we do love a good restaurant - thanks
Food is an important part of the travel experience

Hello bhuty, I know the routes you are potentially looking at as I am not far from Windsor myself and understand your dilemma. Your round trip will be lovely. Warwick is one of my favourite county towns and Salisbury is a lovely cathedral city. Do you prefer motorways or country roads? I ask as this can make a difference to routes and your options.
With regards to your accommodation, some of the boutique hotels could meet both you preferences.

We'll be driving either a Tucson (or similar) or a Mokka (or similar....you never know what they end up giving you) so the answer to your question is i really want to explore the small towns and country roads BUT owing to 4 suitcases of luggage we have a slightly larger car than what suits those roads.... Obviously it'll be ok but your country roads take quite some getting used to - nonetheless, country roads will still be mostly the answer. This route won't make sense to anyone but it just gives an outline of the places Im looking to hit in proximity to each other

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...a38d91a53f.png

I'm trying to rework the plan to see if I can stay 2-3 nights at the Fisherman's House Mildenhall and use that as a jumping off place for tetbury, bath and stonehenge after we check out then go to salisbury before heading north its a bit out of the way but I've heard good things

my BIL hired a large car for a recent trip in the UK, never again.

I'd seriously reduce my luggage requirements,

Mildenhall, isn't even on your route map..... are you trusting Google maps for your planning? Don't, add 40% to their best estimate.

I'm pretty sure the Mildenhall the OP is talking about is nowhere near the one in East Anglia w/ the big US airbase. This Mildenhall is near Marlborough. I actually stayed at Fisherman's House many years ago -- it was glorious. But AFAIK it is no longer open?? It was sold in 2020 and I can't see any activity on line since 2019.

ah different Mildenhall

my point about driving stands.

bugger about the fishermans house

yes your point about driving stands. I mean we have small country roads here but your small country roads are super scary - blind corners everywhere and rock walls directly on the edge of the road. I'm factoring that all in. I'd prefer a smaller car but luggage prevents it so I'm maxing out at a mid sized SUV

Ok so its decided
We're going to use 2 jumping off points and basically separate the whole area into 3 sections;
1) A "middle section" to access the likes of Cheltenham and east thereof - (2 nights in one place)
2) A lower section to access areas sort of below Swindon including stonehenge, Bath castle combe etc (2 nights in one place)
3) A top section which will include warwick castle and Stratford upon Avon which we will do a one night stop over on the way north

We are doing this on the possibility that we might actually get tired of sightseeing and want to just have some quiet time

Its not ideal that we go middle before going lower but we are constrained to do so...so there it is.
I'll do some more research on where to stay and check with you guys for confirmation - suggestions always welcome (of course) on any part of our plans
Many thanks

Hello again, are you flying into Heathrow, doing your “holiday” road trip and then driving up to Harrogate? You mention some constraints, so this might not be an option however you may want to reverse the route and go from Windsor to Salisbury, ending up in Warwick so you can cut across to the M1 from there to drive north. For route planning, you will find ViaMichelin or the AA route planner much more accurate than Google and both give you options regarding motorways and the ability to put in stops on route. ViaMichelin also has good information on sightseeing, hotels and restaurants.

We'll be in london for a while prior. My original plan was exactly as you said but one of the contraints is ticket availability to the stones - so it had to be reworked to accommodate

My intention is to use google maps while driving - will google maps either fail me (in comparison to the michelin app) or otherwise just make me miss out on good options/opportunities along the way?

The issue with google map isn't the routes but primarily the time estimates (all on-line calculators tend to be optimistic but google seems more so). So you can use GoogleMap just fine -- just add 20-50% to the drive times depending on conditions.

I urge you to also carry a proper paper road atlas - bought in any garage/bookshop. Sat Nav/GPS/Google Map are all useful but sometimes have issues in rural areas.

I have to say it depends. I think that for scenic routes, ViaMichelin is better and more informative. Several of my friends that do a lot of work related driving say that the Waze App is much better than Google.
I agree with JanisJ that a map or map book is definitely useful. I always have one in the car when driving north as it gives you a better perspective of what there is close by should you need to avoid the motorway.