Hello all. I will be traveling to Scunthorpe, in Lincolnshire in a few weeks on family business. I hope that there will be some locals on this board who can give me some advice.

First, I need a decent hotel in Scunthorpe or nearby. Clean and comfortable, preferably warm are good. Cute and full of antiques is not necessary. We are Holiday Inn Express/La Quinta Inn people here in the U.S. (No, my family will not be able to put me up).

Second, I need to know about taking the train to Sheffield and to York (two separate trips). How long is the trip? How frequent are the trains? Do we have to buy tickets ahead of time or are we able to just walk up to the ticket counter and purchase them.

We will be flying into London (I think). When we get there I would like to get three cheap cellphones with pre-paid minutes. Where do I buy these things and how much should I expect to pay. I don't need a lot of minutes, just enough to keep me and my travel companions in touch for a week.

Thanks to anyone who can provide any advice.

Hardly ever been there, but:

- Travelodge is roughly on the same level as HI Express. Other Scunthorpe hotels coming up on google all sound like 19th century survivals - in small, declining, provincial towns never a good idea without a fair amount of pre-checking. Others, though, may bring real knowledge here.

- It's an hour by train to Sheffield, with two trains an hour. No need to book, but you MIGHT save a bit if you book some time in advance on a specific train (which means you HAVE to use that train), though it might be too short a journey. Check on www.nationalrail.co.uk. To York about 20 mins longer (change Doncaster): at peak times often worth prebooking the Doncaster-York bit, and there's more likely to be a saving for advance booking.

- In any town-centre parade of shops, about one shop in five or so sells phones. Usually £20 for a phone, usually including £10 of time. Sometimes cheaper

My experience with Travelodges in the UK (no relation to the Travelodges in the US) is fairly limited, but I would put them in a class closer to Super 8/Econolodge than to HI Express.

Last month I bought a very nice little LG phone at Carphone Warehouse for £13.95, £3.95 for the phone, £10 for air time on Virgin Mobile.

There are both a Travelodge (www.travelodge.co.uk) and a Premier Inn (www/premierinn.com) at Scunthorpe. Usually, the Premier Inn will be better quality, especially if you want breakfast, while the Travelodge will be cheaper.

My usual source if looking for a room in a town I do not know is Late Rooms (www.laterooms.com). On this site, you can compare prices and proximity to the place you want. There are also reviews, which can be useful if a price seems too good to be true. Many hotels drop their prices if trade is slow, and you can get some bargains. We stayed at a 4 star country house hotel near Coventry recently for £69 + breakfast, but it was the Thursday before the August Bank Holiday.

I have a soft spot for Scunthorpe. I went to a meeting there in the mid 60s. It was held in the town hall, and the council, eager to impress the members of a professional body, entertained us to lunch. It was the first time I was offered a different wine with each course of the meal.

Not sure if it's any help as you're visiting family, but Lincoln is approx 20 miles away from Scunthorpe - it's a much more attractive old city (and it does have a HI Express as well). BTW, I don't think Scunthorpe does "cute and full of antiques".

It's only opinion, however, HI Exress is much better in USA that Britain. Well that's my experience anyway. The reason I mention it, is for you not to be disapointed.

You are all awesome. Thank you so much for the great info. I seem to remember that there is a wonderful catheral in Lincoln. Am I correct about that?

premiertravel inn is a worthy hotel chain (used to use them a lot up until last year)

Lincoln has a great cathedral (plus imp) and a very good prison museum and parts of the old walls.

Mrs Bilbo was born in Scunthorpe and I'm sorry it's a dump

Agree about the dump, but Lincoln is very interesting with an extensive old quarter (Steep Hill and Bailgate) as well as the castle and cathedral and museums. Barton-on-Humber has two Saxon churches, and you are not that far from Beverley and York.

Geez Mr. Bilbo. And here I was so much looking forward to Scunthorpe! Is there anything attractive about Hull?

cferrb - are you sure we're not related, haha?? Family hails from Scunthorpe, Hull, Barton-on-Humber.

How about an apartment? We have used holidaylettings.uk.co several times with great results. I had looked into an apt in Lincoln and then we changed our itinerary. It was very reasonable, two BR, one week for less than 400 GBP.

Soogies, that's a good idea. I'll look into it.

Hull, used to pretty horrible but has spent a lot of government money on the town centre, bus/train station resulting in some nice shops and some pretty old buildings in the centre, the marina is nice and the large aquarium is good, a big bridge and a fine chinese restaurant looking out over the oozing Ouse is another high point. Other than that its still a bit of a dump too (I used work there), however it does lead to Beverley which is a pretty little medieval town with very interesting history and to various.

The real high points of this area if you are looking for bang for your time are Lincoln, York and Leeds with the monestries norht of leeds as add ons, then you get into the wierd like the Bronte parsonage, various steam railways and miles of country walks.

Morgana is worth looking up on this forum as her guides are even better than mine. Scunthorpe area can lead into Derbyshire and then odd balls like the blue-john mines and the peak district come to mind

to various = leads to various other sites on the sea-side,, Beverley races etc.

Bilgobugler, unfortunately we only have a week. My sister and I actually have been in the blue john mines years ago when we were in boarding school in Derbyshire. I would love to get out there, but I think it's a bit far afield for this trip, especially since I don't think we'll have a car. I don't think I'm prepared to drive on the left-hand side of the road.

"<i>I don't think I'm prepared to drive on the left-hand side of the road.</i>"

Of for pity's sake - why? It isn't hard. But if you insist on being a nellie then you can get LOTS of places by train.

Regrettably I was also born in Scunthorpe and spent my first 18 years there. It was a dump then and is even worse now, since most of the steel industry closed down. The last time I visited and stayed in a hotel, I chose one of what used to be the better hotels in town, the Royal, since I had a part-time waitressing job there as a teenager and thought it would be fun. It was horrible. Do you actually need to be in Scunthorpe itself ? Does your family need to be able to amuse themselves while you are busy during the daytime ? I'd consider either one of the nicer small villages within driving distance (if none of you need any entertainment) or Sheffield which I'm very fond of. I was going to say Hull is a dump too but to be fair, I haven't been there for years and I see bilbo says it has improved - can't imagine it's improved enough for me to want to stay there, though.

I concur with others re Premier Inn v. Travelodge. Premier Inn rooms I've stayed in have been surprisingly nice and spacious for the money. I've only stayed in 2 Holiday Inn Expresses and those rooms were of a similar standard to PI but not as spacious. I've only stayed in 1 Travelodge and the room was so basic as to be depressing and not even clean.

Yes, we pretty much need to stay in Scunthorpe, although we will be visiting Lincoln and York on daytrips. We won't have a car, so a smaller village in the area won't work. We looked at the Premier Inn and the Travelodge and the both look rather basic, so it may end up coming down to location. The website says that the Travelodge is next to a lorry park. Does anyone know how close and how loud the noise of the trucks is in the rooms? What about exhaust fumes?

Premier Inn are fine. Big beds decent bath with shower...

ttt