22 Reasons Why I Love Living in Southsea, Portsmouth

I love living in Southsea, Portsmouth. I’ve been here for 7 years now, and it’s been a great place to recover from a crazy few years of travel, live through the lockdowns, and bring up my little boy.

Look, I’m not gonna pretend there are a million things to do in Southsea, there’s not, but that’s the beauty. You can come to Southsea for a niiiice relaxing weekend, away from the craziness of the world, enveloped in old-school British seaside charm, blended with modern restaurants and coffee shops.

Or, you can enjoy the sweet pace of life, in living in Southsea instead.

There’s still plenty to do in Southsea – mostly eating and drinking – but also exploring, and lying on a relatively for England empty beach. There’s always space for you and your beach BBQ on Southsea Beach, trust me. Not like that Brighton down the road.

Where is Southsea?

Southsea is in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England.

Map of Southsea, Portsmouth

22 reasons why living in Southsea is a great idea

1. The beach is long and beautiful

Southsea Beach is 2 miles long, well, that’s from Southsea Hoverport to the Eastney Coffee Cup. That’s what I think of as Southsea Beach anyway. It’s shingles, which is great for me. I love that I don’t get covered in sand every time I want a wander.

Click for more >> ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOUTHSEA BEACH

Dogs are allowed on the beach in the winter months, which I accept, but in the summer it’s just the Eastney end. We don’t have loads of restaurants and cafes lining the beach – just enough – and it’s never too hectic.

Dream beach.

2. Our sunny weather

Stand on Southsea Beach on a semi clear day and you can see out to the Isle of Wight. She protects us from the brute force of the weather and so we’re in our own micro climate. Before I even knew this was a known thing I’d tell people ‘It’s always sunny in Southsea’ and they thought I was joking.

Since then I’ve discovered the Strong Island saying ‘The Sun Always Shines in Southsea’ and yeah, I bought a hoody with it on.

Seriously, Southsea has some of the best weather in England.

3. The cool history

Ok, to sum up a few hundred years in a few hundred words: Henry the VIII was kinda a big deal round here. Southsea Castle was apparently designed by him. It’s also the exact spot where King Henry VIII witnessed the great Mary Rose sink in 1545.

During the war, obviously being on the coast we were important, and the D-Day Museum is a credit to that.

Our blue plaques celebrate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, acclaimed writer and poet, Rudyard Kipling, and comedian Peter Sellers. Mine is on it’s way ‘VickyFlipFlop lived here’.

I’ll stop for now, but there’s loads more.

4. Our coffee shop culture

Ok, just counted and in Southsea, a mass of land 2 miles wide and 1.5 miles long, we have 22 coffee shops. Is that indicative of England right now? I don’t know. But anyway, I’d say at least half of them are really cool. Artsy little hipster places with cold pressed coffee, flat whites and soya milk, y’know the sort.

– Coffee from Home

My personal favourites include Hunter Gatherer, Southsea Beach Cafe and Home.

5. We have SO many green spaces

Southsea is lush. Southsea Common is our biggest green space and during the summer is busy with BBQs, football games, dog walkers and all kinds of charity events. Never too busy though, definitely not compared to parks in the summer in London.

Me on Facebook…

Is Southsea a nice place to live?

In short, YES. For all the reasons listed here. I’ve lived in Southsea for over four years now, in this update, and I still stand by that. Just read these 22 reasons to see why. If you want to know what people moan about when it comes to Southsea, then it’s the parking, it’s the traffic through Portsmouth, and right now it’s the new plans for Southsea Beach Road. But, that’s it.

If you need to leave Southsea every day at the standard UK working time, then yeah, you are definitely going to complain about the traffic and parking here. If you work from home, like me, or irregular hours – you’ll be FINE.

6. It’s outdoorsy, and totally walkable

Thanks to the location our beautiful beach promenade is busy from dawn till dusk with dog walkers, walkers, runners, cyclists, scooters, rollerbladers and kids. I love how much people enjoy the outdoors in Southsea. There’s a big skate park down on Southsea Common, and even Tony Hawk has skated there.

We have triathlon teams, the South Coast Cycle Collective, even the Great South Run comes through here every year. I watched it on TV this year and felt proud of how beautiful Southsea looked. I’m even debating training for the run next year. Debating.

7. So many good restaurants within a short walk

I’m seriously going to have to write a whole other post on the restaurants in Southsea, it’s genuinely my aim to try them all. I’ve got a list. Right now I’m on 32 out of 58.

A lot of the restaurants in Southsea are independent – we leave the chain ones down to Gunwharf Quays (outlet shopping centre just outside of Southsea) – and focus on either local chains, or independent establishments. I’ll just tell you about three to prove my point.

Sakura – my favourite restaurant in Southsea. It’s Japanese, the food is amazing, and it’s decorated like a proper Japanese eatery. You can order a feast for around £15 each and try all kinds of sushi, ramen. okinyami, gyozas and teryaki. This is my most visited restaurant in Southsea, by far.

Sant Yago – a Spanish tapas restaurant, the best tapas I’ve had out of Spain (maybe in Spain too actually). Anyway, this place is always booked up, you need to book well in advance. The rib meat is OMGeeeee, and the prawns, and the garlic bread and the patatas bravas, omg, just so good. Cool place too. GREAT cocktails.

Indian Cottage – I’ve eaten in twice and had takeaways twice, and this is my fave. Ben and I went here on one of our first dates actually, warmed us right up on a wintry night. It’s a lighter Indian so you don’t feel like a fat whacker when you leave, unless you want to of course. Again, friendly service, lovely people, good price and yummy, yummy food.

Oh and Pie and Vinyl deserves a mention. You can sit with a pie, a soft drink in a tea pot and listen to, vinyl – amazing. Southsea Beach Cafe is in a great location on the beach and I also love Umami, for the chicken.

What is Southsea like for food? Amazing. Thanks to our high population we have lots of great Southsea restaurants in a relatively small amount of space.

8. Close to other cool places

Obviously Southsea is an incredible place in itself, but it’s also well located to explore some other great spots surrounding it.

– in the New Forest

We’ve got the rest of Portsmouth, with all its High Street shopping, its maritime history down at the Historic Dockyard, and the Spinnaker Tower. We’ve also got all the great restaurants and colourful houses of Old Portsmouth nearby, and the The Royal Garrison Church, that’s solved the problem of the church roof by getting rid of it all together. Al fresco services in there.

Further afield, Southampton is only a 45-minute drive away (and Southampton Airport), and then the New Forest about 20 minutes beyond that. Looking the other way, it’s not far to Chichester, and to the stunning beaches of West Wittering.

READ MORE: A Weekend in the New Forest

Over the water we have the Isle of Wight, reachable in just 10 minutes on the hovercraft from Southsea or a bit longer on the ferry from Portsmouth. I’ve been here a few times, to explore and to the Isle of Wight Festival. The hovercraft is awesome!

It’s only 90 minutes on the train from London Waterloo too.

– The Isle of Wight isn’t far away

And, you can get the ferry from Southsea Marina for about 5 minutes, and you’ll end up on Hayling Island. It’s a great day out with the bike!

Check out Southsea Beach!

9. The charity shop shopping

Oh we love a charity shop in Southsea.

Palmerston Road is a mecca for bargain hunters with charity shops aplenty. The best one is actually Debra on Elm Grove – managed to get some great stuff from there when I was doing up my house. It’s a fun morning out trawling the shops – one person’s trash is another person’s treasure and all that.