Posted on

Coast and marine charities in The Coastal Café Guide

Whale tail in the ocean

Coastal cafés with a conscience: how The Coastal Café Guide supports a cleaner, wilder coastline

The Coastal Café Guide is a celebration of the places that make Britain’s shoreline so special. Think about the independent cafés tucked behind dunes, perched on harboursides, or tucked away in fishing villages. Within its pages you’ll find over 150 cafés and beach shacks serving freshly caught fish, home-baked cakes, and sea-view coffee with a conscience.

The book is also about something bigger than good food. It’s about caring for the coast itself: the sealife, wildlife, beaches, and people that bring these unique fringes of our island to life. A percentage of every copy sold is donated to Surfers Against Sewage, a charity whose work endeavours to protect our seas and communities from water pollution, plastic pollution, and climate change.

Alongside this, the book shines a light on 11 other inspiring charities and organisations that help protect the ocean, restore nature, and keep our coastlines wild and welcoming. They remind us that sustainable, local cafés and coastal conservation go hand in hand, for without thriving seas, there can be no thriving coastal communities.

Charities helping us protect and celebrate our seas and coasts

Alongside its donations to Surfers Against Sewage, a charity whose aims are outlined below, The Coastal Café Guide is proud to highlight the work of a network of like-minded charitable organisations that share a passion for cleaner coasts, more sustainable seafood, and safer waters.

Surfers Against Sewage

A grassroots movement turned national charity, Surfers Against Sewage campaigns to end sewage spills, reduce ocean plastic, and hold polluters to account. Their End Sewage Pollution campaign and Million Mile Clean bring thousands of volunteers together each year to restore Britain’s beaches and waterways. (Staff here attended one of their flagship events in 2025: our local Paddle Out Protest in Weston-super-Mare’s Marine Lake: part of a national day of activism.) 

RNLI

Since it was founded 200 years ago this year, the RNLI has saved tens of thousands lives at sea. Its crews of volunteer lifeboat heroes protect everyone who enjoys the coast, from surfers and swimmers to fisherfolk and sailors, while promoting water safety education in every coastal community.

Marine Stewardship Council

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) works to keep our seafood sustainable. The MSC blue label on fish and shellfish helps shoppers and chefs know that their meal has been responsibly caught, safeguarding marine life and fishing livelihoods for the future.


Marine Conservation Society

The Marine Conservation Society campaigns for cleaner seas and sustainable seafood. From beach cleans to citizen science and policy change, its work protects habitats, reduces pollution, and empowers people to take action for ocean health.

Outdoor Swimming Society

The Outdoor Swimming Society celebrates the joy and freedom of wild swimming. Its community of swim pioneers encourages safe, respectful and environmentally conscious dips in open water, connecting people deeply with the natural world.

The Ramblers, and the England Coast Path

The Ramblers are the guardians of walking routes across Britain. Their work on the England Coast Path, which will be the longest managed coastal trail in the world, ensures that everyone can explore, enjoy and protect our stunning shoreline.


South West Coast Path Association

The South West Coast Path Association maintains one of Britain’s most beloved trails, stretching 630 miles around the peninsula. Their volunteers care for paths, signage and landscapes that link so many of the cafés featured in The Coastal Café Guide.

The Wave Project

The Wave Project transforms young lives through surf therapy. By combining the power of the ocean with mentoring and community, it helps children and teenagers improve confidence, wellbeing and their connection to the sea.


The Finisterre Foundation

The Finisterre Foundation, created by the sustainable clothing brand Finisterre, supports grassroots ocean and coastal projects, from cold-water swimming initiatives to marine conservation and gear donation schemes for those in need.

John Muir Trust

Named after the pioneering conservationist, the John Muir Trust protects and restores wild places across the UK. Their education and rewilding projects inspire people to connect with the natural world and care for wild landscapes, coasts and mountains alike.

National Trust for Scotland

The National Trust for Scotland safeguards historic and natural sites, including many of the country’s most beautiful stretches of coastline. Its stewardship ensures that beaches, cliffs and islands remain places of inspiration and access for everyone.

Open Seas

Open Seas is concerned with protecting our marine environment and the things that live in it. They run campaigns and initiatives designed to see more fish and shellfish caught more sustainably, and they promote sustainable alternatives to damaging fishing.

City to Sea

The City to Sea movement tackles plastic pollution at its source. From refill schemes to reusable period products, they empower individuals and businesses to stop waste before it reaches rivers and oceans.

Buy The Coastal Café Guide: dive into these charities

Printslinger will donate 1% of book sales to Surfers Against Sewage. So whether buying a copy of The Coastal Café Guide for yourself or as a birthday or Christmas gift for someone who loves buying local food and supporting fairer food and fishing, know you’re giving a gift with a conscience. To learn more about this book and our other foodie titles, visit our online bookshop on the button below. 

Posted on

SURF, TURF, AND TARMAC: THE CAFÉ GUIDEBOOK TRIO WE ALL NEED

Three books on a table

The ultimate guidebook trio for foodies

If you’re getting ‘gift-giving anxiety’ about what to buy the discerning, book-loving foodie in your life, look no further than this unique foodie present. Our trio of foodie travel guides covers off-motorway cafés, farm shops, and cafés at the coast, with a total of around 600 memorable places top stop. This makes it the ideal gift for road-trip lovers seeking something different, or those seeking dog-friendly and family-friendly cafés and farm shops while on the road. Not only that, they’ll help you avoid motorway services and boring, big-brand food chains, helping you find, support, and enjoy Britain’s wealth of smaller, independent, local food and drinks businesses instead. 
 
