We plan to take more than 6 years to complete the task, having started from Minehead in April 2007. From south west London travel by public transport takes half a day to reach the nearest sections of the path so overnight stays are essential. There are various options:
We loathe camping so have only tried the other options. It's important to spend time researching all possibilities before starting out on a new section of the walk, particularly transport links if you are planning to find accommodation for a few days in one place.
For some sections of the walk, there are local buses but some of the more remote stretches have little public transport. A new service in 2009 is the very useful Luggage Transfer South West service which can transfer your bags between accommodation stops along the route. We used this service for the first time around the Lizard and found it to be excellent. More good news is that they are extending their service to cover the whole of the path. They also provide details of accommodation along the route which will help with planning feasible stages.
There are also B&Bs, eg Lake House B&B, Bradworthy (covering the path from Barnstaple to Tintagel), which can transport guests to and from the coast path each day.
Websites
The Official Guide to the South West Coast Path provides an excellent and detailed guide to the 630 mile route in 53 stages.
The South West Coast Path Association provides online and printed information, news on the current state of the path, accommodation and a distance and timing calculator.
Luggage Transfer South West provides excellent service transferring luggage between accommodation stops. They will be covering the whole path from 2010 and also have a lot of information about accommodation.
Night Riviera Sleeper Service - services between Paddington and St Austell, Truro, Redruth, Penzance so you don't waste a day travelling.
We prefer to do shorter stages than those detailed on the official sites so we are listing our stages for anyone who might be interested. We include start and finish points, an estimate of the distance walked and the height climbed. NB the entire walk involves climbing (and descending) a total height equal to more than three times that of Mount Everest....
South West Coast Path
The South West Coast Path is the longest of the official UK National Trails, running from Minehead in Somerset round the English south west peninsula coast to Poole in Dorset. The total length is just over 1000 kilometres or, more precisely, 630 miles. Only very dedicated walkers could contemplate completing the whole walk in one go, although plenty have done just this. The Official Guide to the South West Coast Path suggests 53 stages and the South West Coast Path Association the proposes a plan for doing the route in 8 weeks.