iWalk Cornwall reveals its five most popular walks this week

Cornwall has more than 300 mapped walking routes, enough to fill years of weekends without ever doubling back. So when the same five climb the charts in a single week, it is worth seeing where everyone is heading.

iWalk Cornwall has shared its most popular walks for the week. The list runs from a wooded World Heritage valley in the south to the two highest points in the county up on Bodmin Moor, and no two of them look alike.

Every route below comes from the iWalk Cornwall app, which we rate highly. It is not a paid partnership. We just think it is the best way to follow a Cornish route, with hand-written directions, GPS guidance and a wealth of local history packed into each walk. Distances and grades are a guide rather than a promise, and the practical notes come from iWalk Cornwall’s own route pages.

1. Luxulyan Valley circular

• Location: Luxulyan, near St Austell, Mid Cornwall
• Parking: Black Hill (Luxulyan Valley) car park, free (confirm postcode)
• Dog-Friendly: Yes. No stiles and no fields with livestock on the route, which makes it one of the easier walks for dogs
• Café: None in the valley itself, so take a flask. Options in Luxulyan village
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Luxulyan Valley circular
• Distance: 3.4 miles / 5.5 km
• Difficulty: Easy-Moderate
• Highlights: Treffry Viaduct, Carmears wheelpit and inclined plane, the leats and horse-drawn tramways, Carmears Wood, World Heritage site

Walk Description: A loop through the World Heritage site of the Luxulyan Valley that follows the old leats and horse-drawn tramways. From the Black Hill car park it climbs to the Treffry Viaduct, which once carried the tramway towards Newquay, then traces the trackbed to the wheelpit where a 30ft waterwheel hauled wagons up the inclined plane. The route follows the leat that powered the Fowey Consols mine, cuts through Carmears Wood and the Velvet Path, then drops back along the river beneath the viaduct. There are two short climbs, one near the start and one approaching Trethevy Wood. Guidebooks were recommending it back in the 1920s as “one of the most glorious walks in all Cornwall”.

2. Helford and Frenchman’s Creek

• Location: Helford, near Helston, West Cornwall
• Parking: Helford village car park, above the village (confirm postcode)
• Dog-Friendly: Yes, with one stile, a flight of wooden steps, reported as tricky for larger dogs. Keep dogs on a lead just after Penarvon Beach, where there may be free-range chickens, until the loop by the chapel
• Café: A pub and café options in Helford village
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Helford and Frenchman’s Creek
• Distance: 3.8 miles / 6.1 km
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Highlights: Frenchman’s Creek, Helford River creekside woods, Penarvon Cove, Pengwedhen, Kestle Barton

Walk Description: A walk through the wooded valleys of the Helford River, taking in its most famous of all, Frenchman’s Creek. The creek is still as pristine as it was when it inspired the Daphne du Maurier novel of the same name. The short woodland loop at Pengwedhen includes a narrow path cut into a fairly steep bank, and the route passes Penarvon Cove and the old farmstead at Kestle Barton along the way.

3. Minions and the Cheesewring

• Location: Minions, Bodmin Moor, Southeast Cornwall, the highest village in the county
• Parking: Minions free car park (PL14 5LE)
• Dog-Friendly: Yes, no stiles. On the open moor, dogs go on a lead no more than 2m long between 1 March and 31 July for ground-nesting birds, and sheep and ponies graze freely
• Café: The Cheesewring pub and a tearoom in Minions
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Minions and the Cheesewring
• Distance: 3.8 miles / 6.8 km
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Highlights: The Hurlers stone circles, Rillaton barrow, Daniel Gumb’s hut, the Cheesewring on Stowe’s Hill, Phoenix mine engine houses

Walk Description: Up on Bodmin Moor, this one takes in the Hurlers stone circles and cairns, the Bronze Age Rillaton barrow where a gold goblet was found, and the stone hut of the eccentric mason and mathematician Daniel Gumb. It climbs Stowe’s Hill to the balanced granite of the Cheesewring, crosses a Neolithic walled enclosure, then drops past the engine houses of the South Phoenix and Phoenix United mines. The main climb is to the Cheesewring, and there is an embankment of loose rock to cross on top of Stowe’s Hill. The paths fade in places on the open moor, so the app’s map screen is the sensible way to keep your line.

4. Bedruthan Steps

• Location: near Mawgan Porth, North Cornwall
• Parking: Carnewas at Bedruthan Steps (National Trust) car park (confirm postcode), or the quieter Pentire Steps car park
• Dog-Friendly: Yes, with paths close to unfenced cliff edges and a short stretch along a fairly fast B-road between two paths, so keep dogs close. Dogs allowed year-round at Porth Mear
• Café: National Trust café at Carnewas
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Bedruthan Steps
• Distance: 4.5 miles / 7.3 km
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Highlights: Bedruthan Steps rock stacks, Carnewas, Porth Mear, clifftop coast views

Walk Description: A circular walk with spectacular views of the rock stacks at Bedruthan Steps. The story that the stacks were a giant’s stepping stones was a Victorian invention, concocted for the amusement of the tourists then flocking to Padstow and Newquay on the new railway. Two rights-of-way end about 150 metres apart on a B-road, so there is a short walk along a fairly fast road to link them, with only a narrow verge. The cliff staircase down to the beach has been closed since a 2021 rockfall, so the beach can now be reached only by sea.

5. Rough Tor and Brown Willy

• Location: Bodmin Moor, near Camelford, North Cornwall
• Parking: Rough Tor car park, at the end of Roughtor Road near Camelford, free (confirm postcode)
• Dog-Friendly: Yes, but with two stiles on the climb to Brown Willy. The first is easier and beside a gate, the higher one is wired-over and dogs will need lifting over. Sheep, cattle and ponies graze the open moor, so dogs go on a lead no more than 2m long between 1 March and 31 July
• Café: None on the moor, nearest in Camelford. Wear waterproof boots, as the ground is marshy even in summer
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Rough Tor and Brown Willy
• Distance: 5.2 miles / 8.4 km
• Difficulty: Moderate-strenuous
• Highlights: Rough Tor, Showery Tor, Brown Willy summit, holy well, summit cairns, prehistoric settlements

Walk Description: A mostly circular walk to Cornwall’s two highest tors, passing prehistoric remains along the way including a holy well, summit cairns and old settlements. Brown Willy is the highest point in the county at 420 metres, just 20 metres taller than Rough Tor, and its name is a distortion of the Cornish Bronn Wennili, meaning “hill of swallows”. There are granite boulders to clamber over near the summit of Rough Tor and in the dip between the tors, and the moor is exposed and often boggy underfoot, so waterproof boots and the app’s map are both worth having.

Plan your walk

By following the routes on the iWalk Cornwall app you get hand-written directions, GPS guidance that warns you if you wander off-route, and a wealth of local history along the way. Once a walk is downloaded it keeps working with no phone or wifi signal, which matters on the parts of the moor where the bars on your phone vanish.

As we said, this is not a paid partnership. We just rate it. The app is free to download from the App Store and Google Play, and you buy the individual walks you want.

The full set runs to more than 300 routes across the county, so wherever you are, there is almost certainly one within reach.