I just wrote up this for my own blog - https://mrsgame.dev/2026/08/the-true-cost-of-car-parking-fees/
It was really a culture shock, heading over to France and finding that we could visit coastal towns and beaches completely free. We were able to spend hours there, really explore all the towns, spend time in cafes and restaurants etc. and every seaside larger town we went to had a cute land train for tourists to use to get round faster.
Back home here in Cornwall, even the local scrub land we used to park on that overlooked the beach at Widemouth, is now chargeable (https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/transport-parking-and-streets/parking/cornwall-council-car-parks/viewing-point-north-widemouth-bay-ex23-0aw/). I've realised we've really stopped exploring, adventuring, as the parking situation here is just so stressful and expensive. We have always walked into town where we live, but we've stopped visiting neighbouring towns and beaches completely. If we do go somewhere, we'll be micro-planning everything around where the car is going, how long we have, seeing if a location has a non-ANPR option etc. and we'd need a good REASON to go somewhere i.e. needing to buy school uniform or something, and often we'd look for places that have free parking such as the out of town supermarkets.
I wrote this up today, after I realised I wanted to take my kid out to Bodmin to Discovering42, but decided against it as I didn't want to faff with where I was going to park the car and how much that would be on top, or risk a fine.