Help to plan London-Yorkshire-Scotland trip
 

I am planning a trip to the UK for our 25th wedding anniversary at the end of October, 10-14 days. We would like a couple of days to tour London, then head north to explore where our ancestors came from and well as any more traditional historical/cultural sites. These are the places I have been able to track down - Saltburn-on-the Sea and Badsworth Common, Yorkshire; Leverton, Lincolnshire; Ilderton Mill and Eglingham ?? My family came from Scotland (I don't know where) so I would like to try to get there as well as this will probably be a once in a lifetime trip. We farm in Canada so would be interested in rural areas. Will be flying in and out from London. Any suggestions for itinerary and best way to travel - car, train, etc.?

If you want to see rural areas, then car travel is best. Having a car will allow you the flexibility to see out-of-the way places. Keep in mind that driving times in the UK can be a bit longer than in N. America unless you are on the motorway. Among the places you mentioned, we liked York/Yorkshire very much. Years ago we visited Edinburgh and found it to be a perfect base for visiting Scotland.

I agree that going by car is the best way to travel in Britain, especially since you are on a kind of treasure hunt. The Yorkshire Dales are very beautiful. James Herriott, of "All Creatures Great and Small" fame, has written a book about Yorkshire with many wonderful photographs. A few years ago, my husband and I set out to see everything in the book. It was a great trip.

I heartily disagree with P_M's recommendation to make Edinburgh your base for Scotland. It's a city, and driving in and out of Edinburgh is not so easy, and parking is a nightmare! If you wish to stay in rural areas, Scotland is the country for you. It's mostly rural. We have traveled from one end of the country to the other, and one of our favorite towns is Inverary, on Loch Fyne, in county Argyll. In that same vicinity is Loch Awe, with the lovely Taycregghan Hotel. http://www.taychregganhotel.co.uk/, and just south of there is Kilmartin, an area of enormous archaeological significance. There are more than 350 ancient monuments within a 6-mile radius of Kilmartin, and 150 of those are prehistoric, including standing stones, cairns and chambered tombs, some of the relics dating back 5000 years. It is in a rural area, where you are climbing all over these historic sites, and there will be sheep all around you.

It's impossible to take it all in in one visit. We have been a dozen times for two and three weeks at a time, and have only scratched the surface!

Hi
I live in North Yorkshire so hopefully can help you with this part of your trip.
I agree with Athena that the Yorkshire Dales are beautiful (I spend each weekend there) but they are a long drive from Saltburn, which is on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors (completely different from the Dales).
I don't know of Badsworth Common, although I beleive there is a Badsworth village near Pontefract in West Yorkshire (not generally a tourist destination!)
There is an excellent GNER train service from London (Kings Cross) to York (less than 2 hours). I usually advise people to do this and pick up their rental car in York. Driving from London to York takes hours longer than the train. I know you like rural areas but it would be a shame to miss the beauties of the city of York, so maybe you could stay here overnight and then head off to explore in your car.
www.york-tourism.co.uk
Many farms in North Yorkshire do a wonderful bed and breakfast at a fraction of the price of a Hotel, and I wonder if this would appeal to you? You could compare notes about farming! This website is very good for finding B and B accommodation, especially in rural villages and on farms.
www.yorkshirenet.co.uk
Please get back to me if you think I can help further.
M

I can see that I left out some important info in my earlier post. I did not mean to suggest that driving around Edinburgh is a good idea. Although we were staying in Edinburgh, we were not right downtown so we didn't have to deal with city traffic or parking. We took the city bus into Edinburgh for sightseeing and our parking was provided for free by our B&B.

But if you are not a city person, I'm sure there are a lot of nice B&B's in the country. :-)

Thanks to everyone for being so helpful. I really like the idea of staying at B&B's on farms. Can you tell me what kind of weather we might expect that time of year?

