UK trip in 2024 - input sought

[Ninefingers]

I would also echo the people who have mentioned Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. For one ticket price you get a Victorian ironclad (HMS Warrior), a Napoleonic ship of the line (HMS Victory), and the remains of a Tudor galleon salvaged from the sea (Mary Rose) in a fascinating museum. The National Museum of the Royal Navy is also there and included.

[Jemima Fawr]

Don’t bother with Wales.  Too far out of the way, mostly post industrial decline in the South and tourist walking focus in the north.

Yeah, I'm currently sitting here, enduring the view of the 'post-industrial decline' of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and in the distance across the bay I can see the Blade-Runneresque hell-hole that is the Gower Peninsula.  Turning around I can see the awful, grim Preseli Hills, where the Stonehenge Bluestones were dragged from (I imagine they couldn't wait to get away) and away to the east, across miles and miles of truly dire, green, hedgerowed 'Bocage Country' are the carbuncles of the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons.

Simply awful.

So much so, I'm going to have to drown my sorrows later in the Carew Inn.  The mill-pond, castle and Celtic Cross across the road are of unsurpassed ugliness...

 

[Harry Faversham]

Taffys are also very thin skinned, and will bitchslap anyone criticising their valleys. Wasn't a big fan of the Brecon Beacons myself, they kind of make yer back ache and yer feet sore!

[Jemima Fawr]

Taffys are also very thin skinned, and will bitchslap anyone criticising their valleys. Wasn't a big fan of the Brecon Beacons myself, they kind of make yer back ache and yer feet sore!

      

Yeah, if you think we're bad, you should see the bloody neighbours... 

[jon_1066]

Yeah, I'm currently sitting here, enduring the view of the 'post-industrial decline' of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and in the distance across the bay I can see the Blade-Runneresque hell-hole that is the Gower Peninsula.  Turning around I can see the awful, grim Preseli Hills, where the Stonehenge Bluestones were dragged from (I imagine they couldn't wait to get away) and away to the east, across miles and miles of truly dire, green, hedgerowed 'Bocage Country' are the carbuncles of the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons.

Simply awful.

So much so, I'm going to have to drown my sorrows later in the Carew Inn.  The mill-pond, castle and Celtic Cross across the road are of unsurpassed ugliness...

 

Little England doesn’t count! 

If you only had two weeks would you go all the way to Pembrokeshire?  Especially if you aren’t outdoors/walking focussed?  My family is from Cardigan and have visited many times but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone for their only ever trip to the UK.

[Radar]

If you haven't visited the UK before don't be over ambitious about distances. It can take a very long time to travel relatively short distances (in comparison to the US). Plan ahead - you can save an awful lot of money by purchasing membership of organisations such as National Trust, English Heritage, CADW (Welsh castles), Historic Houses Association, or Art UK. If the majority of destinations you would like to visit are National Trust properties for example then it might work out a lot cheaper (rough admission price per NT venue is about £15 a head - joint membership is £139 so if 5 or more properties are on your hit list you'll save money). There are a handful of concessions - National Trust members get into Stonehenge free even though it is 'English Heritage '. Do your research!

For detailed mapping the definitive maps are Ordnance Survey. Which again can work out expensive. Bing maps has the OS layer tucked away on the desktop site, but not on mobile phones. Plan ahead, print your maps out for free at home (print screen, paste into MS Paint is the work around for printing)

Ticket prices for a number of places are often much cheaper if you are able to book online a day or so in advance, Warwick Castle is £26 in advance but £39 if you turn up and pay on the day!

Pike and shot is incredibly well represented, there was the small matter of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Probably the best places for W3K/BCW/ECW are London, York (& Marston Moor), Worcester, and Newark. Although wherever you go you can probably find some stuff related to the conflict. Have a look at KeepYourPowderDry.co.uk and the posts tagged ECWtravelogue. Most of the major battlefields are already covered. Major towns (that have a civil war connection: York, London, Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham, Newark are covered), plus counties have their own post too. There's also a few oddities that crop up too - Rupert's March North to York, and some standalone properties.

