Things to do in Penzance with a teen

Penzance isn’t the prettiest seaside town. The fishing town has its working harbour and dry dock. The high street is a bit run down, but does have a few independent shops amongst the cheap chain stores, and a few surfwear or ladies wear type brands. But it’s a good location for getting out to other places in west Cornwall. Here’s some of the things to do in Penzance that we got up to.

You’ll get fit (or tired) walking around the town, as like many coastal places it’s hilly. We were based on the promenade front. While that area’s flat, everywhere else requires walking up and down hills. There are plenty of winding random roads and alley areas to explore. And if you love colourful houses, there’s plenty to spot.

There’s quite a bit of building work going on, especially by the Jubilee Pool and harbour, so traffic can be a nightmare around those areas (at the time of visiting May 2025).

In the sunshine the water can look beautiful, and in the dry dock water behind the harbour we saw loads of people going for a swim. I’m not sure it would have been for me – I’d be wondering what was coming out of the boats in the water. It made for a picturesque scene and the water did look clear…until you saw what remained after the tide went out!

We made the most of the Visitor information guides to the area, which had some good discount vouchers. My advice is always to look out for these in hotels or tourist information centres in tourist areas.

We walked around a lot. Be prepared for a bit of huffing and puffing unless you’re used to it or pretty fit.  There’s some lovely historic houses, like the famous Egyptian House and pretty Chocolate House down Chapel Street (both now houses you can book to stay in), and some pubs, playing up the smuggling and pirate past of the area. We enjoyed the Turks Head and Dolphin Tavern for meals out, but couldn’t make the hours work for us to try the Admiral Benbow.

If it’s too wet or blustery and you want some rest time, let the kids loose with some change in the amusements arcade on the promenade.  Just opposite on the prom is a lovely little caravan cafe, and an ice cream van selling delicious flavours of Jude’s ice cream.  My rhubarb and custard cone was divine!

Also along the promenade are little signs and snippets of facts and activities to watch out for as you’re walking along. I wish we’d taken more notice throughout our visit, as we missed a lot of them. I really like different facts about places, so would have liked to have seen more of them than we did.

Here’s some of the other things we got up to in Penzance and the surrounding area.

Swimming in the Jubilee Pool Penzance

Choose a bracing swim in the main pool or opt for the geothermal one instead. Check out how we got on when we went swimming in art deco style, historic saltwater Jubilee Pool.

Porthcurno Beach and PK Museum of Global Communications

A beautiful bay to enjoy the sand and water below the Minack Theatre cliffs. Don’t forget to visit PK Museum to find out the history of how it was the central cable development of telegraphs in the UK in the Wars.

St Michael’s Mount

Having been to Mont St Michel as a teenager, I did want to see St Michael’s Mount as well. We were only stayed in the next town, so it was a short car journey across to Marazion on a a blustery early morning.

They recommend buying tickets online, but buying tickets and access to the island is complicated when reading online. I ended up totally confused. I think they need to make it a lot clearer.  

When I looked to book, I took it to say you needed to buy tickets for visiting the castle and/or gardens.  The gardens were shut on the Sunday we were there, but there were only afternoon tickets for the castle left which was too late for us.  As National Trust members it would have been free. But I just assumed you could walk onto the island, you just couldn’t go in the castle. When we arrived (too early for the island to be open anyway), the signs said you needed tickets to get onto the island as well.  

No worries, because it turned out from speaking to my friends, that there’s not an awful lot to see there anyway as it’s really small with just a tiny harbour and a little bit to walk around. The best bit is walking the causeway and the beach. Anyone can walk the causeway, assuming the tide is out.

Helpfully the website tells you by day what times the causeway is open, and when you’ll need boat tickets to get to the island.  It’s only a 10-15 minute amble along the stone causeway, unless you’re with young children who want to investigate the seaweed and rocks alongside it.

The view along the causeway to the island is pretty, and it’s easy to see why timing it when it’s quiet at sunrise or sunset would make for some stunning photos.