The weather at that time is starting to get cooler but we have visited the UK in late October and enjoyed sunny days most of the time. My advice is to be prepared for mild days and occasional rain. Don't miss the North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales or the Lake District. With regard to Scotland, have you considered basing yourself in Inverness? It's the capital of the Highlands and is a very attractive town, and good for day trips to the Isle of Skye, the Great Glen, John o'Groats etc. The scenery is spectacular and varied (the best in Scotland, in my opinion!), and there's no shortage of castle and historic sites.

Hi again
Difficult question about the weather - I would be very surprised if you had snow or ice though! And don't pack any suntan lotion either!
I would hope for a spell of mildish weather, it will probably rain some of the time but the sun should shine a bit as well. Bring something waterproof if you plan to do any walking and exploring.
You will hopefully still see some of the lovely autumn colours on the leaves.
M

We just got back from a trip to the UK. Re: driving in Scotland- soooo true about driving time - takes a lot more time than we are used to in Canada. We rented a car for eight days in Scotland and found it took at LEAST twice as long, if not three times as long to get anywhere (from what we are used to).
Part of the reason is the type of roads (where we were, many were narrow, twisting, single-track), the other reason is, the scenery is so beautiful, we were stopping so frequently just to get all the great pictures!). You just cannot allow ENOUGH time for driving - it's like you can't get enough of the wonderful scenery, especially if you're driving along the coast, but many, many other places!!
Also, it is VERY easy to get side-tracked, there are so many places to go, and so much to see, you just cannot imagine it until you are actually there - and if you're like us, you just don't want to miss anything...

It's surprising you don't know where your Scottish ancestors came from: Scotland has some of the best birth marriage and death records in the world, going back further than anywhere else in the English-speaking world - and they're mostly on the internet.

It's not very practical to start researching them when you're here: best to do as much pre-work as possible. And I'd say the Mormons' guide to Scottish ancestors (http://tinyurl.com/hn2qz) is the best place to start.

Well worth doing as much research as you can before getting to Scotland.

Incidentally, on weather. I'm still normally in shirtsleeves for walking round central London by late October. But although snow's virtually unheard of, frost is pretty common around dawn further north and on higher ground by then. If - like many farmers I know - you're up and walking around that early, holiday or not, you might want to have some heavier clothing.

Don't expect New England-style foliage drama. Leaf-turning goes on forever (we still had some leaves around at Christmas last year), and varies massively by species and location. It's more a national sense of mists and mellow fruitfulness. The greatest satisfaction is walking over crunchy leaves and eating (if you can find them) local apples.

"Difficult question about the weather - I would be very surprised if you had snow or ice though!"

I wouldn't be surprised to see it by late October in Scottish mountains, or indeed parts of Yorkshire. But not on a Canadian scale ;)

For tracing your ancestors, look at http://tinyurl.com/frgq2

http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/
is a good site and so is http://www.scotsorigins.com/

They both charge a small fee.

Thanks for the geneology advice. I do plan to do some homework on my side of the family before we go.

Should we drive right from London or take a train to York and start driving from there to save some time?

Have a check on the ancestery forum section at www.visitedscotland.com

There's a bit of chat about how far the records go back in Scotland and a good site I think for helping you to do some tracing.

Also a fair bit of chat on various locations on Scotland which you might like to put on your itenary.

For sure certain that someone somewhere will be able to answer any questions you have on Bonnie Scotland!

A suggestion: visit London, then take a train to York, spend a day or two in that interesting town and then pick up a rental car there for your exploration of Yorkshire and on north to Scotland.

Agree with KidsToLondon. Having done the London York Edinburgh thing many times I would recommend a minimum of 2 nights in each. A lot of our american cousins seem to see London and think that they have been and seen all the UK has to offer.

This is very much not the case.

York has plaenty to offer the traveller in its own right www.york-united-kingdom.co.uk is written by some independant York residents and has been online since 2001. The government run site http://www.york-tourism.co.uk/ is also worth a look.

in 2 days you can see some of what the city has to offer. In a week you will be starting to think about living there!!