7 Days in Brighton: First-Timer Itinerary
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Seven days only makes sense honestly framed: this is Brighton plus a Sussex base, not seven days inside the city alone. Days 1-2 walk the Pier, Lanes, North Laine, Royal Pavilion, i360 and Hove, Day 3 trains to Lewes, Day 4 buses up to Devil’s Dyke, Day 5 the Coaster bus out to Seven Sisters, Day 6 heads east to Kemptown and the Undercliff Walk, and Day 7 trains further out to Chichester and Fishbourne Roman Palace. If seven days is more Sussex than you want, our 6-day and 5-day itineraries stop sooner.
Book these before you go
- Weekend hotel rooms: central Brighton sells out fastest for Friday/Saturday nights, especially through May’s Fringe season. Check rates on Booking.com .
- Brighton i360 for Day 2: timed entry, book your flight slot online.
- Royal Pavilion tickets: book online for 5% off and a confirmed spot at the free 2pm daily tour.
- Devil’s Dyke on Day 4 runs on the Breeze 77 bus, weekends and bank holidays year-round, weekdays in summer only, so check the timetable before you plan that date, not after.
- If you’d rather do Seven Sisters guided than DIY on the bus, book a Seven Sisters tour ahead, especially for a summer weekend.
- Fishbourne on Day 7 only gets four direct trains a day, book your outbound and return times before you commit to the date.
| Day | Focus | Rough daily cost (GBP, £) |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Pier, seafront, The Lanes, North Laine, Royal Pavilion | 45-70 |
| Day 2 | Brighton i360, Hove seafront, Brunswick Square | 35-55 |
| Day 3 | Lewes: castle, high street, Anne of Cleves House | 30-45 |
| Day 4 | Devil’s Dyke walk, South Downs views | 20-30 |
| Day 5 | Seven Sisters: Birling Gap, cliff walk | 25-40 |
| Day 6 | Kemptown, Undercliff Walk, Marina | 20-45 |
| Day 7 | Chichester and Fishbourne Roman Palace | 35-55 |
Day 1: The Pier, the Lanes and the Pavilion
Start at Brighton Palace Pier . Admission is £2 per person, March through September 2026, free outside that window and free year-round for BN-postcode residents. Rides cost extra, roughly £5 each. The beach itself is pebble, not sand, so bring a mat.
Walk into The Lanes, the narrow medieval alleyways, locally called twittens, tracing the original fishing village of Brighthelmstone: antique and vintage jewellery shops line them. North Laine, fifteen minutes north, is different, over 400 independent shops, vintage clothing, record stores and street art, Brighton’s creative quarter rather than The Lanes’ polished antiques.
Finish at the Royal Pavilion , £21.50 adult, and build your visit around the free 2pm daily guided tour, it’s the best way to get the Prince Regent’s story properly told. The ticket is valid for free return visits for a year. The Brighton Museum & Art Gallery is in the same complex, £10.50 adult, not free. Dinner at Terre à Terre, vegetarian since 1993 and repeatedly voted Brighton’s best restaurant, or a doughnut fresh off the pier.
Day 2: Brighton i360 and Hove
The Brighton i360 opens Day 2, a 162-metre tower on the West Pier’s old landward plot, £20.50 adult for a 25-minute pod flight, timed entry, book ahead. It reopened under new owner Nightcap Ltd in March 2025 after a closure, so confirm today’s hours before you travel.
Continue west into Hove, quieter and greener than the centre. The seafront is lined with painted beach huts backed by wide flat lawns, a free photo stop. Push on to Brunswick Square, a Grade I listed Regency square built in the 1820s by Charles Busby, one of the finest surviving examples of Regency town planning in Britain. Dinner at English’s of Brighton, the city’s oldest seafood restaurant, in an 18th-century building in The Lanes.
Day 3: Lewes
Direct trains from Brighton to Lewes take 17-20 minutes, frequent and easy, the natural third day. Lewes Castle rewards a steep climb with a panoramic view over the town and the Ouse valley. The historic high street is dense with antiques shops, and Anne of Cleves House, part of Henry VIII’s fourth wife’s divorce settlement, adds a proper history stop. If your visit lands near 5 November, note Lewes hosts the world’s biggest Bonfire Night celebration and trains stop calling there from around 5pm that evening.
