Short answer: Budleigh is quiet at the best of times and close to empty in winter. The High Street cafés are unusually good for a town this size, Bicton Park's glasshouses are the wet-day answer, and the Otter path stays flat.
White Regency hotels along the front, red cliffs behind, no arcades and almost nobody about. Budleigh in February is the antidote to a Devon summer, and the people who come here in winter tend to be the ones who come here every winter.
The beach is large smooth pebbles, and wet pebbles in winter are genuinely treacherous underfoot. There is a paved promenade behind, which is where to walk.
The River Otter. The estuary path behind the beach is flat and easy, and the wetland reserve is better for birds in winter than in summer — this is the season for it. The path upriver towards Otterton is easy going even after rain.
North of town, and the reason Budleigh works on a wet day. An Italian garden, a Victorian fernery and glasshouses — gardens without getting soaked, which almost nowhere else in east Devon offers. Dog friendly, with its own parking.
The red cliffs along this stretch are actively unstable and winter rain makes rock falls more likely, not less. Keep well away from the cliff base wherever it is signed.
Winter opening is where online listings are least reliable. Ring before you drive — several places here show as closed on Google and answer the phone perfectly happily.
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