Our guide to luxury Sussex holidays

Depending on where you travel to and from, Sussex is roughly between 35 and 50 miles from the capital. By train or car, it’ll take you around an hour, plenty of time to catch up with old friends or make grand plans for family expeditions on the coast.

Yes. Whilst the crunch of shingle underfoot is common across beaches in Sussex, Camber Sands and West Wittering are two golden sandy beaches that buck the trend. Camber Sands welcomes sun worshippers and kite surfers alike, with large dunes backing onto the beach that make for hidden picnic spots out of the wind. At West Wittering, the sand stretches for miles, as far as East Head. With the tide out, shallow puddles make like paddling pools warmed by the sun and serene Hayling Island sits peacefully on the horizon. Whether it’s a game of beach cricket or a cone of chips on the sand, these sandy beaches are just the spot for welcome together time.

Packed with seaside charm, Rottingdean is a small village popular with visitors and locals alike. It was once home to Rudyard Kipling (and his former house and gardens are open to the public) and is best known for Beacon Mill, a Grade-II listed black smock windmill made from wood. Seaford is also popular, a sleepy coastal town framed by white chalk cliffs where the sea often reaches 20 degrees. Though it's the historic town of Rye that is often voted as the prettiest in Sussex, with cobbled stone streets lined by mediaeval Tudor homes and olde worlde inns at every corner.

The South Downs Way snakes its way along chalk escarpments and undulating ridges for 100 miles, from Winchester to Eastbourne. It’ll take approximately nine days to walk, if you’re planning to tackle it all at once, depending on your ability. To the south, breathtaking views of the English Channel and the Isle of Wight; to the north, heathland ridges that bleed into the wooded Weald. The path passes through five National Nature Reserves and over a dozen Sites of Scientific Interest but, above all, represents an opportunity to tap out of the mayhem and get lost in the wilderness – without ever really being lost at all.

Depending on where the mood takes you, you might like to try fresh, buttery Selsey lobster caught fresh and sold on the fishermen’s launch into the sea (at Selsey). Or perhaps warm bowls of local whelks, cockles, or mussels, stewed in a creamy garlic bisque. In February, East Sussex welcomes the Rye Bay Scallop Festival, celebrated in abundance caught just off the shore. In October, Rye also celebrates Wild Boar Festival, caught regularly in the area in the 17th-century. You’re also likely to find Sussex dishes revived from the past; there’s Sussex Churdle, a cheese-topped 17th-century pastie filled with liver, bacon and onion, or Sussex Pond Pudding, a buttery, spiced pastry cooked in pudding cloth and filled with sweet fruit like lemon, apple, or gooseberry.