Ella and I are spending the year travelling around the UK attending different university open days as she prepares to make her uni application this coming January. This post is about how we spent 48 hours in Brighton for the University of Brighton open day in June 2024.
University Visits (so far…)
We’ve already been to quite a few university open days: we spent three days in Edinburgh (uni visit #1); did a day trip to the University of Birmingham (uni visit #2); flew to Ireland for 48 hours in Dublin (uni visit #3); and stayed for a long weekend in Exeter (uni visit #4).
Brighton was uni visit #5 and we still have several more to go! The more open days we attend, the more we know what it is we want to look at and learn about so we can tailor our itinerary and plans more specifically, leaving us more time to explore each city as well.
48 Hours in Brighton
We’ve been to Brighton once before – last summer in fact – as a family, for a long weekend escape (with mixed success) thanks to a perfectly timed inset day at school. (I’ve not written that blog post up yet!) Because of this, Ella and I already knew our way around the city a little bit and had already seen most of the things we wanted to see during our previous trip. There were still a few bits and bobs that we wanted to do this time around though, so we mapped out where we wanted to go ahead of our arrival. We both add places to a dedicated ‘saved’ list on Google Maps that we share each other – it makes it so much easier to plan in advance when we can do it collaboratively.
As usual, we stayed in an Airbnb – a different one to last year as there were only the two of us instead of all five, so I chose somewhere smaller. It was cute, with lots of plants, a little family of pigeons nesting outside the window, and it was very central so it was easy to walk to everything.
I loved this little welcome mat at the entrance of our Airbnb
The lounge in our cute little Airbnb
Friday
Brighton is 200 miles away from where we live in the Midlands, so it was a loooong travel day, involving multiple trains, to get there. We arrived mid-afternoon, made our way to our Airbnb (which, thankfully, was easy to find) and briefly settled in before heading straight back out again to explore.
Ella has inherited my love of planning and researching travel adventures (honestly, it’s as much fun for me as the actual trip sometimes!). She wanted to visit a couple of different bookshops that she’d found online whilst looking up places to go during our 48 hours in Brighton. We ALWAYS check out independent bookshops when we go on a uni visit as they’re places that she’ll likely spend a lot of her spare time, so it’s important that they stock a good selection of books she’s interested in. We visited both City Books and The Feminist Bookshop (the latter, pictured, was her favourite).
Browsing the extensive collection of books at The Feminist Bookshop
Our shopping needs having been fully satisfied, we made our way down to the beachfront to say hello to the sea. It’s become a firm tradition whenever we arrive somewhere coastal – we live about as far away from the sea as you can get in England, so we make the most of it when we are near the water.
Even though Brighton has a pebbly beach rather than a sandy one, I love walking along the coastline there: people-watching; admiring both the old and the new piers; hunting for shells and seaglass and hagstones; and wandering past the bars, restaurants and little shops set back in the alcoves under the promenade.
I loved these two old contrasting doors – very #accidentallywesanderson
It was incredibly windy and pretty chilly but we headed for the beach anyway – the first thing we do when we arrive anywhere on the coast is go and say hello to the sea!
By this point, we realised we were hungry. Ella had already scouted out a fish-and-chips restaurant that had outstanding reviews. It was quite a long walk from the seafront, but it was oh-so worth it. Bardsley’s Fish and Chips was very busy – it’s a tiny place and every single table was full, with people queuing out the door for takeaways as well. The food was delicious and fresh, with good-sized portions that weren’t too big or too small. We’d definitely go back.
Delicious fish and chips at Bardsley’s in Brighton
Our bellies comfortably full, we wandered back from the restaurant, slowly making our way down towards the sea front again, stopping to take photos of some of the amazing street art that we’d seen along the way. The street art on every corner and stickers on every lamppost are two of my favourite things about Brighton – it’s such a fantastically creative city. The ever-changing and evolving murals that you unexpectedly encounter down side streets, on the top halves of buildings, hidden down alleyways and visible in plain sight are well worth keeping a look out for.
Here is a selection of some of my favourites from the 48 hours we spent in Brighton this time around:
The side of a pub – the entire building was covered on all sides
Rainbows everywhere
I loved this little nod to nature in the middle of the city
The whole of the front of this house was an art mural!
We’d tried to time it so that we would be back at the beach for sunset. It was very windy and a lot of cloud had blown over as a result of that, but there was still a golden glow so I was pleased we went. I will always do my best to watch the sun setting over the sea whenever I can. Ella was exhausted by then, so we returned to the Airbnb and had a quiet evening, together but each doing our own thing, before a good sleep ready for the university open day the next morning.
