Eat oysters on the beach or at the harbour market

Walk the alleys between the high street and the sea

Cycle the Crab and Winkle Way towards Canterbury

Watch the sunset from the Old Neptune on the shingle

Whitstable's native oysters were dredged from beds beyond the low water mark from Roman times until the mid-20th century; oysters are still farmed on the foreshore, and the town holds an oyster festival every September. The town runs in weatherboarded alleys between the beach and the high street, the Crab and Winkle Way follows parts of the old railway line to Canterbury, and the harbour the railway company built in 1832 is still working.

Whitstable: Oysters Off the Beach

Canterbury and Whitstable

Dover

A six-night loop from Dover through Kent and East Sussex: Becket's cathedral at Canterbury, the shingle of Dungeness, the battlefield of 1066, and a last walk along the White Cliffs.

Kent and East Sussex from Dover

Canterbury

A week from Dover to Arundel: the White Cliffs and Canterbury Cathedral, Rye and the shingle at Dungeness, the battlefield of 1066 at Battle, then Beachy Head, the Seven Sisters and Brighton's Royal Pavilion.

Kent and Sussex: The White Cliffs to the South Downs

Visit Canterbury Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where Thomas Becket was murdered on 29 December 1170, and stand under the Bell Harry Tower at the crossing

Visit St Augustine's Abbey, founded after St Augustine's arrival in 597

Visit St Martin's Church, the oldest church in continuous use in the English-speaking world

Take a punt tour on the River Stour through the city, in the warmer months

Walk under the Westgate Towers, the medieval gatehouse of about 1380

Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170, and the cathedral is a World Heritage Site. St Augustine's Abbey was founded after Augustine arrived in 597, and St Martin's Church is the oldest church in continuous use in the English-speaking world. The Westgate Towers of about 1380 are the medieval gate into the city, and punts go out on the Stour.

Canterbury: Becket's Cathedral and St Martin's

Walk the shell-lined passage to the altar chamber

Look for the patterns and guess at the symbols

See the current exhibition at Turner Contemporary by the harbour

See the Scenic Railway at Dreamland, the Grade II* listed wooden roller coaster retired in 2026

Under a Margate street runs a winding chalk passage 21m long ending in a rectangular chamber, and almost every surface of it is covered in mosaic made of about 4.6 million shells — some 190m² of it. It was rediscovered around 1835 and opened to the public in 1837, and nobody knows who made it, when, or why. Above ground, Margate has Turner Contemporary by the harbour and the Dreamland amusement park.

Margate: The Shell Grotto Nobody Can Explain

Walk out along Southend Pier, 2.14km long and the longest pleasure pier in the world

Ride the pier railway, the first pier railway in the country, out to the pier head

Watch waders on the estuary mud at low tide

Southend Pier runs 2.14km (1.33 miles) out into the Thames estuary, the longest pleasure pier in the world, with its own railway along it because of the distance. The town grew as the Londoners' seaside, and at low tide waders feed on the estuary mud.

Southend: The Longest Pleasure Pier in the World

Walk the White Cliffs of Dover from the Langdon Cliffs visitor centre along the top of the chalk cliffs, about 110m above the sea

Tour South Foreland Lighthouse, the first lighthouse to be lit by electricity, in 1858, where Marconi received the first ship-to-shore radio message in 1898

Tour Dover Castle, Henry II's 12th-century fortress, and go into the Secret Wartime Tunnels from which the Dunkirk evacuation of 1940 was directed

See the Bronze Age Boat at Dover Museum, some 3,500 years old

The White Cliffs rise about 110m above the Channel at Dover, walked from the Langdon Cliffs visitor centre. Along them, South Foreland Lighthouse was the first to be lit by electricity, in 1858, and Marconi received the first ship-to-shore radio message here in 1898, and in 1899 made the first international radio transmission from it, to France. Henry II's castle stands above the town, and from the Secret Wartime Tunnels beneath it the Dunkirk evacuation was directed in 1940; in Dover Museum is a Bronze Age boat some 3,500 years old.

Dover: The White Cliffs, South Foreland and the Castle Tunnels

Walk the quarter-mile ropery and watch rope being laid

Go through HMS Ocelot, the Cold War submarine

See the Victorian ropery machinery and the covered slips

Find where HMS Victory was built in the old yard

The navy harboured its ships in Gillingham Water from 1550 and built a dockyard that turned out warships for four centuries, including Nelson's Victory. It closed in 1984, and 80 acres of the Georgian yard are now open: the quarter-mile ropery still making rope, the covered slips, and three historic warships in the old dry docks, including a Cold War submarine you can go through.

Chatham Historic Dockyard: The Ropery and Three Warships

Ride the Kent and East Sussex Railway from Tenterden to Bodiam

Walk Tenterden's wide, tree-lined high street

See the engines and the Colonel Stephens collection at Tenterden Town station

Tenterden is a Wealden market town with a broad tree-lined high street, and the Kent and East Sussex Railway runs from Tenterden Town down the Rother valley to Bodiam — one of Colonel Stephens's light railways, built on the cheap for country traffic and now preserved.

Tenterden and the Kent & East Sussex Railway

Look up at the three spires from Stowe Pool

See the Lichfield Angel and the St Chad Gospels in the cathedral

Walk the close and find the Civil War damage

Visit Samuel Johnson's birthplace on the market square

Lichfield Cathedral is the only medieval English cathedral with three spires — the Ladies of the Vale — built in sandstone around the shrine of St Chad, whose relics were kept here until 1538. The close was besieged three times in the Civil War and the cathedral lost all its medieval glass; Samuel Johnson was born in the town and his house on the market square is a museum.