4 weeks in the UK
 

We have a 4 week travel window in late March, early April. Husband, 11 yr old son and me, coming from Australia. We want to see as much of the UK as we can in that time ( and maybe a trip across to Paris).
Looking for inspiration as to where to start my planning. We have no real 'must dos'. Our son is used to traveling long distances so we don't mind a few long drives. We have no specific travel interests. We just like to see different places, especially those that we've read about in novels.
I know my ancestors came from Yorkshire so I'd like to check that out. I'm a great fan of Diana Gabaldon's 'Crosstitch' series so a visit to Scotland sounds wonderful. And then there's everything Irish that appeals and all those wonderful Welsh town names. So much to choose from and so little time.
Can anyone suggest a likely 'circuit'?

There are (quite literally) hundreds of options. • A driving tour w/ a lot of moving around; • a series of one week stays (say for example - Scotland, Yorkshire, some rural bits in more southern England and London); • Or a few 4 and 5 day stays (Edinburgh, some other place(s) in Scotland, Yorkshire, the Lakes, north Wales, the Cotswolds, somewhere in the SW, London; • Or 4 or 5 days in Paris, 4 or 5 days in London Yorkshire, and 2 weeks in Scotland. . . . or any other combo.

You need to get a couple of guide books and study up on the options.

I would not try to dilute the time too much adding Ireland or more than a few days in Paris. Re Yorkshire . . It is a HUGE county. and where the family comes from would definitely affect where you go -- the Moors, Dales, York, some of the bigger/industrial towns. You could easily spend a week in Yorkshire.

So study up a bit, come back w/ the framework of a plan and we can help you refine/improve it.

In your planning -- don't assume you can do the same sort of long distance driving days like you do in Oz. In scenic parts of the UK 100 miles is a VERY long day. Figure 35-40 mph general touring.

This really is a chance to see a lot of the UK, but you need to be a bit more concentrated on where you want to go as it's bigger than you think. Presumably you'll fly in and out of Heathrow? The first thing is not to take on a long drive after coming off a long (overnight?) flight, it's a recipe for a road accident. Hire your car and head for somewhere close to LHR like Windsor, where you can relax and get a good night's sleep before heading off.

Leave London itself to the end of the month, give it a good week and include your Eurostar trip to Paris before you return to London and fly home. That leaves 3 weeks to do your "circuit". Although it sounds a long time, it really isn't, so you're going to have to be selective. Where in Yorkshire do you want to go for the family thing?

From Windsor, maybe take the M4 to Wales, drive up the west coast and into North Wales, then Manchester, Lake District, Scotland, Yorkshire, leave the car there and train to London. You won't need the car again after this point.

How you divide your time between the various stops depends on what you want to see and this is a only a rough outline that will maybe help to start the train of thought.

kwaussie,

as a Brit I've never done this sort of trip in the UK [we tend to pick a place and go and stay there for a few days at least, much as I suspect you do at home in OZ] but we did a 5 week trip to OZ and NZ last year, so i might be able to give you a bit of help.

1. You will quickly become very tired and fed up, as will your son, if you keep moving all the time. THat said, a few 2 nights [never 1 nights, they are awful] can help you to move from one area to another whilst having enough time to see what there is in between.

2. if you pick the right bases, you can easily spend at least 5 nights in once place before you move on - and some places, like Yorkshire, merit a stay of at least a week.

3. You could always add Paris on the end if you book open jaw flights. [into London, out of Paris, using Eurostar to travel between the two cities or alternatively flying to Paris from somewhere like Bristol, Manchester or Edinburgh/Glasgow].

4. Easter Sunday falls on 5th April in 2015, so you probably want to decide where you want to be over that weekend and the 2 weeks after quite soon as accommodation will book up quickly over the school holidays as they are popular times for family holidays.

Hope that helps a bit!

Good advice above, a few more
1) you don't want a car in London.
2) you can use the train system (it is pretty useful to get long distances out of the way without the pleasure of UK roads in late winter)

I'd look at a clock wise or anti-clockwise trip along the lines of
Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales/West Country, London, this misses out loads of the country but you want to see stuff and at best I'd stay 3 nights at each base

I propose

A) Train or Bus to Salisbury from LHR (no jet lag danger and a nice little town to enjoy for a couple of day) hire car on day 2 and tour around to stuff like Stonehenge etc. Stay in the city for say 3 nights
B) Drive to Wales (sorry, despite living in the UK for 54 years I still find little I enjoy here :-) ) but DYOR
C) Drive north maybe Liverpool or the Lake district and then to Glasgow (dump car)
D) Fly up to Orkney for a few days, hire car required
E) Fly to Edinburgh
F) Train to York and hire car to tour around
G) Train to London

If you can fit that all in and the weather is not unkind to you then you will have seen a lot
B)

Four weeks - lucky you! We had two weeks this summer and spent them in the Isle of Skye, Edinburgh and London.

