Just to give you <i>one</i> example using your first two sites near York: Fountains Abbey to Rievaulx is only a little over 25 miles -- but VERY easily an hour's drive and it could take twice that.

We went back to London for 2 days, then rented a car for a week, ending up in York in '98. (Our first trip was in '71, our "trip of a lifetime" when we were young and poor and spent 11 wks. in hostels, sleeping on trains, and eating so cheap I can't imagine how we managed.) We enjoyed the '98 trip (thought not the actual driving so much) even though we made the discovery that travel took twice as long and we never got to numerous things on our planned itinerary. So in '01 we returned to London for about a week, then spent a few days in Edinburgh. The next year we spent another week in London and then went to Inverness for a week. In Dec. 2004 my husband had a London business trip and we spent an extra week there afterwards. In '09 we went back to London for eight days before going to Paris for a few days, then to Ireland. (A lot of day trips out of London, we weren't in the city the whole time, though there would have been plenty to do.) I love London and England and would go back in a heartbeat, but I really thought DH would probably just as soon not ever go again. When we were taking about going back to Europe in April '13, I said as much. To my surprise, he replied, "You know, every time we go to London I like it more." Maybe this is not the trip of a lifetime at all but the start of a love affair with Great Britain.

As I said earlier, we were planning a trip last fall to *JUST* London, so anything else is a bonus for us. We know there's a LOT to see and do in the UK, and we would ABSOLUTELY go back in a heartbeat (without having gone once yet!) -- but there are so many other places we want to see as well, so who knows when that second trip might be.

Okay, time to take another look at the schedule ... sigh ;-)