The Golden Mile

It is, the pedants will shriek, a full 1.7 miles between the North and South piers, but that is the extent of Blackpool's renowned "Golden Mile" of family attractions, theme pubs, fish-and-chip shops, amusement arcades, souvenir stalls, rock shops and general seaside knockabout cheer topped off by a glorious, golden sandy beach. The name reaches back to the good old days of Blackpool mass tourism, and the local authorities are, in fact, keen to rebrand and rebuild the entire seafront in a more upmarket fashion, but to generations of visitors and to most locals, the Golden Mile it is and always will be. It's pretty much mandatory to walk the length at least once – jump on the tram if you have to – in which case you'll pass all the signature attractions the resort has to offer, from the Tower to Madame Tussauds, the Sandcastle waterpark to the Sea-Life Centre. Stick to the revamped seafront and you get a beatifullly landscaped, contemporary promenade with sweeping views of ocean and sand. On the other side of the road, if you manage to complete the distance without succumbing to the lures of an obscenely shaped stick of rock or a T-shirt with a questionable logo you haven't yet fully embraced the magic of Blackpool.