You may want to take a look at Rick Steves England and Scotland tours just to use as a guide to come up with a driving plan. Be aware that distances are misleading, especially when visiting a new place. This past summer we went to Scotland for the first time and what should have been a five hour drive turned into an eight hour drive because we kept stopping to admire the beautiful vistas in the Highlands.

It can be quite meaningful (for some people) to visit a place that has genealogical significance. My mother-in-law was of MacLeod ancestry and we stayed at a cottage located on the grounds of Dunvegan Castle where the MacLeods are from. She passed away earlier in the year and it was a particularly poignant trip for my husband. Do your ancestry homework before the trip - it can be quite fulfilling!

You mention wanting to visit Scotland because of the Diana Gabaldon book series. There are several guides conducting tours of locations used in the book; you can always look those up and then make up your own tour. I would think Clava Cairns and Culloden Battlefield should make your list.

Once you put together a loose itinerary let everyone here take a look - there are some very knowledgeable and helpful people on this forum and don't be put off by critical advice - the goal is for you to have a great trip!

much good advice/insight above . . . w/ one <i>slight</i> disagreement . . .

>>You may want to take a look at Rick Steves England and Scotland tours just to use as a guide to come up with a driving plan<<

Oh God, no! RS may be good to really good for some places but he is pretty darn dreadful for the UK. Thankfully I don't think he is the be all/end all in Australia that he is in the States. Most of my UK and Aussie friends have never heard of him. If you haven't - keep it that way ;)

There are scores of other/better guidebooks for the UK.

You need to do some research, to narrow things down. I'd skip Ireland and only do Wales if you really want to go there.

We have flown into Heathrow and taken a bus to our first stop. Options are Bath, Oxford, Brighton, Windsor, Salisbury. Probably more. After a day or so to get over jetlag, we pick up our rental car. (From Windsor you'll probably have to go back to Heathrow -- not far -- to get a rental car.) And, if you plan to spend any time in London, it makes a good place to get over jetlag. Lots of things to do, day and night.

Sights are dense in England. You can base in one place and do lots of excursions. This is not so true in Scotland, where you will do more driving.

Places your son might enjoy:

London: the Tower of London, the Imperial War Museum, the Natural History and Science Museums, Hampton Court Palace

Harry Potter sights in London and Scotland
Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard
Warwick Castle
York
Hadrian's Wall
Edinburgh Castle
Stirling Castle

There are probably many more options. I'm sure others will chime in. Kinda depends on your child's interests. But do get your son involved in the planning. His being interested will add to everyone's enjoyment.

Thanks for the prompt replies everyone. I realize I need to do a lot more research but I'm a bit time poor during term time & I'm just looking for a 'big picture' plan so I can book some airfares while they're on special.

Looks like the consensus is that we'll have to skip Ireland? This will make me sad but I know when others ask my advice about Aus or NZ I always caution them not to bite off more than they can chew. It's just that everywhere is such a long way from us that when we get there we like to see as much as possible! We spent 8 weeks in the US a couple of years ago and were able to cover an amazing amount of ground. We manage to travel fairly lightly ( although I do like to shop so the bags get heavier as we go!) so moving from place to place is not an issue for us.

My ancestors come from Holmfirth in West Yorkshire. I have no idea if there's much to do there but I fancy treading the ground the my genetic forbears tread before me.

The Gabaldon tour idea sounds great Mrs Wilde- or maybe I'll just check their brochures & self drive. I figure a look at the Highlands will help me survive the gap between her books!

So, leave out Ireland :-( & maybe Wales as well?

Thanks of all your advice so far. I'll be back with a skeleton itinerary :-)

>>I'm just looking for a 'big picture' plan so I can book some airfares while they're on special<<

Re booking flights -- pick your dates and book. The details of the itinerary can always be massaged later.

Look at in/out of London - OR - in to London/out of Glasgow, Edinburgh or Manchester (or vice versa) - OR - If you decide to include a few days in Paris, in to any city in the UK and out of Paris (or vice versa)

W/ any of those itineraries you can work out a very doable tour of England/Scotland or England/Scotland/Paris.

