10 Great Reasons to Visit Blackpool

6 The Comedy Carpet

If you’ve always held classic British comedy close to your heart then you should get yourself down to this northern town’s unique piece of art. The Comedy Carpet takes quotes from the UK’s biggest and best, and puts them under your feet. Part of the enjoyment is to watch people’s interaction with it. Some stop and read every word, some hop and skip, some fly across it. For Cameron the fun was skating across some of the world’s most famous catchphrases in his Heelies shouting ‘Don’t mention the war!” There is also a wider sculpture trail if you are looking for more cultural ideas of what to do in Blackpool. From dolphins’ tails to sea powered organ pipes to a giant mirror ball the town has invested millions into some great public art.

7 Sandcastle Centre

I’m not crazy about huge indoor water parks, but the Sandcastle Waterpark one is clean and well designed, there’s lots to do, huge changing rooms and a range of slides. Try and steer clear of holiday time if you can. The queues for the slides were half an hour long when we visited, and the lazy river was more like the rush hour water corridor.

8 The Pleasure Beach

You can’t do Blackpool without visiting this. Blackpool Pleasure Beach is more than a theme park or fun fair, it’s a moment of nostalgia and an education in rollercoaster history. Check out our review of Pleasure Beach here and our review of Icon The Ride.

9 The illuminations

The Blackpool illuminations are always worth a look. The illuminations are an evolving event and recent years have included the Lightpool festival with amazing light projections, sculptures and spectacular live street performance, all free. One year we decided to visit Blackpool we saw an amazing street show in which Captain Kronos returned to earth in a space capsule; check out this video.

The illuminations start in August as the light nights start to fade and stretch until autumn half term. The Lightpool festival takes place towards the end of the illuminations season, around October half term. Check this post for our review of a visit to #Lightpool. If you can only visit Blackpool over the summer The Tower is often lit up at night, and you’ll just have to imagine the rest!

10 The trams and transport

Blackpool is famous for its trams and 2012 brought 16 shiny new state of the art ones to ply the prom. You can buy a family day pass for under a tenner in the newsagent’s shop and use it on all of the Blackpool buses and trams, although if you want to ride back in time on the Heritage trams you will need to pay a little extra. Whichever tram you go on you’ll be glad you did; you don’t realise how long that prom is until you are doing it on foot. The trams are a fun and stress free way of bombing around and the heritage ones a great journey back in time. If you want to slow it down you can jump on a horse and cart. Or a Cinderella carriage. If you want to slow it down even further you can hook a ride on a donkey on the beach. Slow travel in the age of a car? May the reins reign forever.

Read more about what to do in Blackpool

Disclosure Note: Our thanks to Merlin Entertainments whose ticketing support enabled us to bring you this story. The views, opinions and experience remain, as ever, entirely our own.