Wheal Rose Caravan Park

Active families needn’t go far for a fix: just over five minutes’ drive away, Kernow Adventure Park has wakeboarding, inflatable assault courses and paddleboarding, as well as manmade beaches and a café-bar for those who prefer a slower pace. When you’re ready for real beaches, Porthtowan and Chapel Porth are 15 minutes and half an hour away, with paddles, castles, sandy games of cricket down on the shore, and walks with sky-wide views up top on the South West Coast Path. If you’re more into riding waves than watching them, surfers’ hotspots like Newlyn and Newquay are 40 minutes away; the latter town tempts landlubbers in too, with fish and chips on the harbour and trips round the zoo and aquarium. Should you want to dig deeper into the area’s mining heritage, head to Cornwall Gold (10 minutes) to see a working tin mill, try your hand at gold panning in the stream, and watch goldsmiths turning the precious metal into little works of art in their studios. (There’s pottery painting, bear building and miniature golf for those less minerally minded.) If you fancy wandering round a rainforest, the steamy biospheres of the Eden Project are 40 minutes away, and for a trip that combines horticultural artistry with history, go find the Lost Gardens of Heligan, 50 minutes away.