Double Date at Illuminate Ipswich

We clearly go to a lot of light trails around the month of December, and every year we make an effort to go to one with our lovely friend Claire. This time she brought along her partner as a lovely double date, walking around the lights! We went to Illuminate Ipswich, which is a new light trail this year, so we haven’t been previously. We went midweek, at the end of the night, so there weren’t many people about either.

When we arrived at Illuminate Ipswich, we found it a bit difficult to park and find the actual entrance. It’s worth leaving plenty of time to make your way around the outside, as the exit is a very different place to the entrance. When we did make it there, we went through the entrance and past one of those light-up wand booths, into the lights! These lights did have a bunch of music around them and were split up into different types, following a path. The first bit of lights was full of glowing mushrooms, dragonflies and bumble bees, some of them having wings that moved! There were also lots of rainbow trees along the path, which were quite brilliant to look at! Everything had a lot of vibrant colors.

Once you go along the main path in Illuminate Ipswich, the park sort of opens up. There are lights on trees, giant light up reindeer, and lots of light up flowers. I do feel these flowers were one of the coolest areas – with tulips surrounding a bench. This made for great photos. Behind the tulips there is a bar with some limited hot drinks and some alcoholic drinks, along with a lot of lights shining on one of the buildings behind it. There is a small area where you can purchase food, though the options are limited; marshmallows to roast on the fire, Yorkshire pudding wraps, and churros. I do wish there was more options when it comes to food, but it’s got a few of the British classics.

The rest of the path after this was really well done. There was a photo set up ornament, which we all took pictures in, and then some large, well lit trees. The next area we ended up at where the wings, where you can take a picture with bright angel wings that have Illuminate behind you. There was, of course, two light tunnels; one being a blue triangle one with umbrellas along the side of the path, which were cool to see. The other one was a simple light string one, which was bright and fun.

There was a little, sort of muddy path that had low level lanterns along it. This area had frogs and flowers along the path, along with the Cheshire cat and spooky spider webs too. It felt a little random, especially with the reindeer cutout with a face that you could put yours into, but it was a neat end to it. The path spits you out along the road, in a different place then the beginning, but it was actually closer to our parking so we were fine with it! Overall, Illuminate Ipswich does feel like a good first time trail. There are some random aspects to it, but a lot of the main areas of it was nicely done.

Check out our list of the best Wintertime Lights Trails in England