From Holmfirth you will actually be nearer the Peak District than most parts of Yorkshire. But 2 days in York, 3 days in the Dales and a couple of days around Holmfirth would make a nice week.

Holmfirth is where the Last of the Summer Wine TV series was filmed, so can get a bit "busy" some days when the coach parties turn up.

My office is near Holmfirth which is a tiny town about 5 miles from Huddersfield. Although you are looking for family locations, the whole thing shouldn't take more than an afternoon as you can walk across Holmfirth in 10 minutes.

There won't be many if any coach parties in late March/early April and apart from a small vineyard, yes there is one on the outskirts, there's not a lot to recommend the place, especially if you're from somewhere that never heard of Last of the Summer Wine. I have and am no better for it!

So, I've done a wee bit of homework and started to flesh out a route. Turns out airfares in and out of Paris were considerably cheaper than London so that's what I've booked.
We fly into Paris on March 13th. How does this look for a skeleton plan ( keeping in mind we don't mind driving and our son is a great traveler )
4 nights in Paris - train to London - Pick up car
3 nights Cornwall
3 nights Lakes District
6 nights Scotland
4 nights Yorkshire
5 nights in London - train back to Paris

Train to London, means you have to drive out of London, you may prefer to pick up a car at a station outside London. I can't remember if it stops anywhere in the UK first, but if it does...

Optionally take a train from London to Cornwall (it is a long way) then hire a car.

Good idea to keep London as one stop

Good skeleton

Optionally take a train from London to Cornwall (it is a long way) then hire a car.>>

well, it's not so far from here [i live in Cornwall] but I agree with bilbo that taking the train is a better option than driving all the way, unless there are things that you particularly want to see en route. Parts of the train journey are particularly scenic - the stretch around Dawlish where the line goes between the cliffs and the sea [which is why it got washed away last winter] and the crossing of the Tamar just after Plymouth, where you have the pleasure of using Brunel's famous bridge.

You can hire a car at the station in Truro or Penzance and then set off at your own pace without being exhausted by a 6 hour drive. you could then fly to the north from Newquay for your stay in the Lakes - otherwise it's a very long drive and you'd need to stop at least once on the way there.

Some Eurostar trains stop at Ashford or Ebbsfleet. You can pick up a rental car at either. But it's a longish drive to Cornwall, 5 hours plus, not including stops. But plenty of nice places to stop overnight to break up the drive.

However, your Eurostar ticket would be an open jaw (Paris to Ebbsfleet/Ashford, London to Paris). Don't know if you can get the early booking discount on that. (Early booking makes for a BIG savings on the Eurostar.)

If you continue by train from London to Cornwall, you'll have to change stations in London, from St. Pancras to Paddington. Crossing town with bags can be a bore, either in a taxi in traffic or on the tube.

You've another long drive from Cornwall to the Lakes. And the Lakes to Scotland drive time depends on where you're going in Scotland.

But you've got a good start.

Random comments:

>>train to London - Pick up car<<

Silly idea :)

First of all you end up in the center of London at St Pancras and either have to hire a car there or take a train someplace else and collect a car. You can fly directly from CDG to either Bristol or Exeter. Make tons more sense than dealing w/ London.

Cornwall to the Lake district is a VERY long ways. Say St Ives to Windermere . . . you are talking 8 to 9+ hours straight driving. I'd break that somewhere.

Your 'cheap' RT in/out of Paris is costing you an extra Eurostar trip so maybe not as cheap as you think

Another option would be Paris; Train to London; 5 nights in London; collect a car either out at LHR or take a train to Exeter or Plymouth or somewhere and get your car there; Cornwall; a night in the Cotswolds; North Yorkshire; the Lakes; Scotland; Fly to Paris from GLA or EDI. Saves driving the full length of the UK and back again.

If you continue by train from London to Cornwall, you'll have to change stations in London, from St. Pancras to Paddington. Crossing town with bags can be a bore, either in a taxi in traffic or on the tube.>>
actually crossing London from St P to Paddington isn't too bad - we've done it a few times and it doesn't require any changes. but jj's ideas are much better.

FYI, you can fly on Flyby.com from Newquay to LGW, and Manchester, and from Exeter to Paris, so you could fly to Exeter, pick up a car [it's about 100 miles or 2 hours to Cornwall from the airport] and at the end of your tour, drive to Newquay, return the car, and fly to Manchester. See the lakes, then return the car in Edinburgh/Galsgow and fly to Paris.

