Postcard from a Cornish Summer

INSPIRATION | CABANA TRAVEL | WORLD OF CABANA

South Cornwall is a place of wild, untrammelled beauty where granite cliffs plunge into the clear blue waters and hidden coves hold secrets of a seafaring past. Artists including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Patrick Heron were drawn to Cornwall's shores for its unique light, while families favor the vast uninterrupted stretches of sand. Three Mile Beach is the quintessential Cornish retreat, finds Camilla Frances, a place where all ages can embrace, and settle into, the gentle rhythms of coastal life.

BY CAMILLA FRANCES | CABANA TRAVEL | 21 SEPTEMBER 2025

In the far southwest of England, where the land tapers off into the Atlantic, there are a few special places where, on a sunny day in high summer, the English coast can rival the shores of South Australia. Stay with me here. It’s not the temperatures – although Cornwall does serve the requisite weather surprisingly often – but rather the vast golden beaches overlooked by rocky ocean roads, the surfers bobbing on waves, and the colorful shacks selling wetsuits, surf boards, and excellent coffee. 

Despite almost annual visits to Cornwall, Gwithian Towans, known locally as Three Mile Beach, is a spot I’d managed to miss. Close to St Ives, and often overshadowed by South Cornwall’s most photogenic spots, like St Mawes and Mousehole, Gwithian Towans was recently voted Britain’s best beach by The Sunday Times. This is often a poisoned chalice, bringing unwanted hoards and overcrowded restaurants, but not so here. Within minutes of arriving, following a six-hour drive from London and a 5am start, our tired urban feet are pressing into soft Cornish sand – three uninterrupted miles of it.

We hop from sand dunes into shallow pools of sun-warmed water, dotted with seaweed and tiny Cornish crabs. The children eye ice creams and scones with clotted cream and jam, while trying to protect their pasties from circling gulls. The crashing waves and sea breeze drown out all but the faintest of happy shrieks as families splash in and out of the sea, and surfers await their moment. We stretch the day out as long as we can, and when it’s time for a late lunch we discover that Cornish beach picnics have evolved far beyond sandy sandwiches. We amble across the sand clutching boxes full of mackerel pate and toasted sourdough, sweet potato and spicy spinach Dahl, and Korean chicken burgers. All are notably delicious and cooked to order at the Hidden Hut, a Three Mile Beach institution where the lunchtime queues are justified. 

As the afternoon closes out, we head to a village of colorful cedar beach shacks, concealed among the marram grasses just beyond the beach. Also called Three Mile Beach, these quietly luxuriously dwellings, which opened in the summer of 2021, offer some of the best accommodation in South Cornwall. The brainchild of Audley Travel founder Craig Burkinshaw and his partner, Joanne Le Bon, the vibe is low key and laid back, with a distinctly Antipodean feel; the two, three and four-bedroomed houses are modelled on coastal surf shacks with clapperboard exteriors, whitewashed interiors and expansive decks with hot tubs, wood-fired saunas and huge Aussie style barbecues. Inside, the interiors tell a similar story with the decoration and open-plan design virtually indistinguishable from the beach shacks one finds in the southern hemisphere. Add colorful baskets from west Africa, rugs sourced in Morocco and pastel-tiled bathrooms.

It’s a coastal village dreamland of sorts, rainbow painted and scented by woodsmoke. Each hut is a little kingdom, with everything you could need for an easy, multi-generation vacation. And as always with Cornwall, there’s a sense of creativity – of people who have travelled to rest, write, breathe, and escape the city. Co-founder Joanne, who “always dreamed of living in a pink house", is among them: “I wanted to create something magical and fun so guests could switch off from normality and allow their senses to run riot. I am obsessed with color and I’m not a massive stickler for rules or conformity, so it would have pained me to build something run of the mill and unassuming. Cornwall is already such a unique and enchanting place so I just wanted to build on that sense of nostalgia, dreaminess and joy, which it brings to me, and fill it with beautiful things.” 

Designed with young families or groups of friends in mind, these are ‘have-it-all’ huts: everything you could possibly need for blissful indoor-outdoor living is here, or can easily be arranged, from yoga classes, surf lessons and paddle boarding to wellness treatments at the on-site spa and al fresco dining at the on-site restaurant. Wellness-minded guests can even practice the Wim Hof method with a half day workshop on breath work and cold-water immersion, while family-friendly activities include cooking classes, foraging walks, jewellery making, and in-hut art classes with a local artist. Along with all-weather wet suits and body boards awaiting us in our beach hut (the team helpfully check sizes pre arrival), Ooni pizza ovens – with ready-to-roll dough and a generous range of toppings – can be ordered on request, making dinner a hands-on experience, should you choose to accept it. On other nights we wander, several of us without shoes, to the on-site restaurant where dinner is served in little tents and under canopies.

Even on a gloriously warm, cloudless day, Three Mile Beach can accommodate all sun seekers without feeling busy - you only need walk a short distance and you’ll find an isolated spot. Days here start earlier for me, rising is easier, and the beaches are inviting and enticing at dawn, empty but for dog walkers and yogis. The friendly, attentive team at Three Mile Beach even includes a qualified yoga instructor. I mention my desire to ‘get back into’ (start) regular yoga and the next morning we’re on the beach at 8am crunching out the knots in my neck and back. The morning sun, views across Gwithian Towans and teacher Bex’s reassuring, calm tutelage make it all the lovelier.

Afterwards, I’m rewarded with locally roasted coffee from the mint-green drinks truck before heading back to my beach shack - where one child is only just waking (all hail soporific sea air and surf lessons) and the other is in the hot tub. I walk past the spa and peruse the menu, briefly entertaining more child-free hours, but the sea calls.