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Arriving in Truro

Travel distances

Falmouth to Truro

Falmouth to Truro on the map

Start and finishThe route by roadSee the stops along the way on their own map ↓

Open this route in Google Maps ↗ for live traffic and turn-by-turn directions.

Distance

11.5 miles

by road

By car

About 25 minutes

in normal traffic

By bike

About 1 hour 15 minutes

steady pace

By foot

About 3 hours 50 minutes

estimated at a 3mph walking pace

Before you set off

The eleven miles move quickly for most of the year, but the Penryn bypass and the approach into Truro both slow in the weekday rush and through the summer holidays. For a morning appointment in the city, allow extra time between 8am and 9.30am, when the commuter traffic builds towards the Arch Hill roundabout.

Which way to go

The fastest route

Leave Falmouth on the A39 at The Moor and stay on it the whole way, through Penryn, Perranarworthal and Playing Place to the Arch Hill roundabout on the edge of Truro.1 It is dual carriageway in stretches and single in others, well signed throughout, and about as simple a route as Cornwall offers.

The scenic route

For a prettier run, drop off the A39 at Perranarworthal and follow the lanes through Come-to-Good, where the oldest Quaker meeting house in Cornwall still holds services,2 then on by Point and Penpol above the Carnon and Restronguet creeks before rejoining the main road near Playing Place. Add about ten minutes, and keep to the A39 if the hedges feel tight.

Caravans and motorhomes

The A39 handles caravans and motorhomes without difficulty from end to end, carrying heavy traffic every day.1 The creekside lanes on the scenic alternative are single track with high hedges and few passing places, so leave those for a car.

Stops along the way

Stops along the way — tap or hover a pin for a photo, the detour and a link to its guideStart and finishThe route by road

  1. Start

    Falmouth

  2. Penryn

    0.2 miles off the B3292, adds roughly 4 minutes

    The older of the two neighbours, a granite-built stannary town whose high street runs steeply down to the Penryn River and a working boatyard quay.

  3. Perranarworthal

    A village on the A39 beside the tidal Carnon valley, and the turning for the seventeenth-century Come-to-Good Quaker meeting house a mile to the east.2

  4. Playing Place

    The last roundabout before Truro, where the Falmouth road meets the lanes down to the Roseland ferries at King Harry and Feock.

  5. Arrive

    Truro

Practical information

Parking

Truro's central car parks cluster around Lemon Quay, Moorfield and the railway station, and all three fill from mid-morning on market days. The Park & Ride at Langarth on the western edge of the city is the easier option in summer, with a frequent bus into the centre.

Train and bus

The Maritime Line runs from Falmouth Docks to Truro around every half hour, calling at Penmere, Penryn and Perranwell, and takes about twenty-five minutes.3 It connects at Truro with the main line to Plymouth, Exeter and London.4 First Kernow buses also run frequently between the two towns.5

The best time to travel

Any time outside the weekday commuter peaks is straightforward. Avoid the 8am to 9.30am window into Truro, and in July and August aim to arrive before 10am or after 4pm when the city car parks are at their busiest.

About the Falmouth to Truro journey

The journey from Falmouth to Truro is one of the most everyday trips in the county, the harbour town to the cathedral city, barely eleven and a half miles of it along a road that threads between tidal creeks for much of the way. For thousands of people it is the commute, the shopping run and the train connection all at once, which is why the Maritime Line beside it is so well used.

Falmouth grew around its harbour, one of the deepest natural anchorages in the world, and spent centuries as a packet port sending mail and news out across the Atlantic. Truro grew inland as the place where Cornish tin was weighed and taxed, and later as the administrative and ecclesiastical capital, its three-spired cathedral rising over the rooftops from 1910. The road between them follows the Penryn River out of Falmouth, climbs through Penryn, then runs north above the Carnon and Restronguet creeks that feed the upper Fal.

It is a short enough journey that the real question is rarely the driving but what you do with the car once you arrive. Truro is built for a market town rather than for parking, and on a busy Saturday the train often wins.

What to do in Truro

Truro rewards a half day on foot. The Royal Cornwall Museum on River Street holds the county's finest collection of Cornish art, minerals and social history,6 and Truro Cathedral, completed in 1910 in a soaring Gothic Revival style, is open to visitors most days.7 Lemon Street, one of the best-preserved Georgian streets in the South West, runs uphill to the Lander Monument, and the covered Pannier Market and Lemon Quay host regular food and craft stalls. The city sits at the head of the Truro River, navigable by small boat at high tide down to Malpas and the Carrick Roads, which gives the place a quietly maritime edge many visitors do not expect.

Read the Truro guide

Going the other way: Truro to Falmouth

Truro to Falmouth is the same 11.5 miles back down the A39, but the timing flips. The morning queues run towards Truro and the evening ones back towards Falmouth, so a late-afternoon return can be slower than the outward run. If you are heading for the Falmouth seafront or the Maritime Museum rather than the top of town, the train sets you down closer than any car park.3

Related journeys

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Article Sources
  1. OpenStreetMap contributors (2026). Road network, road classifications and place names. Copyright and licence [online]. Available at: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright OpenStreetMap[↩]
  2. Historic England (no date). The National Heritage List for England [online]. Available at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list Historic England[↩]
  3. Great Western Railway (no date). Plan your journey: timetables and branch-line services in Cornwall [online]. Available at: https://www.gwr.com/plan-journey Great Western Railway[↩]
  4. National Rail Enquiries (no date). Train times and journey planner [online]. Available at: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk National Rail[↩]
  5. First Kernow (no date). Bus services, routes and timetables in Cornwall [online]. Available at: https://www.firstbus.co.uk/cornwall First Kernow[↩]
  6. Royal Cornwall Museum (no date). Home page [online]. Available at: https://royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk Royal Cornwall Museum[↩]
  7. Truro Cathedral (no date). Home page [online]. Available at: https://www.trurocathedral.org.uk Truro Cathedral[↩]
  8. Project OSRM (no date). Open Source Routing Machine: route shape and detour calculations [online]. Available at: https://project-osrm.org Project OSRM
  9. Ordnance Survey (no date). National Grid references used to position each place on the route map [online]. Available at: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk Ordnance Survey
  10. Google (no date). Google Maps: live traffic and turn-by-turn directions [online]. Available at: https://www.google.com/maps Google Maps