Thanks for all the prompt replies. I'll look into the domestic flight options but, as I said in the OP we don't mind driving ( just did 5000 km round trip to Alice Springs in 12 days last holidays) and having the car gives us a bit more flexibility about stops.

Mimar - can you explain 'open jaw' more thoroughly for me?

janis- we were intending to go to Paris anyway so were going to have Eurostar or plane tickets to buy either way ;-) I will certainly look into flights from CDG to Bristol.

We're hoping to get right up to Inverness. Am I being too ambitious?

Happy Christmas everyone :-)

>>We're hoping to get right up to Inverness.<<

Why particularly? Inverness the city - or the general Inverness area? Inverness itself is just a busy city. But the surrounding area has some very good sites. W/ just 6 nights from the Lakes (in your original plan) til you need to get back to Paris it would be hard to cover a lot of Scotland. Especially if you want to spend a couple of days in Edinburgh. Many Aussies (and Yanks for that matter ;) ) say 'We don't mind long drives, we did (you pick - Western Oz, the Western USA, Texas, whatever) in 10 days."

You simply cannot compare the situations. In most parts of rural UK and ESPECIALLY in Cornwall, the Lakes North Yorkshire, and Scotland - you will be <u>lucky</u> to average 35 mph. Now you may occasionally get up to 50 mph, but you'll come around a bend in the road and be in the middle of 50 sheep who will move on their own sweet time, or a lorry parked setting out construction signals, or a caravan (travel trailer) going 30 mph. So 35 mph is a good rule of thumb.

I would definitely look at a linear trip -- either from south to north and fly from Scotland back to Paris -- or -- North to south (fly from Paris to Scotland, work your way south ending up in London and train back to Paris). You just don't have the time to drive the full length of the UK twice.


Open jaw (usually called multi-city on airline and booking sites) is where you fly in to one city and home from a different place. They usually cost about the same or only a little more than RT in/out of the same city and save the hassle of having to back track to the original city.

In the long run it is often cheaper to do open jaw and is almost always less hassle.

annhig, I agree janisj's suggestions are very good. But tell me about getting from St. Pancras to Paddington. How do you do it? (To the OP, annhig lives in Cornwall.)

Re: open jaw, janis has explained it. Often people spend money and valuable vacation time getting back to their arrival city for a round trip return. When they could have saved their money and had less stress and more time to sight-see if they'd done an open jaws trip.

I almost always do an open jaws routing -- using British Air frequent flyer miles. But sometimes people get such a good deal on their round-trip tickets, they don't want to give it up. Always worth comparing though.

not annhig . . . but St Pancras to Paddington is easy -- depending on time of day and luggage situation, a cab, the tube or a bus all work.

Even though the tube is easy -- w/ luggage getting from Paddington tube station up to the mainline station can be a crowded slog. I'd just take a cab (or a bus if budget is an issue)

The Hammersmith and city line goes directly from ST Pancras to Paddington, and the stairs at the bottom of which you exit the train at Paddington leads onto a bridge which goes straight to the platform for the Penzance train, down to which there is a lift.

but there isn't, so far as i know, a lift up onto the bridge - you have to take the stairs. so JJ is right - it is a bi of a slog. OK if you're just traveling light, not so good with heavy luggage.

The last time I arrived at King's Cross, we waited in the taxi line for more than an hour. So maybe that was then and traffic was bad that day. But still.... Sounds like the tube is the best bet if the OP doesn't have too much heavy luggage and isn't traveling during commute time.

So, after much reflection, we've come up with a whole new plan that includes a side trip to Zurich to visit our exchange student who's just gone home and misses us ;-)
Sadly, we've dropped Cornwall from our plans.
We really want to get to the Scottish Highlands so we'll fly to Edinburgh & drive down to London.
janis - I'm a huge Diana Gabaldon fan & want to visit the Culloden battlefield etc

Day 1 Arrive CDG
Day 2-5 Paris
Day 6 - Fast train to Zurich
Day 7- 8 Zurich
Day 9 - Fly to Edinburgh, pick up car
Day 10- 14 Scotland
Day 15- 17 Lakes District
Day 18 -19 York
Day 20- Drive to Birmingham via Holmfirth ( ancestral home)
Day 21- ?
Day 22- ?
Day 23- Good Friday - Drop car off somewhere ( Cambridge maybe?) & train to London
Day 24-27- London
Day 28- Eurostar to Paris
Day 29- Fly home

Does this look doable? So much to see & so little time to do it! Not sure what the best route from York down would be and I'm worried we've left ourselves really short of time in London :-(

As you're in Holmfirth on day 20, rather than go on to Birmingham (not that much to recommend in Birmingham), drive to Manchester instead. It's only 45/60 minutes from Holmfirth depending on time of day and the city has much to offer in terms of history and buildings, a great choice of hotels and restaurants.

