Towervans Caravan Park

Beaches, birds, market towns and seaside villages: most of the highlights of the Lincolnshire coast are within easy driving distance of your Towervans base. Head to Louth and Alford for acclaimed farmers’ markets; Louth was named Britain's Favourite Market Town by Countryfile magazine in 2012 and Alford is famous for its craft market twice a week in summer (pick up some pieces in Alford Pottery if you’re in town in other seasons.)

Europe’s biggest seven-day market is at nearby Ingoldmells 30 minutes away, where you’ll find the theme park Fantasy Island too; if your money’s still burning a hole in your pocket the car boot sales of Chapel St Leonards are also within half an hour’s drive. You’ll reach famed Skegness within 40 minutes and Cleethorpes, Grimsby and Boston within 50 – a day in each town around these parts should be had, we think…Sutton-on-Sea is within ten minutes’ drive of Towervans and has a boating lake and seafront paddling pool; like Mablethorpe, the beach here is Blue Flag accredited.

But first up, a day at Mablethorpe to whet your appetite: there are plenty of the usual seaside entertainments here such as crazy golf and a funfair, but there’s also a sand train along the beach, regular events like the Bathing Beauties festival, racing to watch in winter and a dunes skatepark for deft teenagers and less than wise but competitive dads.

Walk through the Mablethorpe dunes for the seal sanctuary: there are resident and healing seals here as well as other Lincolnshire locals such as foxes, barn owls, badgers and kestrels, and two tunnels to walk through time back to the dinosaurs. There’s another seal sanctuary at Natureland in Skegness, or to see seals in the wild, the Donna Nook nature reserve has a grey seal colony.

Nature nurturers also have the Gibraltar Point nature reserve to see vast amounts of seabirds or the five-mile marsh and dune stretch of the Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe reserve, with an easy access walk here suitable for the less mobile. The Lincolnshire Wolds to the north have the Red Hills Nature Reserve to spot snakes, lizards and butterflies as well as less mucky pastimes such as a trip on the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway or to the seventeenth century Stockwith Mill.

Thrilled by mills? There’s a myriad in the area: a five-sailed sort at Alford; a watermill (and hundreds of birds) at Claythorpe and seven floors to explore at Maud Foster Mill in Boston.