Quick overview of trip plans
 

Quick history, this trip is My Sister, Myself, our Mother and Grandmother, ages range from 27 - 80. Grandma was born and raised in Scotland and this is likely her last trip home. This is my second trip to the UK, first being a whirlwind 3-week summer study abroad in college, and my Mom and Sisters first trip. I will be renting a car after London in order to have more control over times, destinations, etc.

My Mom and I are Flying from the US into London, arriving LHR at 8:05AM Monday July 15th. My Grandma and Sister are flying from the US into Glasgow arriving GLA at 3:25PM Friday July 26. We all fly home Sunday August 4. From 7/26 to 8/04 my Grandma and Sister have the reins so that part is set in stone, prior to that I am in charge of giving my mom a taste of pretty much everything in a short period. Below is the itinerary as it stands now, there are only 3 things that cannot be changed at this point 1) the dates, 2) the flights, 3)accommodations in London. I know this is a lot but my mom and I are very active and both used to long drives as we live 5hrs apart and I visit her at least one weekend a month and she drives a school bus for a living.

Mon 7/15:
Arrive LHR 8:05am
Tube to Euston station, purchase National Rail Pass 1-day vouchers to use 2for1
Check into Hostel, freshen up
Tube to Waterloo Station, London Eye and Tate Modern
Tube to King's Cross, pics in front of the platform 9 3/4 sign and British Library

Tues 7/16:
Tube to Victoria Stations, Buckingham Palace for changing of the guards
Tube to London Bridge Stations, play at Shakespeare's Globe 2pm
Tower Bridge
Tube to Tottingham Court Rd station, British Museum

Wed 7/17:
Tube to Tower Hill station, Tower of London
Tube to Westminster station, Jewel Tower, walk-by Parliament & Big Ben

Thurs 7/18:
Check out - London
Leeds Castle
Bodiam Castle

Fri 7/19:
Stonehenge
Avebury
Uffington (to see White Horse hill carving)

Sat 7/20:
Rollright Stones
Redcot Bridge
Clifford's Tower

Sun 7/21:
York Castle Museum
Yorkshire Museum

Mon 7/22:
Hadrian's Wall at Cawfield's Roman Wall & Milecastle
Rosslyn Chapel
Stirling Castle

Tues 7/23:
Wallace Monument
Dunnottar Castle

Wed 7/24:
Delgatie House
Huntley Castle

Thurs 7/25:
Balvenie Castle
Braemar Castle

My questions based on the above are
1) Best way to get from London to Leeds and eventually pick up the car for the rest of the trip
2) I am hoping to do this with only 4 hotels/B&B's/etc. with the nights of 7/18 & 7/19 in the first, 7/20 & 7/21 in the second, 7/22 in the third and 7/23, 7/24, & 7/25 in the fourth. Are the stops in those groups of days too far apart for this to be feasible?
3)The order is basically how I would like to do this, is there anything obviously wrong?

Of course any and all ideas are welcome.

Thank you ahead of time for any assistance.

Of all the castles in Britain I have been in Leeds Castle near Maidstone is amongst the least impressive - so unless you like Dog Collars (a museum of them there)- I much mofre enjoyed the Knole at Seven Oaks and especially Hever Castle, home to the young Anne Bolyene - seems you are going east of London fofr just one day then driving back around it the next day to get to Stonehenge and Avebury, etc.?

Sorry but the whole plan (especially after London ) is a hot mess. The London bits need tweaking but the rest needs to be completely re-thought

Radcot bridge (why?) , the Rollright stones, and Clifford's tower (in York) on the same day?

Leeds castle (another why?) and Bodiam (very nice) and missing out on all the other great sites in Kent/East Sussex

Hadrian's wall, Roslin and Stirling castle on the same day?

The best way/place to get a car is at Gatwick. Take the train to LGW and collect your car there. Skip Leeds castle and hit Bodiam and one or two other places Hever, Sissinghurst, scotney castle or ???

Even though you are used to long car trips - driving in the UK is not comparable. Except on motorways plan on making 35-40 mph. If you are using an on-line mileage calculator you need to add between 30% and almost 100% to the drive times. And even on motorways - some places you'll be going 70, but you'll also often be lucky to make 50 mph.

Unless I'm missing something you only have one thing for the 2-4-1 offers - The Tower of London. In which case you only need the correct Travelcard for the offers on that day. For the rest of the time you should each get an Oystercard and load around £20 on it, using it on the days you aren't using the 2-4-1 offers. Then before leaving London return it to any TUBE station and claim a refund of unused cash plus deposit.

