Stonehenge & Bath
 

On my first trip to London, I'm thinking of visiting both Stonehenge and Bath. Is the best way to do this by booking a tour or do you recommend trying to do it on my own?

Here's a great older post on Stonehenge with lots of options and recommendations.

http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34736794

I've never been to either but my parents took a a day tour from London and loved it.

Stonehenge is a premier attraction but the henge at Avesbury is also interesting. you might research Avesbury.

You can walk and touch Avesbury and it's surrounding burial mounds. I think that you are not allowed to get very close to Stonehenge (someone is continually chipping away the rocks).

You can get close to Stonehenge if you do an inner circle tour. There's info on that in the link I provided.

Both Stonehenge & Bath are great and I enjoyed visting both. There are many organized tours to both, but you can actually visit both by train on your own for less money and with a lot more flexibility. For Stonehenge, take the train to Salisbury. At the train station you can buy a bus pass (they schedule the busses around the train arrival times). The bus takes you out to Stonehenge with stops at Amesbury and Old Sarum on the way. The ticket is valid to "hop on and off" all day so you could stop if you like and get back on another bus later if you choose. After Stonehenge you can ride back to Salisbury and explore this lovely town, especially its cathedral with the tallest spire in England. The train back to London is about an hour. Bath is also easily accessible by train, is in itself worthy of an entire day trip, and they also have a city sightseeing bus around town, though the city center with the Abbey & Roman baths are within walking distance of the train station.