Driving/accomodations in England
 

My wife and I are trying to plan a 7-10 day trip to England in early fall 06. Have been to London before, but not outside the city. I want to rent a car and spend the first 5-6 days outside of London and spend the last 3-4 days in London. My questions are: are B&Bs abundant (e.g Ireland) in England?; what is the average B&B charge?; where to go & what are the must see towns/sites?; best rental car company? any recommended nice affordable hotels in London? Any other help anbd advice is welcomed. Thanks, Joe

First things first: You're too vague.

Why B&B rather than small and charming hotel - a budget thing? What is your budget? What is "affordable?

The UK is a relatively large country in comparison to the London area. What do you want to see? One can recommend the Cotswolds, Cornwall, Devon, Scotland, Wales, Kent, Yorkshire, etc. etc. etc. but you have to have a leaning towards somewhere for anyone to give you sensible advice.

Rental car companies are all much of a muchness...not real distinction, unless you're after something in the "luxury" market.

m kingdom3:
Either a B&B or small hotel would be fine. "Affordable" is in the 100E or less/night range for a B&B. As for what we want to see, we like art, museums, churches, etc. but also want to see some of the English countryside. I don't want to drive anymore but about 3-4 hours, at the most, between locations.

3-4 hours is more or less anywhere...it could even be Scotland if you set off at midnight.

You will find "art, museums, and churches" set in English countryside virtually all over the country. Do you want sea? No sea? Mountains? Flat? Any famous homes you'd like to see? Any museums?

Do some more research and establish in your own mind some places that grab your attention, then ask for some help here to narrow down your choices and help you to select places to stay in.

Not all that often that I agree w/ m_kingdom - but he is right. England is a big place and your criteria of churches, countryside, less than 3-4 hour daily drives would cover - oh, about 1500 places.

What research have you done so far?

Some choices would be 5-6 days in:

Kent/East Sussex -- MANY castles, gardens, gentle scenery.

Cotswolds/Bath -- MANY "wool" churches, lovely villages, the wonders of Bath.

Yorkshire -- Yorkminster, great museums, lovely countryside.

Devon/Cornwall -- amazing scenery

Or any number of other areas. Anyone could give you a sample itinerary - but they would just be subjective opinions. You do need to narrow things down a bit.

B&Bs are cheaper than charming small hotels. I went to Devon and Cornwall - pretty popular vacation areas - last May; and I paid around 20GBP per person in B&Bs. That's significantly cheaper than any hotels.

Yes, I do find B&Bs plentiful in many small-to-medium sized towns along major "A roads". You do have to look out for the vacancy signs, and the matter of fact is that if you want to be flexible, you just have to go by instinct about which one to stop at. Sometimes you may go to a very very nice ones, sometimes a mediocre one. That's little guarantee.

I rented twice a few years ago from ALamo and always found them resonable. I booked over the internet and got a good rate. If you have several different organizations you belong to, try every one to see if there rate is best. When I went with a friend, his Costco rate was the best.

I rented at Gatwick and found it very easy to get out of the airport onto the motorway.

Simply doing churches, and assuming a start from London, you could do Suffolk and Norfolk (wool churches), Lincolnshire (don't miss Stow), East Yorkshire (don't miss Beverley) and even up as far as Whitby, before returning further west down through Leicestershire and Northants.

'England's Thousand Best Churches' by Simon Jenkins would give some detailed suggestions.