Visit Broadstairs - quintessential seaside town on the Kent coast

Visit Broadstairs - a charming seaside resort on the Kent coast with connections to a giant of the literary world.

A timeless family-friendly resort packed with beautiful bays and lots to see and do...

Broadstairs' spectacular coastline gives you seven sandy beaches and bucket loads of seaside charm. Here, families rediscover the joy of having fun together beside the shore. Central Viking Bay boasts children’s rides and beach huts; rural Botany Bay has photogenic chalk stacks; whilst Joss Bay offers a surf school and peaks that have long made wave-riders smile.

In Broadstairs you’ll find fishermen’s cottages, clifftop walks and independent shops lining original Victorian streets and alleyways. The town was Charles Dickens’ favourite holiday spot and his legacy includes Dickens House Museum. Nearby you’ll find the multi-award winning, costumed, St Peter’s Village Tours. Or for something with a more modern twist, try your luck at beating the challenges The Escapement escape room has to offer.

Like your food? You’ll love Broadstairs. Eateries include smart restaurants, quaint cafés and 1950s ice cream parlours. Visit in the autumn and at Easter to feast at the three-day Broadstairs Food Festival – a smorgasbord of fine Kentish produce, cider, beer and wine.

Other events will see you meeting costumed characters at June’s Broadstairs Dickens Festival; singing-along at sessions in August’s Broadstairs Folk Week or playing beach games and watching the fireworks at the Water Gala. In Broadstairs, nostalgia mixes easily with the new, especially on the music scene. If you like your music, Broadstairs Bandstand hosts regular concerts and gigs, while February's Broadstairs Blues Bash attracts fans of all kinds of blues music for this mostly free festival.

On 5th October 1849, Charles Dickens was staying at the Albion Hotel (now Royal Albion Hotel), writing early chapters of David Copperfield. In a letter to his friend, the illustrator John Leech, about the delights of this Thanet resort, he wrote: "There has been a trifle of rain here – a spot or two. But today is one of the most wonderful and charming days I ever saw – the air so brisk and bracing as it is nowhere but at Broadstairs – the Channel so busy and alive with shipping as it is nowhere but off Broadstairs – the hotel so cosy and like a private house as it is nowhere but in Broadstairs – everything as nothing is out of Broadstairs. Veeve la Broadstairs!"