Short answer: Ilfracombe lost its railway decades ago, so it is the bus from Barnstaple. Once here it is the easiest north Devon town to manage on foot — the whole centre is walkable in about ten minutes, and the boats to Lundy leave from the harbour.
Ilfracombe had a branch line from Barnstaple and it closed. You can see film of it running in the town museum, which is a slightly melancholy way to start a car-free visit. What you have now is the bus from Barnstaple, which is the terminus of the Tarka Line from Exeter.
Bus timetables in Devon thin out sharply from October and change between summer and winter. Check the operator's current timetable before you plan a day around a connection rather than trusting an old printout or an app that has not refreshed.
Once you have arrived, Ilfracombe is the easiest place on this coast to manage without a car. Reviewers note the whole centre is walkable in about ten minutes, and everything worth doing — the harbour, the aquarium, the museum, the beaches — is within that.
The town does climb steeply away from the sea, so the high street is a push. But the flat ground along the harbour and seafront holds most of what you came for.
Worth knowing about if you are here without a car: sailings to Lundy Island leave from Ilfracombe harbour, seasonally and weather-dependent. It is one of the few genuinely remote day trips in England you can make from a bus stop.
Combe Martin is ten minutes east along the coast road and buses run along it — worth the trip for the rock pools at low tide and the highest-rated café on this coast. Watermouth Castle is on the same road. Woolacombe and Mortehoe are the other direction.
Ilfracombe's parking is already cheaper than the surrounding villages, so the saving is smaller here than at Woolacombe. But the town rewards walking more than driving, and the coast path east and west of the harbour is where the best of it is.
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