I'm going to say an unpopular opinion- but Cornwall is crap: (I'm in the country next door- Devon)
Lets see the principle towns:
Hayle- a run down place with a river.
Padstow- rubbish
Newquay- one trick pony, good for surfers not much else.
Bodmin- Bodmin Jail is good, the rest is a bit meh.
Penzance- rubbish, the only thing good about the place is a trip to Isles of Scilly. Oh and it might have a harbour.
St Austell- reputation for drug users
Liskeard- a ghost town.
Callington- an even worse ghost town.
Bodmin Moors- no one walks there.
Falmouth- if you like modern and hip Cornwall.
Wadebridge- reasonably decent town.
Truro- the only city in Cornwall, commuting nightmare for many, as it's a central place for work.
Camborne- known as the roughest part of Cornwall.
Redruth- you only have to pass by on a train to see how bad this is.
Launceston- main feature- Norman castle on a hill. It's actually quite a quaint little town but everyone bypasses it. Got mugged there for 50p once.
Good parts:
St Ives- but rampacked with tourists.
Polzeath- great beach.
Bude- lovely place, ram-packed with tourists in summer months.
Depends what you're after. That's a list of towns and frankly, you don't come to Cornwall to spend your time in any of the towns. This isn't the place for nightlife, for Michelin-star dining, for theatre, etc. If you're spending your time in St Ives you're probably getting mugged (not literally) by paying tourist prices for everything. Fancy a loaf of bread for £8? St Ives can hook you up.
Cornwall's appeal is essentially the terrain, and for those of us who live here, the climate. Cornwall doesn't (typically) get too hot, or too cold. Cornwall's temperature rarely dips into negative degrees C, and we can grow tender plants outdoors where other places in the UK can't. I guess that's a double-edged sword as it's a huge bonus point for retirees
We have an awesome coastline. You'll need a car to see any of it tho, because public transport is non-existent. Beeching/Marples closed all the branch lines and we've never recovered from that. If there was ever a place that needed an extensive train network, it is Cornwall, but we've lost just about all of them. Busses run once every leap year.
There are no big cities, and air quality is decent. Wherever you are, the countryside is only 10 mins away, pretty much. People say Cornwall is laid back and we do everything drekly. That's hard to measure or verify, but there might be some truth in that
Prices in Cornwall are high for everything. The average used car is significantly more expensive than anywhere else (all those retirees buy local and stump up the extra cash). Wages are rock bottom unless you work remotely for a London firm.
Listen, I'm not trying to be Cornwall's salesman. There are lots of drawbacks to living here. Nobody said Cornwall was all that, for working-age people. But people should be able to live and work here. Even shopworkers, cleaners and carers. That's the whole point of this thread.