There's a ton of civil war related stuff in London (museums, pubs, plaques, Tower of London, art galleries, 2 battlefields and a whole host of other stuff). York gives you Civil War, Romans, Vikings and medieval stuff by the bucket load.

A couple of less well known places that are simply brilliant are: Combined Military Services Museum (best collection of W3K arms and armour on display in the UK outside Royal Armouries, and WW2 uniform collection), The Wallace Collection (tucked away in London they have a superb armour collection)

[Jemima Fawr]

Little England doesn’t count! 

If you only had two weeks would you go all the way to Pembrokeshire?  Especially if you aren’t outdoors/walking focussed?  My family is from Cardigan and have visited many times but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone for their only ever trip to the UK.

Oh indeed.  It was the bit about 'post-industrial decline' that made me laugh.  It'll take a few decades of development to get us to reach 'pre-industrial'...

[FifteensAway]

After much hemming and hawing - and even, briefly, going back to the cruise concept which got promptly dumped when the 'excursions' were found to be $600 per person for the exact same thing a tour bus tour might charge about $50 for, who are they kidding! - I think we will fall back on a Highlights of Britain tour that is only 10 days but arrive early in London to have at least one day to acclimate to the time difference and see a bit of the town and then add probably 5 more days at the end to see even more of London, so that is about 17 days in country and a couple more days for travel time to and from.

The tour, while not my ideal choice, is vastly less expensive and the one in mind actually gets all the 'states' from London north to Scotland then across to Northern Ireland then more time (a little too much but 'oh, well') in Ireland and then back east to Wales and crossing southern England, including Stonehenge, before a return to London.  Good part about Ireland is it will be a bit of a chance to see the country that my late mother so wanted to visit but wasn't able to make happen, so I will be celebrating her by being there.

And, weather be damned, sticking with earlier half of May - summers across the planet have become insanely problematic if this year is any indication.  Hell, even Hawaii has been decimated by a terrible - and very deadly - fire, and no volcano involved.  So, summer is off our radar for international travel.

Can't leave Stonehenge out no matter the nature of the experience - it is a key item on the "Bucket List".  But Avesbury would be a cool option.  If I was on my own, I'd be up for a six month stay as a 'volunteer' on some archaeological dig - pre-history is a passion (which will get exercised with Neolithic gaming sometime soon).

So, thanks for all the ideas and, who knows, there is still time to go back towards the original plan.  But if we go with the tour, it will at least give us a good sense of where we might like to spend more time on the next visit (after a few other places in Europe get a shot).

And, sorry, Harry, I don't think there will be time for that game - much as I'm sure it would be a kick to get together.

Again, thanks for all the constructive input. 

Here is a sketch of the itinerary so feel free to add any helpful comments:

Day 1 Welcome to London
Day 2 Stratford-upon-Avon, York and on to Harrogate
Day 3 Through the Scenic Lake District to Glasgow
Day 4 Explore Enchanting Edinburgh
Day 5 Cross the Irish Sea to Belfast and Dublin
Day 6 Discover Diverse Dublin Dive Into Culture
Day 7 Journey to Kilkenny and on to Waterford Dive Into Culture
Day 8 Ferry Across to Cultural Cardiff Connect with Locals
Day 9 Soak up Bath and Stonehenge then off to London
Day 10 Farewell London

Might not be quite as hoped but the cost savings may exceed $10,000 US!  That's a few coins.

[Von Trinkenessen]

OMG If it's Tuesday it's Belgium.
As a former 5* hotel concierge, the distances in the UK are very deceptive as the transport network is rather clunky, remember it is not just driving on a different side of the road it is all the corners and the size of the road now combined with an ever changing speed limit and speed cameras. Some of the intersting places are in the middle of nowhere. See you in Bath on day 9 if you survive 

[Citizen Sade]

I don’t want to rain on your parade, but I feel I should offer a word of caution. That’s a lot of places to visit in ten days. As you’ll be spending a lot of the time travelling between places, the visits are likely to be frantic and I doubt you’ll have much opportunity to do your own thing.