But I agree that you are all over the place - try looking at a map rather than leaping around London like a loon (hint, London has LOTS of bridges so it takes a few minutes to get from one side of the river to the other)

Personally I would forget about your Thursday plans totally - there are far better castles in the north of England and in Scotland and take the train to Salisbury, check into a hotel, see Stonehenge then the next day hire the car and hit the other sites

I had read that Radcot was the oldest still standing bridge across the Thames, thought it might be interesting but other than that no real interest. I was going back and forth between Leeds and Hever honestly, guess I picked the wrong one. :)

Janisj: can you suggest a few of those sites in Kent/East Sussex?


I have made a few updates to the stuff outside of London. I understand it is probably still far from finished.

Mon 7/15:
Arrive LHR 8:05am
Tube to Euston station, purchase National Rail Pass 1-day vouchers to use 2for1
Check into Hostel, freshen up
Tube to Waterloo Station, London Eye and Tate Modern
Tube to King's Cross, pics in front of the platform 9 3/4 sign and British Library

Tues 7/16:
Tube to Victoria Stations, Buckingham Palace for changing of the guards
Tube to London Bridge Stations, play at Shakespeare's Globe 2pm
Tower Bridge
Tube to Tottingham Court Rd station, British Museum

Wed 7/17:
Tube to Tower Hill station, Tower of London
Tube to Westminster station, Jewel Tower, walk-by Parliament & Big Ben

Thurs 7/18:
Check out - London
Hever Castle
Bodiam Castle

Fri 7/19:
??East Sussex/Kent??

Sat 7/20:
Stonehenge
Avebury
Uffington (to see White Horse hill carving)

Sun 7/21:
Rollright Stones
Clifford's Tower

Mon 7/22:
Hadrian's Wall at Cawfield's Roman Wall & Milecastle
Rosslyn Chapel


Tues 7/23:
Stirling Castle


Wed 7/24:
Wallace Monument
Dunnottar Castle

Thurs 7/25:
Balvenie Castle
Braemar Castle

Mon - get off at Embankment and walk over the footbridge to The Eye. No further to walk than from Waterloo and you stroll over the river

Tues - it's Tottenham Court Road and forget it, go to Holborn which is closer and isn't the heart of the largest construction project in Europe, which Tottenham Court Road station is. Forget London Bridge station go to St Paul's, see the cathedral and walk over the Millennium Bridge to The Globe, best view of Tower Bridge (the one which most Americans have convinced themselves is London Bridge but isn't).

Thurs - if you ask for directions to Leeds you will end up 250 miles away from Leeds Castle which IMO isn't worth the trip. Bodium is good but none of the castles in Kent and Sussex can touch those in Northumberland (Alnwick, Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh Lindisfarne).


Fri - stay in Salisbury or perhaps Winchester and drive from there.

Sat/Sun - you're not really going to York and not visiting the Minster - one of the greatest buildings in Europe?


Mon - that's a hell of a trip. This country is much bigger than it looks.

I can give you lots of suggestions for Kent/East Sussex But if it was me - I'd skip your south of London excursion altogether. You are trying to cover way too much territory in too few days.

Fri 7/19:
??East Sussex/Kent??>

How bout Canterbury and its great cathedral - a pleasant regional town or Battle - the scene of the original battle when William the Conqueror finally beat the Saxons - nice old abbey on the battlefield grounds.

Janisj:
I can drop the items south of London but the stop at Stonehenge I really would like to keep if at all possible. This is likely my Mom's only trip to the UK and that is the one thing she asked to see. Give me a day or two to re-work it and I'll post the updated plan.

Thanks for all the help so far guys.

google maps has a great tool, if you log on you can build up the driving route and get an idea just how far you are trying to travel. Like a lot of the guys giving you advice I live in the UK and we know how long it takes to get to these places.

Sunday is going to be a heck of a long day.

No reason to drop Stonehenge - it can be done as a day trip from London by train or as the first stop on your driving tour.

If you decide to drive it, then collect your rental car at LHR. Take the tube or a car service like justairports.com out to heathrow, pick up the car there and drive to Salisbury, Stonehenge, ans Avebury before heading north.

If you go to Hever, Chartwell is only 20 minutes away.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chartwell/

If you're into castles, then Edinburgh should make the list (though that may be on Gran and sis's list?). So should Glamis, if possible.

For driving times, try TomTom's route guidance. It takes into account expected road conditions at the day/time of travel and is pretty accurate, more so than Google.

http://www.routes.tomtom.com/#/map/?...om=9&map=basic

You are going to be exhausted! :)

I would be excited about each sight on your itinerary, but would too tired to get off the plane just thinking about it! I think you need to trim it down a bit. Perhaps the best approach might be to decide what you would do and where you would go if you had three less days? It might help you to prioritize and then decide what you would want to do if you got tired of castles/monuments :)