Bournemouth Adventure Travel Guide

Introducing Bournemouth (Continued...)

eef being placed and completed in Boscombe in 2009 to help improve the wave quality for surfers. The initial impact of this hasn’t been jaw-dropping, however surfers are riding waves here, and over time as sediment on the reef increases, the conditions are expected to improve further.

Watersports are hugely popular in Bournemouth, with its beaches offering great conditions for both windsurfing and kitesurfing; there are several schools where you can pick up these sports from beginner level. An annual festival is held in Sandbanks called the Animal Windfest, featuring kitesurfing and windsurfing competitions and zapcat races.

Bournemouth has also recently held the annual Bournemouth Air Festival over four days in August since it started in 2008, attracting roughly one million people over the four days. Here you can expect to see displays by the Red Arrows along with flights by Hurricanes, Spitfires and many more!

If wildlife is your thing, then head to Brownsea Island in nearby Poole Harbour – one of the few places in the south where you can still catch a glimpse of the rare red squirrel. Outside the main town there is a lot of countryside, where you can try some heart-pumping activities like paintballing, quad biking, go-karting and zorbing, or even clay-pigeon shooting.

Check out some culture with a visit to the Royal Pavilion Theatre and the Russell-Cotes Museum, followed by a walk down the promenade. For a different view of the town, head to the beautiful Pleasure Gardens by the square in the middle of town. Here you can take a trip up the Bournemouth Eye: a hot air balloon attached to a steel cable which can carry up to 30 people, and gets up to a height of 390ft giving amazing panoramic views of the area. There is plenty of accommodation in the area, with hotels lining the cliffs above the beach.