Your itinerary brings to mind my one and only cruise. It was for our honeymoon so I wanted to splash the cash and see as much as we could with a view to revisiting the places we liked. The half day excursions, generally to smaller places e.g. Ajaccio, were great and allowed us to do our own thing afterwards. The see it all in a day ones to Rome & Florence were whistle-stop tours and a bit of a grind. Another consideration is other people. If you don’t get on with people on a cruise excursion, you can easily avoid them for the rest of the holiday. On an organised tour, I expect things will be different.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

JemimaFawr - I’m glad you weighed in. Usually I’d be fine with people telling others not to come here - but Fifteens seems like good people! 

Fifteens - If you do come to South Wales/Cardiff (highest density of castles in Europe/some great museums/birthplace of voting rights/possible dragons etc) and fancy rolling some dice there is a large gaming store with tables; so if you’d like to meet up whilst your better half naps/rampages in the shopping/food/parks/areas of her choice, I’d be more than happy to try and provide us a game to play (it’ll give me something to aim for with painting )

Andrew
BeneathALeadMountain

[FifteensAway]

It is a whirlwind tour for sure, 1241 miles and 28 hours of travel time over the ten days per Google Maps, and concentrated in the central 8 days because day 1 and day 10 are both London.  I figure after sleep, meals, and necessaries, 12 hours x 8 days is 96 hours which after 28 hours of travel leaves 68 hours of 'on the ground' time which is a bit over 8 hours per day.  Maybe the ferry rides to and from Ireland will be nice and relaxing.  Some days will be better, some days worse, probably day 2 the 'hardest'.  But not too horrible.  But, yeah, some of the highlights will be more along the "blurry sight as you drive by".  Life is always full of compromises. 

We once did a week of travel through 5 states in and around Washington, DC, and put about 1600 miles on our rental car - so we have a good sense of what to expect from that perspective.

As to less than desirable traveling companions, well, just have to hope for the best and know we can move around on the bus if needed.  Hopefully!   

Andrew, that game just might be possible.  What is the name of the store and its address?  I will Google it and compare it to our hotel - the 'planned' evening is with some local Welsh family and a 'farewell' dinner before the haul east to London on day 9.  Will be rather dependent on the wife, of course, since the whole trip is premised on her desire to "go to London".  However, since it seems to be a winery stop, I think she might be okay with missing it.

Looks like our accommodations in London will be in Lambeth and not too far from Waterloo station so, as seen from afar, within walking distance of most of the things we want to see in London.  For us, a 2 mile walk is no big deal, especially at a leisurely pace.  So a day with 5-6 miles of total walking is pretty doable.  Part of our morning routine is a brisk 2 mile walk.

As to me, I am generally pretty easy going and care more about an enjoyable game than winning a game - though winning is usually, though not always, more fun.     And getting a visual treat. 

Thanks for the additional input and I continue to welcome more.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

I could meet yourself (and anyone else within range) at Firestorm Games in Cardiff (Firestorm Games, Sloper Road, Cardiff, CF11 8AB) and it’s often open late so it makes it possible to fit something in if you wanted. I’m also aware that you are doing a whistle stop tour of the whole island and it may not be feasible/you may not be up to it (but I’d be happy to if you want).

Andrew
BeneathALeadMountain

[Von Trinkenessen]

One thing that is quite important is to source travel sickness meds that work for you as some of these roads are going to be crazy compared to the US. Irish sea not always calm can have a bit of a reputation.

[FifteensAway]

Looks like, if all goes according to plan, the Cardiff day would be Monday, May 13th.  Not sure how much of a pinch that might put into plans to meet - and I would be happy to meet other LAF folk if within range and it is workable. Over here, Mondays are sometimes closure days for some hobby businesses and definitely earlier closure times. 

I'm pretty certain wife won't want to miss Cardiff Castle (nor I, really) which may be the last stop before the 'rural' jaunt we might choose to miss.  So, an earlier meet might be problematic.  Will check details as we get deeper into the process.

Oh, and I can 'prioritize' a meetup by telling the wife this is one of my 'personal priorities' for the trip!  She is generally indulgent of my hobby.

Looks like shop is about three miles from hotel.