interesting to promenade past Sopot’s gorgeous Belle Epoque villas, where house prices are among the highest in Poland. The most extravagant villa hosts the Sopot Museum. Here curator Justyna Gibbs uses historic images to explain how, following World War II, Sopot became a socialist St Tropez.

‘In 1961, Poland’s first rock club, Non-Stop, opened in Sopot,’ says Gibbs.

An elite group of government and military holidaymakers came from socialist nations such as the Soviet Union and Hungary. Fidel Castro jetted in to smoke cigars by the sand.

Polish vacationers took the direct train from Warsaw, then tuned into The Beatles via Radio Luxembourg. During the Sopot International Song Festival, Boney M banged out Rasputin while dressed in sequined pantaloons.

Sopot, like St Tropez, was originally a fishing village. This meant that foreign clothes and illicit books could be landed on the beach. ‘Sopot was a window on the West and probably the most liberal town in Poland,’ says Gibbs.

The nation’s first disco, Musicorama, opened in the Grand Sopot hotel in 1970. The launch poster promised music from Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull. They probably didn’t know what had hit them.

Time to visit a far newer nightclub named Tan. Cripes, I feel old. The club is sponsored by Chivas whisky. The drink is sloshed over two dancefloors as a thumping beat propels hands in the air. For dress code read ‘half naked’.

At Tan, the shot of choice is Ostoya Vodka. It’s alarmingly drinkable. Shame that tomorrow I’m riding the railroad to Hel.

The Hel Peninsula contains 20 miles of white sand beaches. The £5 train from Sopot calls at Jurata (an Insta-generation surf beach), Jastarnia (for Riviera-style hotels) and Chałupy (Poland’s first naturist beach). Next you arrive at Hel, a chi-chi seaside escape. Hel is heaven for beachcombers, seafood lovers and swimmers, although the sea rarely exceeds a Baltic 70f (21c).

Back in Sopot for a pick-me-up, head for the Haffner Hotel, which carries on the wellness spirit 200 years after Monsieur Haffer started the first spa. Treatments include a paraffin foot wrap (£31), but I go for a soothing Ayurvedic massage, drifting off and not worrying about lavish South of France prices.