steve_Australia

Hello fellow fodorites,

Once again I need your invaluable help with a planned trip to the UK next summer.

My wife and I plan to fly to London and fly out of Dublin having spent around 6 weeks touring the UK.

Our plan is to book accommodation in London and spend 6 days or so looking around the English capital. After that, it gets a bit fuzzy

We have toured Europe for a total of 14 weeks over the past several years and have always travelled independently. Catching trains from Base to Base and then pretty much walking or using local transport to get around to all of the wonderful sights and experiences that Europe holds.

With this upcoming trip, however, I am not sure how to best go about it.

My initial plan was:
1. Take a 10-day bus tour around England.
2. Catch a train to Edinburgh and spend 3 or 4 days exploring that city.
3. Take a 7 or so day bus tour around Scotland, focussing on the Highlands.
4. Take a Ferry to Dublin and spend several days exploring that city before ...
5. Taking another 10-12 day bus tour around Ireland and Northern Island before flying out of Dublin.

However, many people have suggested that ALL bus tours are rushed and most of the sight-seeing is done out of a bus window! Having done independent, leisurely trips in the past, this does not sound too appealing.

Still others have suggested that taking the self-drive approach is a nightmare due to traffic and a total lack of parking anywhere. And finally, unlike Europe (where for example we based ourselves in Brienz and made day trips to Interlaken and beyond; Lucerne; Bern; Grindelwald etc) I don't think exploring England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland would lend itself to that type of travel mode.

Please, can anyone offer some suggestions for getting the most out of a six-week visit?

abram

I can only speak about Ireland and Northern Ireland. We spent 4 days in Dublin, then rented a car and spent 30 days making a big loop of the island. DH is comfortable driving on the left, although it took him a couple of days to get used to narrow roads. We thought it was a wonderful way to travel. In larger towns, we often parked the car at our lodging and walked to sightseeing.

steve_Australia

Hi Abram - thanks for the prompt response. As you would have noticed from my sign on name, I would have no trouble driving on the left but was not sure about the other aspects.

Regarding your lodgings, did you plan any accommodation or have no trouble finding B&Bs or reasonably-priced hotels etc?

Gordon_R

As you're used to travelling independently and have plenty of time, I think all those bus tours would drive you crazy - not to mention costing a small fortune. Traffic and parking can be problematic IN major city centres such as London and Edinburgh and on major roads near cities during rush hour, but just about everywhere else people use cars all the time to get around without significant problems. You'll wonder why you were concerned at all when you see what the Scottish Highlands are like.

You could easily construct a sensible itinerary that involves a mix of city centre and small town/countryside stages, using public transport for the former and hire cars for the latter spread out over your six-week period.

Bear in mind also that you'll need a separate hire car for your Ireland visit as one-way drop-offs into a foreign country and ferry charges for cars are prohibitive. Might well be better to fly - there are many flight options from the UK to Ireland.

Avalon2

I wuld definetly rent a car,especially since you have no trouble driving on the left. You'll see and explore places the bus tour misses or spdpeeds by. We have driven alll over the aUK from Land's eND TO jOHN o'GROATSand have had no problems exploring .There is usually some outlying or central parking and we just walk from there.

steve_Australia

Hi Gordon, Thanks for the input. It sounds like bus tours are definitely out. BTW, my plan for some major cities - London, Edinburgh and Dublin - would be to use local transport and not attempt to drive in and around those cities.
However, I don't know whether it is commercially viable to hire a car on 5 or so separate times or not. Also, I'm not sure what to do about Glasgow and Belfast - I don't like the idea of driving through those cities.

Thank you Avalon2 - it sounds like self-drive is the way to go.

So, what about accommodation? Is it relatively easy to not worry about booking in advance? Are B&Bs the way to go, or are small hotels reasonably priced?

Thanks again for all your help.

flanneruk

The only places where cars are best avoided are London, Dublin and Edinburgh and a handful of heritage cities (like Oxford and Bath), though in this second group it's usually easier for people touring the country to leave the car in a suburban Park & Ride, or find a hotel on the edge of the historic centre than to go through the palaver of serial hiring.

This can often be an option for Dublin and Edinburgh, though it sort of limits your choice of hotel.

Big, largely Victorian, cities like Belfast or Liverpool are fine for driving (think Sydney or Melbourne), though you have to budget for the cost of overnight parking: check with the hotel.

Don't confuse B&Bs with the self-important boutique hotels in the US that call themselves B&Bs. A British B&B is usually a suburban house whose owners hire out rooms. Some like them, and in some parts of the country the only alternative is very pricey boutique hotels. In bigger cities, though, low-cost chains like Travelodge and Premier Inns provide adequate comfort, and access to secure parking, right in the centre.

