My husband & I are traveling to Great Britain in September 2007. We will be landing in Fishguard Wales after taking a ferry from Ireland. We will be renting a car.
We have 4 days to get to Helmsley just north of York. I am having a very hard time determining how far we can go each day.
I would really like to do the following:
Day 1:Fishguard to Pembroke to Cardiff & spend first night here
Day 2:Cardiff to Stonehenge to Swindon to Cheltenham & spend 2nd night here
Day 3:Cheltenham to Warwick to Leicester & spend the 3rd night somewhere around here
Day 4: Leicester to Helmsely
Is this too optimistic? We want to avoid large cities and see country instead. Stop a little along the way to site see as we can.
Pat

You can use online mapping sites to help lay out a driving trip. For England I like www.multimap.com but I found it a bit too optimistic in Scotland. Other possibilities are www.theaa.com and the route planner at www.rac.co.uk. This is in addition to the European mapping programs like www.via-michelin.com.

I would go to Cheltenham via CHippenham rather than via Swindon, unless there is something you really want to see there, or in the area (The Uffington White Horse is not far away for instance).
And maybe look to stay around Melton Mowbray (home of Stilton Cheese and Pork Pies) or Oakham (County town of Rutland England's smallest county) rather than Leicester. ther are lots of lovely small villages in that area. The City of Leicester is uninspiring and is to be avoided if you can.
It is still a bit of a trek up to York but very doable.
Helmsley is about 25 miles north of York.

hi, Pat,

a question - what time does your ferry arrive at Fishguard?

We drove from a friend's house near tenby to Fishguard, and the road was not good [admittedly this was about 7 years ago].

so I would be wondering if the first leg is a bit long, especially if you are arriving after mid-day.

I agree that Leicester is nothing special and you might want to look at something in the countryside a bit further north.

please feel free to come back with more questions,

regards, ann

conversly, the driving on the third day isn't much - you just get on the "Fosse Way" [old roman road] and drive in a north-easterly direction - though there are lots of nice places en route.

I agree you should put your route into something like mappy and/or michelin, and see what happens.

I agree with all the above - very good advice has been given.

As for whether it can be done; of course! I live 19 miles west of Cardiff and the journey to Sheffield is about 5 hours. Fishguard is 2 hours to the west of us and York would be a couple of hours north of Sheffield - so the whole journey would take 9 hours, so to do it in 4 days is very doable indeed. In fact, your pace (to me) looks very leasurely.

Cardiff to Stonehenge is best achieved, as said above, by leaving the M4 motorway at junction 17 (Chippenham) and going south through Melksham and Warminster. Cardiff to Cheltenham direct would take only about 2 hours maximum, but Stonehenge is quite a detour.

Again, as above, do you have a special reason for choosing Leicester? Perhaps someone else is better placed than me to offer an alternative. Personally, I'd go from Cheltenham to Warwick via somewhere like Worcester or Stratford and not then on any further. Journey all the way the next day to Yorkshire as it would only take a few hours (about 300 miles).

Perhaps my Fishguard to Cardiff estimates were a smidge out. Fishguard to Carmarthen in about an hour and fifteen. From there to the start of the M4 at Pont Abraham is just 20-25 minutes and then it takes only an hour to Cardiff. So the day's motoring would take 2 hours and 25 minutes.

I know the ferries arrive horribly early. By your original post, I assume you intend to stop off at Pembroke? That would slow you down quite a bit as you'd use the slower A477 to Carmarthen rather than the A40 (which from Whitland to Cardiff would be at least 2 lanes). If you do choose to go to Pembroke, allow an hour to get there from Fishguard and then a 2 hour 30 minute journey from there to Cardiff. Easily done.

your whole route is easily doablle in 3+ days and I agree w/ the others re not staying in Leicester and avoiding Swindon.

But i really don't see the sense of your day 2. Cardiff SE to Stonehenge and then back N to Cheltenham. You will be backtracking practically to where you started from. I assume you are doing this to squeeze in Stonehenge. I would decide which is more important to you -- Stonehenge or Cheltenham, but not both on the same day for sure.

Question - later on in your trip, are you ending up in London by any chance? If so, you can easily do a day trip from London top Stonehenge.

I totally agree with whats been said about the City of Leicester but Leicestershire is a really different proposition.The county is beautiful if you stay off the motorways and have a pleasant drive along the scenic byeways in the east of the county.A good nights stop would be the pretty market town of Market Harborough.
Whatever you decide on have a nice trip.

Thanks so much for all the good input. We are taking the early ferry to Fishguard & get there at 10am. I am not set on any route, especially Leicester and would much rather stay in the smaller towns. Yes, we are backtracking to go to Stonehenge, but are determined to go by there. If there are any places close to the route I listed that you think are "do not miss" please let me know.
From Helmsley we will be heading to Ettrick,Scotland and flying back home from Edinburgh. We will have about 6 days in Scotland so let me know if you have any suggestions on places to go.
Pat

Hi I live in North yorkshire and know Helmsley well - any particular reason to visit this place? It's great - but not particularly on the tourist trail.
Any Yorkshire questions, just give me a yell.

We are traveling to Helmsley to visit a friend of my husband. He & my husband carve walking sticks. We are actually trying to avoid big cities and places that are too touristy. We like scenery & country places. We raise goats & sheep in the USA and my husband trains border collies for herding. We are starting out our trip in Ireland at the International Herding Dog Trial and then going site seeing from Ireland through Wales, England and finally up to Scotland. In Scotland we are staying at a B&B that is a working sheep farm that belongs to someone that my husband took a dog training class from while he was in the USA.

I'm with you on avoiding the touristy areas, and September is a great time to travel as the children return to school at the beginning of the month, so everything is quieter.
You've obviously staying with a local in Yorkshire and he'll no doubt suggest all the wonderful places to visit in the area.
I often see a display of carved walking sticks in the villages I walk through in the Dales.
Hope you have a great time.

Just one thing to bear in Mind the 2007 World cup rugby tourmnet wil be on then. Avoid Cardiff on the dates that there are matches as you might find accomadtion maybe difficlut to find on those dates. You also seem to indicate in your post you would hate the crowds even if you could find a room. Thou the atompshere in Cardiff f when a big rugby match is on is wonderfull.Use this website for the match dates.
http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/EN/Home...inals+Matches/

Crazychick has a good point about Cardiff. Even peripheral towns up to 20 miles away, such as Bridgend, get full when there is an event on at the Millennium Stadium.

One option is to drive straight through Wales to Salisbury and stay there the night so that you can backtrack to Cheltenham the next day via Stonehenge and perhaps Bath. Fishguard to Salisbury would be a 4-5 hour drive.

I agree w/ the above - Fishguard to Salisbury would not be bad at all. Then the next day you could visit Stonehenge and Avebury in the morning and then drive north through the Cotswolds and stay near Warwick/Stratford upon Avon.