It was already getting busy as we left the car park at 10, which is opening time on the island. There were coachloads arriving. So if you want to visit the island, it’s worth booking well in advance your timeslot.  Friends found the car park full when they went the following day at 11, so had to park elsewhere in Marazion. 

Lands End

My plan had originally been to find time to drive to Sennen Cove, park there, and then walk the mile or so over the coastal path to Lands End. This would save the extortionate parking costs.  But then our morning at St Michael’s Mount had been shorter than planned, so we just drove around exploring.  

We headed out to Newlyn, then onto Mousehole. Through all the random tiny Cornish streets. And back out to countryside again.

N enjoys a drive – he wants to cow spot, but it was pretty slim pickings to see.  We ended up at Lands End, because if you’re in the area, you really want to be able to say you’ve been.

As a friend said, it’s turned into a big tourist area.  You can only get a photo with the Lands End sign by paying – they’ll add your name or home location on to personalise the sign. There was a queue so it’s obviously popular. 

We just snuck a photo inbetween people, and wandered around to see the view over the cliffs and sea.

N didn’t want to hang around, he didn’t even want to play crazy golf which is unheard off. But if you want to make the most of the ridiculous £8 parking fee, there’s a few activities and entertainment things to do. These all have additional costs so it wouldn’t be cheap for a family. There’s also a few restaurants there.

I wish we’d just driven round further to Sennen Cove as planned and walked the path instead. But we were limited on time to get back for our Jubilee Pool slot and it’s nice to say we’ve been to Lands End.

Penwith Pitch & Putt – Footgolf

N and I usually try and play crazy golf whenever we go on holiday. The weather and time was against us a bit this holiday. If it had been just us we’d have whizzed round the crazy golf too, but being with friends and not just on our time, we didn’t manage to fit in both.

Instead we just did the footgolf at Penwith Pitch & Putt.  It wasn’t too expensive and we had 6 of us taking part.

I think we were all surprised at how hard footgolf is.  Some of the 9 holes, some of us were never going to achieve, so we did cheat a bit and just keep going after a few attempts. Kicking a football through hoops off the ground when you’ve no idea on direction is just never going to happen. Although I did have a couple of good starting kicks to lead those holes. The rest was just keep going and try to eventually get the ball in the hole.

With 2 boys who play football, I think even they didn’t have a brilliant round in terms of number of shots.  We were all way over par.

It was a lot of fun, a lot of running into other holes to retrieve our footballs, and an hour we’d remember.

I think I’ll stick to crazy golf in future – even the hardest crazy golf is not that impossible compared to football (and I’m not a total notice at the latter!).

Penwith Pitch & Putt takes a bit of finding (following my satnav instead of the main road – it wasn’t even sign posted from in the village!).  But it’s a pretty good set up with a large car park, refreshments van and toilets.

There’s obviously a pitch & putt course for those slightly more serious about their golf.  Then an 18 hole crazy golf course (that N said looked quite tame), and the 9 hole footgolf.

Prices were £5.50 for the golf, with adults and children paying £6 and £7 for the footgolf when we went. The golf was really busy, while the footgolf was empty when we arrived. After we started it then got busier.

If you like a bit of activity and want a laugh, then Penwith Pitch & Putt has a few good options for difference ages.

Other things to do in Penzance with teens

• Escape room
• Leisure Centre
• Coast 2 Coast karting
• Boat trips – wildlife tours, or you can go out on a catamaran
• Day trip to Scilly Isles, but to make it worth going you might want to fly over and come back by ferry.
• There’s plenty of art museums and a couple of sculpture gardens nearby.

Given we also needed to find time to spend with our friends, and we did spend quite a bit of time relaxing as well, I think we fitted in quite a lot during our few days in Penzance. We didn’t have time to see any tin mines, and there were some ruins of iron age villages I wanted to see. My plans for visiting places before heading home didn’t happen thanks to the poor weather. But it just means we’ll need to head back to Cornwall for another visit another time.

Check out some of my other Cornwall posts:

• Eating out in Penzance
• Queens Hotel Penzance
• Jubilee Pool swim