Hi there
I have been on Fodors for a long time and used to be a frequent visitor to the Europe board, but haven't traveled for a number of years now due to having a young child to care for.

We are planning a trip to the UK this summer, and part of our trip involves going to liverpool to visit an old family friend of mine. I have some logistics questions.

The first part of our trip will be in Dorset, then we will return to London. From London, I will take my son (5.5) to Liverpool and fly out of Manchester (back to Boston).

I am thinking that my best option would be take the train from London (Euston) around midday to Manchester (Piccadilly). Check into a hotel in Manchester and spend the afternoon/evening there. the next day we will travel to Liverpool (by coach? by train?) to visit the family friend, spend the day with her, then we return to Manchester in the early evening.

This way, we can avoid staying at 2 different hotels (Liverpool and Manchester) and avoid dragging our luggage from one place to the other. Here are my questions:

1) Is there much sightseeing to be done in Manchester (considering my son is 5.5)? How many days is enough? Which sights would you recommend?
2) Is staying around Manchester Piccadilly station okay? Safe/good area? Since we will be arriving there by train and leaving from there for the airport?
3) Is there a preference whether we should take the coach or the train between Manchester and Liverpool? I can ask the family friend to see if she has a preference.
4) Am i short-changing Liverpool by only spending a few hours there? But I really do not want to stay overnight in Liverpool and Manchester (our flight out of Manchester is at 10:50am and it will be too difficult to get there from Liverpool with a child in tow)

If the consensus is that there is much more to see in Liverpool than Manchester, alternative is for us to reverse our trip and put Liverpool as our first stop. So we fly INTO Manchester and travel from there directly to Liverpool. Stay in Liverpool for say, 2-3 nights, then travel from Liverpool to London and then onward to Dorset after a few days...

As a Mancunian I'm naturally biased towards Manchester, but there's as much to see in Liverpool as in Manchester. Both are essentially Victorian cities built on the wealth of the cotton merchants of the time and have some lovely architecture of the time. However, with a young child in tow I'd want to keep the travelling down to a minimum, including changing hotels, so a day trip to Liverpool would be fine. I doubt if you'd want to visit art galleries etc and Liverpool comes up short outside of those for a young guy.

Manchester has a Lego place out at the Trafford Centre, the National Football Museum in the centre of town and a visit to either or both will fill the time you'll have.

The area around the station is fine, but you should be aware that Manchester's City Centre is very walkable and nowhere is far away from anywhere. The trip to Liverpool is best done by train as the coach is a drag to travel on with a youngster. On the train he can at least move around easily.

There are lots of places I could recommend visiting in Manchester but I have your time available and age of your son in mind. He might be old enough to be interested in the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester (MOSI) where there lots of interesting things to see. There's a space exhibition on at the moment.

Staying in either Manchester or Liverpool would be fine. I'll leave Manchester info to Rubicund since its been more than 12 years since I've been there and I know there have been a lot of new museums/development since. But there is a TON of interesting sites in Liverpool. I like L'pool a lot.

>> . . . So we fly INTO Manchester and travel from there directly to Liverpool. Stay in Liverpool for say, 2-3 nights, then travel from Liverpool to London and then onward to Dorset after a few days...<<

If it was me -- I'd probably opt for this version. But maybe with one night in Manchester and 2 in Liverpool. Does add an extra hotel stay but you can recover from the flight and jet lag the one day in Manchester.

I'm a Scouser so I'd vote LIVERPOOL haha but Manchester is a great city too, and where I went to University.

Manchester is the larger and more cosmopolitan city but Liverpool is coastal and has several beaches that your child may enjoy, particularly Blundellsands, Burbo Bank and Crosby where you can also see Anthony Gormleys In Another Place art installation.

I would take the train between Liverpool and Manchester. It takes 45 minutes and costs about £12.

Book trains early at National Rail Enquiries - Official source for UK train times and timetables for nifty discounts (well long-distance trains like London-Manchester not Manchester to Liverpool which is so cheap to begin with) - check www.seat61.com for lots of didcatic advice on doing that yourselves online. But check conditions of use as deepest discounts are probably non-changeable and non-refundable.

I'd second a vote for Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Both my young grandson's love it.

Hi all, thanks for all your replies. After my initial post, I contacted the family friend and found out she will be traveling in the summer as well, so in order for us to overlap, we have to keep our LiverpoolManchester portion at the end of our trip.

I think my final itinerary will be:
Fly into LHR, travel directly to Dorset
Stay in Dorset for 3 days
Travel to London, stay for 3-5 days
Travel to Manchester, stay for 3nights, with one day being day trip to Liverpool. Fly out of Manchester.

My family friend also mentioned that Liverpool Limestreet station will be closed for construction/reno this summer, so we will have to rely on the Nat Express coach to travel between the 2 cities. Besides she says it is easier for her to meet us at the Liverpool Coach One station than the Limestreet station.

Thanks again. I probably will come back later to ask about hotel options in Manchester.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/t...liverpool.html

Beatles tour of Liverpool