The city centre is easily walkable and you can catch a train to London that arrives in a little over two hours. You can drop your car in Manchester without any problems.

oh dear, how often have I read that people have dropped Cornwall from their itineraries?

but unless people are prepared to fly, [and I don't understand why they won't] it is difficult to fit in, as you've found, Kwaussie. [that wasn't a dig at you, BTW, just a general moan].

the new itinerary looks great. To fill in your extra days you might think about seeing the Peak District - between Manchester and B'ham - or just extend your times in the other places - for example, by the time you've got to the Lakes, you'll only have 2 ½ days there which is nothing like enough.

I hope you have a fantastic time and come back here and tell us about it!

Thanks for the reassurance annhig. It's soooo hard to make decisions from the other side of the world!
Now I really just need to make a decision on where to drop the car. I figure the days between Scotland and London can then be decided closer to our visit & the weather (e.g. I'm guessing if the weather is fine we'll want more days in the Lakes, if it's wet, we'll want less).
Is it worth pushing on to spend the last night in somewhere significant closer to London like Cambridge or the Cotswolds? I feel like if we take the train from Manchester we'll miss (another) good bit of the country.

Cambridge makes no sense w/ the rest of your itinerary. Wrong side of the country . . . Unless you head there from York.

No reason to include B'ham. If you do travel via the Cotswolds, then you might as well drive on to LHR, drop the car there and take public transport into London.

"I feel like if we take the train from Manchester we'll miss (another) good bit of the country."

If you don't have those couple of days in Manchester, you'll miss that too! As you've said above, you can't do it all with two weeks in the UK, so it's always a trade off to visit one place over another. What prompted me to suggest Manchester, (although I'm biased in any case) is that you're leaving York and heading for Holmfirth on day 20. The best place of any size within an hour's further driving, with everything to offer is Manchester.

It may not be as fashionable to visit as the Cotswolds for instance, but they're overrated anyway. I've had a number of emails from people who have visited following recommendations on another site and all have been on a "very glad we went" theme.

Well I'm not in the very-glad-I-went-to-Manchester group. But it was a convenience.

However, there's lot's of interesting countryside and small towns between Holmfirth and London. Sounds like you're less interested in cities on this part of your trip. (Makes sense while you have a car.) You could spend spend a day or two in the scenic Peaks District, between Holmfirth and Manchester, then drop the car in Manchester and train to London. Or drive to the Cotswolds, spend a day or two, then drive to Oxford instead of Cambridge and drop the car. Explore Oxford and take the train to London. There are a lot of possibilities between Holmfirth and London.

No need to decide right now. Book the car for the duration and spend some time researching. You can always change your rental car booking.

Manchester is ok but given that it is not York or Lincoln both of which are smaller and way older it is a funny choice. For me I'd stick to the east of the Penines on the trip south and drop by Cambridge or Oxford if you have time.

Sorry bilbo, not way older. All three places were settled initially between 48 and 80 AD by the Romans.York has the Minster and some narrow streets, Lincoln has a Cathedral and not much else. Granted the bulk of Manchester's visible history is Victorian, but it's too easily dismissed by those who don't know it.

It's a fascinating city with enough to keep most people busy for days on end.

Rubi, I know some of the old bits of Manchester ;-) there is a pub...

I think for advice to a tourist you are being a bit optimistic. But I know where you are coming from. Who can deny the merits of the Library, the museums or China Town?

Lincoln Jail

Oh bilbo, how little you know of one of the most vibrant cities in the UK, with history coming out of its ears! How about:

Library: Central or Rylands?
Town Hall + Bell Tower visit
Peterloo Massacre site
St Anns Square where Bonnie Prince Charlie rode
St Anns Church
Art galleries
Museums
Castlefield Roman site
Manchester Cathedral
St Mary's (The hidden gem)
Imperial War Museum
Old Trafford football ground
National Football Museum
Various magnificent buildings that used to be cotton warehouses, available to visit
Some of the best restaurants in UK

and as Yul Brynner said in the King and I, "etcetera. etcetara."

been, seen ;-) don't disagree but very urbanised