Sunset along Brighton seafront
The Old Pier
Saturday
We were up bright and early, ready for the University of Brighton open day. We caught the train to Moulsecoomb Campus (a couple of miles north of the city) where the Humanities/History department of the uni resides. We started off with looking around one of the accommodation blocks, spoke to some helpful people at a couple of the information stands and then we looked at each other and without needing to speak a word I knew we didn’t need to do any more – she didn’t like it.
It’s so interesting how sometimes Ella and I can tell instantly whether a place is going to be a good fit for her or not. I’ve been asked multiple times whether it feels like a waste of time going such a long way and spending so much money on trains and Airbnbs only to not even go to any talks or fully tour the campus of a university. Honestly, I don’t think it’s a waste at all – we would never have known how she felt if we hadn’t gone to visit and I think that knowing what she doesn’t want is just as important as knowing what she does want.
There’s a learning experience in every visit we do and I’m trying to teach her to trust her instincts, to draw her own conclusions, and to be able to speak up without fear or worries if something doesn’t feel right. She’s been doing exactly that and I’m really proud of her for it. Edinburgh, Dublin and now Brighton haven’t felt comfortable to her, whereas Birmingham and Exeter have both felt like good fits.
The University Of Brighton looks like a great uni, it just isn’t the right fit for Ella
As a result of our mutual unspoken agreement, we cancelled our attendance at the talks we’d originally booked in and went exploring instead.
We walked back to Brighton rather than catching the train, and gradually worked our way towards The Lanes – a labyrinthine area of tiny alleyways which are stuffed full of cool and quirky independent businesses, including some vintage shops that Ella really wanted to visit. One was called ‘Snooper’s Paradise‘ and I’ve genuinely never been anywhere like it before – it was an absolute treasure trove of random things including clothing, jewellery, furniture and trinkets.
I found a cabinet jam-packed full of old vintage cameras which held my attention for a while, and then, as I ventured a little further into the depths of the shop, I stumbled across boxes and boxes and boxes of old photographs – some black and white, some colour, all presumably from house collections after people have passed away. It’s kind of sad when you think about it, all those lost and forgotten memories, but I honestly could have spent hours flipping through them all. Every single one told a story and I desperately wanted to know more. There was a wedding photo sitting on top of one of the piles of photographs and, when I turned it over, the photographic studio that had taken/printed it turned out to be based in the exact same little town on the outskirts of London that I grew up in! It’s such a small world – how and why on earth it ended up in a vintage shop in Brighton I’ll never know. I firmly believe that there’s no such thing as coincidences though. I wish I’d bought it – I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since.
We also found an awesome photobooth right in the middle of the shop, but it was coin-operated and I didn’t have any cash on me, so we couldn’t play. I was a bit disappointed as I love a good photobooth picture. Next time!
Boxes and boxes and boxes of old photographs in Snooper’s Paradise. In the top right-hand corner you can see the wedding photograph I mentioned.
The photobooth in Snooper’s Paradise. Look closely… can you see me?!
The Lanes is such an interesting and unique place within Brighton to explore and get lost in, and at the same time it is insanely busy. Both of us felt a little overwhelmed after a couple of hours of mooching, so we went for a wander around the grounds of the Royal Pavilion, craving greenery and open space after the claustrophobia, noise and chaos of the shops.
The Royal Pavilion is an incredibly impressive and beautiful piece of architecture, constructed in the early 1800s using Indian and Chinese inspired designs, with the intention of being the ‘seaside pleasure palace’ for King George IV. It was also used as a military hospital in WW1 and it’s now a museum. We didn’t go in, preferring to enjoy it’s splendour from the outside instead. Maybe next time.
Seagull mosaic in The Lanes
The Royal Pavilion is such a gorgeous building
And the Gardens were full of colourful flowers in all their glory
Worn out from all the walking (Brighton is a very walkable city, even though it is exceedingly busy traffic-wise), we headed back to our Airbnb for a bit of downtime and some dinner before making our way back down to the beach for sunset. It’s always worth it.
Brighton Palace Pier at sunset
Sunday
We were due to travel home today and had train tickets booked for mid-morning, but we couldn’t leave before one last little wander down to the beach to say goodbye to the sea, as is tradition.
I also found some more cool street art – on the pavement this time – which I loved. “Find joy” seems to have been a bit of a recurring theme for the last few years for me, so seeing it written out so boldly and colourfully was a rather lovely reminder and poignant end to our trip.
“Find joy”
Sunday morning, saying goodbye to the sea.
Brighton, you may not have quite the right university for Ella to attend, but you’ve been a blast and I’m certain we’ll be back again for some more fun another day.
