Short answer: Woolacombe's seafront and Marine Drive car parks fill first on a sunny day. The Esplanade car parks above the village hold out longer, and if everything in the village is full, park in Mortehoe and walk down the coast path — it is about a mile, downhill on the way in.
Woolacombe has no free parking. Every option is paid, all of it fills on a hot day, and the village sits at the bottom of a hill, which means the overflow parking is always uphill of where you want to be. Plan for the walk and the day is fine. Plan for a space at eleven in August and it is not.
The seafront and Marine Drive spaces go earliest — they are closest to the sand and the shortest carry with beach kit. On a genuinely hot weekend in July or August, assume these are gone by mid-morning. The Esplanade car parks set slightly back and above the village hold out longer, and the walk down is only a few minutes, though it is a climb on the way back with tired children.
There is a National Trust car park serving the Woolacombe end of the beach, which is worth knowing if you are a member — free parking for members is the single biggest saving available here, and it pays for a membership over a week's holiday.
This is the one most day visitors never consider. Mortehoe sits a mile up the hill and has its own car park, and it very rarely fills at the same rate as the village below. You can walk down into Woolacombe from there — downhill on the way in, which is the right way round when everyone is fresh, and a proper climb on the way back.
The other advantage is that Mortehoe is where the Morte Point walk starts, the museum is, and both village pubs are. If your day is a headland walk and a pub lunch rather than six hours on the sand, park there and never go down at all.
Putsborough is the far southern end of the same three miles of sand, with its own car park, café and shop. It is a completely separate drive — you approach through Georgeham and Croyde, not through Woolacombe — and the lanes are single-track and tight. If you are in a large car or towing anything, take that seriously.
The trade is real: fewer people, firmer sand, and a car park that is less of a lottery, in exchange for lanes that will test your nerve and a longer drive. On a bank holiday it is usually the better bet.
The beach is three miles long and almost everyone piles onto the first few hundred metres nearest the village. If the car park situation has pushed you further out, that is not the setback it feels like — walking ten minutes down the sand from wherever you land gets you more space than the people who got the good space did.
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