There are circumstances where it's easy and the most sensible option to rely entirely on public transport. That really never makes sense in Ireland, and if you've got 3 weeks isn't really the best option in Britain

thursdaysd

If you don't want to drive in Glasgow and Belfast, drop your mainland car in Glasgow, take the train to Troon, the ferry to Larne, and the train into Belfast. Then pick up your Irish car in Belfast - or take the train to Dublin and pick it up there. Of course you could fly, but overland (and water) would be more scenic.

Gordon_R

>>Big, largely Victorian, cities like Belfast or Liverpool are fine for driving (think Sydney or Melbourne), though you have to budget for the cost of overnight parking: check with the hotel.<<

The same applies to central Glasgow as well, largely a grid pattern of wide roads like North American or Australian cities. And you have a motorway running right through the centre.

Mimar

I found northern Scotland did not, in general, lend itself to the spoke-and-wheel kind of travel from a base. Sights are not that dense, and a lot of them consist of scenery and broad vistas of landscape empty of people.

OTOH, England does lend itself very much to this kind of travel. It depends on what you're interested in. We have based in Bath (Wells, Glastonbury, Longleat, Stourhead Garden, Tintern Abbey and Chepstow Castle), St. Ives (for southern Cornwall), Richmond (for Yorkshire and Durham), Broadway (for the Cotswolds), Grasmere (for the lakes), Pangbourne (for the Thames Valley), near Rye for southern England. And other places I can't remember off the top of my head.

If you specify

You could do something like train from London to Edinburgh, spend time there, then pick up a rental car, tour Scotland and work your way south. Or use 2 cities as bookends for your trip. Fly onto to Edinburgh immediately upon arrival, work your way south, ending up in London. Or end up in Edinburgh dropping the car, take the train to Glasgow and fly out of there.

BigRuss

I don't see why there's an issue: you have a method that worked in places LESS culturally and linguistically akin to Australia, why wouldn't it work in the mother country and its emancipated stepchild?

<i>I found northern Scotland did not, in general, lend itself to the spoke-and-wheel kind of travel from a base.</i>

I disagree with that. Aberdeenshire just outside Aberdeen is a great base for castle country; Inverness area is a good base for anything from Culloden to Loch Ness to Dunrobin Castle or even further north.

Just rent a car in the UK and again in Ireland. You should be able to pick up and drop off all in Ireland, not pick up in N Ireland and drop off in the Republic.

michelhuebeli

Consider this: After London, take the train to Liverpool (a good 2 hours only) and rent a car. If you find a good rate for a few weeks, keep the car even when in cities - it may not be cheaper to drop off the car in, say, Glasgow, and then get a new one for another remote drop-off - that usually incurs one-way drop-off fees, so having the one and same car idle for a few days may still be cheaper
.
Anyway, after you circle UK and Scotland in that car, drop it back to Liverpoodle and hop the ferry across and get another vehicle.

Go for a little car - in many places the country lanes are narrow, the hedges or stonewalls unyielding, and any oncoming traffic creates accelerated heartbeat when you worry about scratching the side of the car...

janisj

>>Still others have suggested that taking the self-drive approach is a nightmare due to traffic and a total lack of parking anywhere. <<

That is rubbish really - as explained above

>>I found northern Scotland did not, in general, lend itself to the spoke-and-wheel kind of travel from a base. Sights are not that dense, and a lot of them consist of scenery and broad vistas of landscape empty of people. <<

I totally disagree w/ that.

A well placed B&B or holiday cottage w/i say 15 miles of Inverness would be an excellent base for everything from Elgin/Nairn/Cawdor, to the Black Isle, to the 'Whisky Trail', to Dornoch/Dunrobin, to Loch Ness, to the north west coast, to even a day tripto Skye (though staying over ON Skye would be preferable to a mere day trip)

Same w/ a base somewhere in The Trossachs - good for Loch Lomond, Glencoe, Perthshire, Oban/Argyll, Stirling, and a TON of other places.

With six weeks I'd do a combo of one and two night stops between full week rentals in areas you want to concentrate more. Driving is your only real option for something like this - (except for the beginning bit in London, and maybe a couple of days in Dubllin before heading out to more scenic parts of Ireland)

dulciusexasperis

Driving depends on the confidence of the driver. I would consider it much ado about nothing but then I grew up in a large city. Someone who lives in a small town/village and is not comfortable driving in a large city in Australia will have the same concerns in the UK obviously.

For that reason, any comments about how easy driving is in any UK city depend on how confident YOU are at home Steve. If you have no issues there, you will have no issues in the UK.

Parking is much the same. Parking in any city can be a pain in the butt but the reality is people do find parking every day. So will you. Those big signs with a 'P' on them exist everywhere just like they do at home.

There is no question that you can manage with public transport in major cities if that is what you prefer to do. There is also no question that having a car outside of major cities gives you more flexibility to control your own time.