Day 4: Devil’s Dyke
The Breeze 77 bus runs from central Brighton up to Devil’s Dyke, about 30 minutes climbing through Prestonville and Westdene onto open downland. This is the one bus in this itinerary that actually catches people out: it runs weekends and bank holidays year-round, plus weekdays in summer only, not a daily service, so check the date against the timetable before you build your trip around it.
Once up top, the views open out over the Weald on one side and the Channel on the other, a popular hang-gliding launch and a genuinely dramatic stretch of the South Downs Way. The Devil’s Dyke pub sits right at the bus terminus for lunch. If you want a proper half-day walk rather than a there-and-back, the stretch to Ditchling Beacon, at 248m the highest point in East Sussex, is a signature South Downs Way route, walkable either direction with bus 79 covering the other end.
Day 5: Seven Sisters
Seven Sisters is the biggest single time commitment in this itinerary, and it earns the extra day. The Coaster buses, routes 12, 12A and 12X, run from central Brighton, stop C on North Street, stop E at Churchill Square, or stop K opposite SEA LIFE, up to 14 times an hour between them, every 30 minutes on Sundays, reaching Birling Gap in 75-100 minutes.
Get off at Birling Gap for the National Trust car park, café and cliff steps down to the beach, that alone makes a workable half-day if you turn straight back. To do it properly, walk the cliff-top path from Birling Gap toward Beachy Head or Cuckmere Haven: several exposed miles with no shade, but the chalk cliff views are the reason people fly to England for this photo. Belle Tout, the former lighthouse now a bed and breakfast, sits on the clifftop between Birling Gap and Beachy Head. Best light for photos is golden hour, shooting west along the cliff line from Birling Gap.
Day 6: Kemptown and the Undercliff Walk
Day 6 heads east instead of west, the side most first-time visitors skip entirely. Kemptown starts just past the Palace Pier along St James’s Street, Brighton’s LGBTQ+ quarter and a genuine antiques district by day, cafés and independent shops rather than souvenir stalls. Redroaster on St James’s Street is the local coffee roastery worth the stop.
From Kemptown, pick up the Undercliff Walk at Brighton Marina, a flat paved promenade beneath the chalk cliffs running about 3 miles to Saltdean, passing Ovingdean Gap and Rottingdean along the way. It’s quiet compared to the central seafront and genuinely underused by visitors who never make it past the Pier. If you’d rather not walk the whole stretch, Volk’s Electric Railway covers part of the same ground from near the Aquarium to Black Rock, the world’s oldest continuously operating electric railway, running since 1883 (seasonal, closed roughly October-March, full route £5.40 single/£7 return adult). SEA LIFE Brighton sits right at the start of the route too, book-ahead adult tickets from £17.50, a good fallback for this day if the weather turns.
Day 7: Chichester and Fishbourne Roman Palace
Direct trains run Brighton to Fishbourne in about 1 hour 2 minutes, four a day, or change at Chichester and add roughly six minutes. Fishbourne Roman Palace, a 5-10 minute walk from the station, is the largest Roman residence found north of the Alps, built around 75 CE, and holds the largest in-situ mosaic collection in the UK, still laid in the ground where the Romans left it. Admission runs roughly £13.95 adult, £6.95 child. Chichester itself, a few minutes further by train, has a walkable historic centre and its own cathedral if you want to extend the day rather than head straight back to Brighton.
Is a 7-day Brighton trip too much city?
Only if you try to fill all seven days inside Brighton itself, and you shouldn’t. The core sights fill about 1.5-2 days; the honest way to stretch a week is to use Brighton as a comfortable base and spend most of the back half of the trip out in Sussex, which is exactly what days 3 through 7 of this itinerary do.
How many days do you actually need in Brighton?
The city centre itself fills about 1.5-2 days, so a weekend covers the essentials and four to five days comfortably fits the main day trips. Seven days works too, but only once you accept it’s a week based in Brighton rather than a week spent inside it.
Book the Fishbourne-bound train a day ahead in summer, only four run each day and the last one back leaves earlier than you’d expect for a full day out.