Advice on England Adventure!
Jan 10th, 2016, 06:42 AM
#1
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Advice on England Adventure!
Is anyone familiar with a small travel company similar to Rabbie's Trail Burners available in England/Wales? My mother(50s) and I(20s) are planning to spend about a week and we would like to see Bath, London, Cotswells, Snowdonia Park, Lake District, York, Cambridge, Edenbough...more or less. We don't want the stress of driving or public transportation schedules. We would also like to get our own rooms and food. Just looking for something that gives us freedom and local insight, yet supplies some structure to our trip. Thank you!
Jan 10th, 2016, 06:45 AM
#2
>>Is anyone familiar with a small travel company similar to Rabbie's Trail Burners available in England/Wales? <<
Rabbies does tour in England as well . . . Very good ones.
https://www.rabbies.com/tour_england.asp
Rabbies does tour in England as well . . . Very good ones.
https://www.rabbies.com/tour_england.asp
Jan 10th, 2016, 06:49 AM
#3
Bath, London, Cotswells, Snowdonia Park, Lake District, York, Cambridge, Edenbough in 7 days..... assume 4 hours between each place and 4 hours in each that makes 1 per day. Now I couldn't visit London in 4 hours, but I could just run round Bath and I don't like Bath in 4 hours, all the other places need from a whole day to 4 days.
Good luck, pick your trip carefully and read the terms/contract
Good luck, pick your trip carefully and read the terms/contract
Jan 10th, 2016, 09:41 AM
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Rabbies is very good and I can easily recommend them, but it's pretty much impossible to cover all the areas you mentioned in a week. Look at the Rabbies website and see what you can actually do. As janisj said they do tours in England and Ireland.
With Rabbies you are able to select the type of accommodation that suits you best...B&B, 3* Hotels, 4* Hotels, hostels etc. You can even book the place yourself as long as it fits with the tour schedule.Meals are separate so the choice is pretty much yours. The guides will always make suggestions as to the best places, but you make the decisions.
With Rabbies you are able to select the type of accommodation that suits you best...B&B, 3* Hotels, 4* Hotels, hostels etc. You can even book the place yourself as long as it fits with the tour schedule.Meals are separate so the choice is pretty much yours. The guides will always make suggestions as to the best places, but you make the decisions.
Jan 10th, 2016, 09:50 AM
#5
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Sorry - although it is physically ossible to get to all of those places in 7 days/8 night - you will NOT really have time to see/do anythng. Just sit on a bus for interminable hours with one 2 hours stop per day to rush inot one site plus the usual meal/potty stops.
What you have listed would be a bi rush in 2 weeks and really need 3 weeks to see much of anything.
London is a huge city (8 million people) with sights spread out all over. IMHO you need to allocate at least 4 days (5 nights) for a first visit to see much beyond the top few sights (unless you count driving by in a bus as "seeing" something). For instance, if you want to visit the Tower of London you need to allocate 3 to 4 hours, depending on how early you get there and how bad the crowds are. Looking at it out of the windows of a bus is useless.
When you look at bus tour itineraries read carefully:
"view" means you see something out of the bus window as it drives by
"stop" means a 5 minute photo op out front
only "visit" means you go inside and then it may be for a very abbreviated visit
What you have listed would be a bi rush in 2 weeks and really need 3 weeks to see much of anything.
London is a huge city (8 million people) with sights spread out all over. IMHO you need to allocate at least 4 days (5 nights) for a first visit to see much beyond the top few sights (unless you count driving by in a bus as "seeing" something). For instance, if you want to visit the Tower of London you need to allocate 3 to 4 hours, depending on how early you get there and how bad the crowds are. Looking at it out of the windows of a bus is useless.
When you look at bus tour itineraries read carefully:
"view" means you see something out of the bus window as it drives by
"stop" means a 5 minute photo op out front
only "visit" means you go inside and then it may be for a very abbreviated visit
Jan 10th, 2016, 09:51 AM
#6
>>we would like to see Bath, London, Cotswells [<B>Cotswolds</B>], Snowdonia Park, Lake District, York, Cambridge, Edenbough [<B>Edinburgh</B>]...more or less.<<
Should have mentioned in my post - there is no way on Earth you will see all of that on ANY tour in a week.
>>freedom and local insight<<
Don't know how you'd expect any freedom and 'local insight' with eight destinations in a week -- one of which is London - the largest city (by far) in western Europe.
Maybe you didn't think things through and just made out a wish list - dunno. But if this is a serious question you really do need to get a guidebook or two and a map -- three countries, 8 destinations takes a lot of time.
Should have mentioned in my post - there is no way on Earth you will see all of that on ANY tour in a week.
>>freedom and local insight<<
Don't know how you'd expect any freedom and 'local insight' with eight destinations in a week -- one of which is London - the largest city (by far) in western Europe.
Maybe you didn't think things through and just made out a wish list - dunno. But if this is a serious question you really do need to get a guidebook or two and a map -- three countries, 8 destinations takes a lot of time.
Jan 10th, 2016, 12:19 PM
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You could cover all of these in a week as long as you are happy to see everything through a coach window... Some coach tours do cover a lot of ground.
BUT you will be an a tight scheduele with little freedom and even less 'local insight'.
Great Britain may not look very big compared with, say, the US on a map but it will take a lot longer to cover the ground than you might expect.
BUT you will be an a tight scheduele with little freedom and even less 'local insight'.
Great Britain may not look very big compared with, say, the US on a map but it will take a lot longer to cover the ground than you might expect.
Jan 10th, 2016, 05:46 PM
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Just to give you an idea of what is possible... My mother and I visited many of the places you mention over a 15 day period in 2014, taking a 4 day/3 night tour with Rabbie's out of London and several day tours out of Bath.
The tour with Rabbie's included Stratford-Upon-Avon, Chester, Snowdonia/Conwy, Chatsworth (Peak District), Lincoln and Cambridge. Although we would have enjoyed spending more time at many of the sights, it was a wonderful way to see a lot over a short period of time without feeling overly rushed, and since there were two guides and four passengers, it felt like a very personal, low-key tour. I'd highly recommend Rabbie's and in fact are using them again in May for some day trips out of Edinburgh.
From Bath, we took several day tours with Mad Max and Lion Tours, visiting the Cotswolds, Stonehenge, Avebury, Glastonbury and Wells. Also highly recommend both companies.
We thoroughly enjoyed our trip, but were - quite frankly - exhausted at the end of two weeks. Without fully understanding how long you have for your entire trip, I'd still suggest paring down your list considerably. Take a look at the link JanisJ supplied for Rabbie's, and see if one of their multi-night tours suits you. Perhaps one of those and a few nights in London would make a great trip.
The tour with Rabbie's included Stratford-Upon-Avon, Chester, Snowdonia/Conwy, Chatsworth (Peak District), Lincoln and Cambridge. Although we would have enjoyed spending more time at many of the sights, it was a wonderful way to see a lot over a short period of time without feeling overly rushed, and since there were two guides and four passengers, it felt like a very personal, low-key tour. I'd highly recommend Rabbie's and in fact are using them again in May for some day trips out of Edinburgh.
From Bath, we took several day tours with Mad Max and Lion Tours, visiting the Cotswolds, Stonehenge, Avebury, Glastonbury and Wells. Also highly recommend both companies.
We thoroughly enjoyed our trip, but were - quite frankly - exhausted at the end of two weeks. Without fully understanding how long you have for your entire trip, I'd still suggest paring down your list considerably. Take a look at the link JanisJ supplied for Rabbie's, and see if one of their multi-night tours suits you. Perhaps one of those and a few nights in London would make a great trip.