Regarding finding places to stay, again I see no problem but I am quite comfortable with not pre-booking. In fact, I rarely ever do. Some people however get themselves into a panic when 5 pm approaches and they have no where to stay. so again, that depends on YOU not on whether places will be available. Places will be available but are you comfortable winging it?

Price wise, 'reasonable' is meaningless unless YOU define what that means to you. I'm not a fan of B&Bs in general. Generally, not enough privacy for my taste. I've also noticed that prices are no longer that cheap relative to hotel prices in many cases.

For an idea of pricing, here are two places I have stayed in in the Pitlochry area of Scotland. You can see how the prices look to you. http://www.craigatinhouse.co.uk/index.html
http://www.athollarmshotel.co.uk/

Here is a B&B I have not stayed in in the same area. The first I found using Google.
http://www.dunmurray.co.uk/tariff.htm#target

The Craigatin calls itself a B&B but is far above the average B&B. I think the Dunmarray is more of the average. The Atholl Arms is a hotel. Price wise there is not that much difference between them all. From say 70-100 pounds per night for a room.

Be careful when looking at prices. In the UK rooms are often priced per person, not per room. The Craigatin and Atholl Arms price per room, the Dunmurray is pricing per person.

janisj

If you want to rent a cottage or apartment you really must pre-book . . . and in some areas at some times of the year, as soon your dates are certain.

In some areas (like Edinburgh late July through all of August) you need to book as far ahead as possible.

indy_dad

Independent travel for sure. I'm in the pre-book camp as I don't want to spend holiday time looking for a place to stay (and it's my personality).

We've been fortunate enough to take a few trips during our stay in the UK. Click on my name for the full list and here are a couple to get you started (if that helps):

Scotland
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...rip-report.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...s-and-more.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-with-kids.cfm

London
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...andparents.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-with-kids.cfm

Wales
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...orth-wales.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ng-snowdon.cfm

indy_dad

Oh, and Ireland & NI:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ids-photos.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...elfast-etc.cfm

flanneruk

"Still others have suggested that taking the self-drive approach is a nightmare due to traffic and a total lack of parking anywhere."

Hard to comment without knowing who all these "others" are.

Driving in mainstream urban Britain is pretty much the same as driving in central Sydney. There ARE Australians so wimpish (it wasn't just our crims and whingers we dumped on you, but the wimps and the feckless, and all these traits are hereditary) they find Sydney traffic a problem - and they have the same difficulty here.

Outside cities, traffic IS denser than in most of NSW or Victoria, and obviously infintely denser than in the empty 99% of your island. Apart from on motorways (where speed is, in practice limited only by how fast everyone else is driving), most intercity roads have camera-controlled speed limits, and congestion can be unpredictable (and sometimes savage).

dulciusexasperis

"So, what about accommodation? Is it relatively easy to not worry about booking in advance? Are B&Bs the way to go, or are small hotels reasonably priced?"

Where in that did the OP indicate any desire to lock themselves in for any given day or period of time? As I interpret the OP's question what he really wants to know is if it is OK to NOT pre-book.

The answer to that is yes it is easy to not worry about booking if you are not the type to worry about it. Indy_dad clearly indicates that he is not one of those who wouldn't worry about it ("and it's my personality"). Finding a B&B or small hotel is quite easy at any time.

While you might conceivably not find one in a given village on a given night due to some local event, you'll find one 5 miles down the road.

As for, "In some areas (like Edinburgh late July through all of August) you need to book as far ahead as possible.", that's hilarious. I've stayed in Edinburgh countless times and never pre-booked a room in 40 years.

There are only 2 times when I would be the least bit concerned about finding a room in Edinburgh, during the Festival and on New Year's Eve. Even then, I would just plan to find a room a few miles down the train line and train in each day. I still wouldn't pre-book.

Pre-booking is for those who are unwilling or unable to wing it and who live life to a timetable. Giving up the flexibility to get up each morning and decide what I will do today or where I will go today is not something I ever want to do.

A vacation is a break from your everyday life and responsibilities. One of the biggest pluses of vacation time is the freedom of not having to live your days to a timetable. Why anyone chooses to immediately give away that freedom and self-impose a timetable on themselves by pre-booking never makes any sense to me.

Booking a first night if you are going to be arriving somewhere in the evening and perhaps jet-lagged makes sense. Booking a place you already know and plan to go directly to for a one stop stay makes sense. Booking a room that you have never actually seen, for next Thursday and where you don't actually know you might be next Thursday? No sense at all unless you have some psychological reason for needing to do so as Indy_dad indicates exists in his case.

Most people who pre-book are simply used to pre-booking and don't even consider not doing so. Some who do consider not pre-booking are uncomfortable with the idea. Your basic fear of the unknown. But like most fear of the unknown, it is irrational.

Peter_S_Aus

Surely it is time for The Rule of Threes to raise its ugly head.