Our three British travel guides for foodies are outlined below. Order today and in a few short days, you could be planning your next road trip avoiding the motorway services, sea-view seafood stop-off, or family-friendly farm-shop experience. Low-food-miles and more ethically minded eateries, here you come. And what’s even better? Buy the trio (which we’re dubbing ‘Surf, Turf, and Tarmac’) and you’ll get the three for cheaper even than Amazon – while supporting a small, independent publisher while you’re at it. Win, win, and thrice win! 
 

The Extra Mile Guide: an Amazon #1 travel bestseller in 2023 and 2024

The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services (4th edition.) is packed with independent cafés. It was one of 2023 and indeed 2024’s best-selling and ‘Most Gifted’ travel guides online, and it featured on BBC Breakfast TV, many BBC Radio channels, and elsewhere in print and online. It’s packed with over 275 delicious places to stop and eat just off junctions and near motorway and A-road junctions, to help you avoid motorway services and avoid chain food and find instead the best food stops on your British road trips. Use the foodie guidebook’s handy maps to find local farm shops near you, cosy cafés near motorway junctions, dog-friendly pubs or unusual places to eat just off junctions, while supporting the local, independent food businesses along your route. Covering areas just off motorway and main road junctions in mainland England, Scotland and Wales, it features:

  • Over 275 places to eat and drink with times, descriptions, images, contact details
  • 11 motorway-based maps to help you find places to eat just off motorways and junctions
  • Map showing cafés with EV chargers and restaurants with EV chargers

The Coastal Café Guide: a 2024 Amazon #1 Hot New Release 

The Coastal Café Guide is the ideal travel and café guide for anyone who loves food, loves the coast, and wants to find cafés on the coast, coffee at the beach, and seafood near the sea! An Amazon No #1 Hot New Release in July 2024, it’s also been featured in The Times Weekend, The Sun, and The Scotsman. It’s the perfect gift for beach lovers, coast-path walkers, surfers, paddle-boarders, seafood fans, water sports enthusiasts, holidaymakers, and those travelling with families and dogs. It’s perfect to help wild swimmers find a post-swim coffee by the sea, too. Inside The Coastal Café Guide, find:

  • 150 cafés, restaurants, beach bars, seafood cabins, and pubs at the coast
  • Dog-friendly and family-friendly places to eat at the coast, often with a sea view
  • 10 striking regional maps to help you find a café on the coast near you
  • Independent, smaller cafés and places to eat on the coast
  • Features on a dozen marine- and coast-relevant charities including (and with a donation per book to) Surfers Against Sewage
  • Places in England, Scotland and Wales (inc. Isles of Scilly, Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, Isle of Skye)

The Coastal Café Guide also features 12 coastal charities, including the RNLI, the Ramblers, The Marine Conservation Society (MCS), The Marine Stewardship Council (MCS), the Open Seas charity, The John Muir Trust, The Wave Project, the National Trust for Scotland, City to Sea, The Outdoor Swimming Society, and The South West Coast Path Organisation. Not only will you be supporting local food businesses and local communities, you’ll be helping raise the profile (and raising money) for some tireless UK-based charities. 

The Farm Shop Guide: as seen in The Times and Waitrose Weekend

This is the ideal food, travel, and farm shop and farm café guide and directory for anyone who loves fresh food, farm-to-fork experiences, and farm-focused events and activities. It became an Amazon #1 bestseller following some fab coverage in The Times Weekend, Waitrose Weekend, The Scotsman, Cotswold Life, and more. If you love farm-fresh food and local flavours and are keen to locate a farm shop, to shop seasonally and avoid flown-in food (while supporting Britain’s farmers and growers), this is the book for you. The Farm Shop Guide will help you find farm-fresh food and independent farm shops and cafés across Britain: perfect places for a weekly shop, an eat-out treat, or a family-friendly or dog-friendly day trip to a farm. In the book you’ll find:

  • First-rate farm shops, farm shop cafés, and farm restaurants
  • Farmers’ markets and food festivals
  • Dog-friendly and family-friendly places to stop, eat and shop
  • Farm shops with EV chargers for your vehicles
  • Farms and farm shops offering PYO (pick-your-own) fruit, veg, flowers, Christmas trees, and pumpkin places
  • Striking full-colour maps and full-page features per farm shop
  • Spotlights on food, farming, and environmental charities including: Pasture for Life, the Sustainable Food Trust, Buglife, RSPB Fair to Nature, the Permaculture Association, Community Supported Agriculture, and the Soil Association.
For local farm shops, farmers markets, this farm shop directory has all the information you need on Britain’s best farm shops, organic farm shops, artisan food shops, and family-friendly farm experiences. 
 

Buy the ultimate trio of foodie guidebooks today for just £42 

If it’s a foodie gift or foodie book you seek, our guidebooks really will put a smile on the most discerning food lover’s face…treat yourself and they’ll have the same effect.
 
The three guides (either alone or together) make great gifts for gourmets, and those who love to avoid motorway services and big-brand chain food because they prefer farm shops, fresh food, local food, or perhaps food with a view. Our foodie travel guides also make great artisan food gifts for chefs, cooks, and Masterchef fans, who like to go the extra mile themselves when it comes to eating out, entertaining, and cooking. 
 
Support local, smaller food growers, producers and businesses, and easily locate independent cafés and farm shops near you and at the coast, wherever you live and wherever you travel around Britain.