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original query
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My wife and I are planning a trip to England, Wales, and Scotland. We are planning on a 2-week trip at the beginning of July. I am looking for advice on what to do, what to skip, where to stay, etc. Also, how soon is a good time to get reservations, tickets, and such? Is there any benefit to getting those as early as possible, or is it better to wait until 2 months before the trip?
I've heard you can save money on travel by getting air/hotel/car packages on sites such as Orbitz, but since I don't want just one hotel for the trip and don't want a car while inLondon, is there a way to still get a package? Can I get a package, but then call the hotel and car company and change the reservations?
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my response
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i'm b1-66er (you and i met years ago at apple). although by choice i'm not on [a friend's mailing list], cap'n happy sent your mail along thinking i'd be the guy to answer this -- probably because i'm both a travel hound and lived/worked at apple UK in england from 1990-2.
before we go any further, some terminology is in order (which surprisingly few americans know correctly). "great britain" (GB) is the large landmass that is the places you are interested in going. the UK is GB plus all the outlying areas still under the crown ... the most noted of which is N ireland. the republic of ireland [ROI] is a separate country although to the chagrin of many, it shares the land mass with N ireland in GB-like way.
in general i think americans overrate paris and underrate london ... it may be that it feels less "foreign" somehow because the brits speak something close to american english, but if you poke around long and hard enough you'll find that the english are *way* different than the americans and the french (brits bristle at being called "european," by the way, and don't consider themselves as such -- remember, the french are on the euro and the brits aren't).
i'm not a "packaged traveler," and avoid it for many of the reasons you cited -- the biggest for me is it tends to be more expensive and it's not as flexible.
with the advent of the web (which wasn't around when i lived there), you'll be able to poke around in detail ... you can even use the UK version of google to give you more "local" search results if you want.
you also didn't mention the things you're interested in, so i'll just give sweeping idea and concepts.
for starters, unless you have something specific you want to see or are a hardcore linguist (or you just like bragging rights of seeing another country), you can skip wales. the three stand-outs there, to my eyes are tintern abbey, conwy castle and glastonbury (but be warned that there's a huge woodstock-like music festival there and should be avoided [or flocked to] when it's on).
in london i'd recommend all the following, depending on your tastes:
* first and foremost, get a copy of "time out" magazine -- get 1 at the airport before you leave if you can (it's worth the hassle of finding it at a US magazine store before you leave and is an excellent plane exercise -- be sure to look at their web site ahead of time). it'll let you know everything that's going on in the city that week. take two hours and a pen and mark the bejesus out of it. their star ratings for what's good are absolutely on-the-mark and will include things no 1 else will mention because they may be happening only that week.
* spend time in and around the parliament area of the thames. the tour of the tower of london is good (and you get a chance to talk to a true beefeater). tower bridge is spectacular. westminster clock tower (which houses "big ben," the *bell* of the clock) is striking even if you've seen it 100x. you can grab a boat tour of the thames -- you should and it'll be fun, regardless of the weather.
* if you ride the millenium eye (which they're always talking about tearing down) -- expensive, but i thought worth it -- do it at dusk or at night, way better than the day.
* my favorite museum in the UK was the museum of the moving image. everything about the birth and life of film. i believe the "temporary closure" of it became permanent and it no longer exists.
* the british history museum has the largest collection of mummies in the world (my favorite being the mummy cricket) as well as the rosetta stone and is a great warehouse of everything the english could pillage. if you go there it may well be your last chance to see the elgin marbles in england.
* the museum of science and industry is good although i think the SF exploratorium and the chicago equivalent are both better.
* westminster abbey is a must -- especially if you've never been in an older church/cathedral. tons of famous people buried there.
* highgate cemetery is a great victorian place that's being kept in a state of suspended decay. monster movie great, and off the beaten path, karl marx is buried here.
* get an oyster card and ride the tube everywhere. the brits love to hate on the underground because they think it's dirty, dangerous and slow. i love to love it because it's clean, safe and fast.
* once you get a card, go to notting hill gate and get fish and chips at geale's restaurant. i haven't been there since they re-opened, but it's both the best F&C is all of england as well as something close to the truest experience. (note that 1 reviewer in time out -someone clearly in-line with what i thought about the place- sad the new place had lost it's bearing and suggested costa's around the corner.)
* ride one of the hop-on-and-off tour buses of the city. it gives a nice overview and is a good ride. also gives you a feel for the way british traffic flows if you decide to rent a car later on. this would be an excellent first-day activity.
* skip buckingham palace. if you're interested in that vein, take the train out to windsor and see the crown's weekend habitat, windsor castle, instead. it's more spectacular and far more interesting. i used to live across the thames from it and it's probably the 1 place in england i could never see myself growing tired of.
* the tate modern is an absolute must if you're a fan of modern art.
* london has 2 good symphonies, the royal philharmonic (my favorite) and the london symphony. if you have even a remote interest in classical music, you should see a performance -- symphonies of this caliber are becoming a rare commodity everywhere (we just happen to live close to a really good 1 in SF).
* modern/pop music is unmatched anywhere in the world (including NYC) for both its quality and quantity here. i guarantee that if you have any interest in music at all, while you're there someone will be playing something somewhere that you'll want to see. and it'll be cheaper than the same show in the bay area.
* pub food tends to be good and the beer is unmatched. even if you don't drink at least 1 visit to a pub on your trip is a *requirement.* the pub is the social center of every neighborhood, in small villages it's where the city councils meet.
outside london but still in england i would recommend:
* stonehenge. it's hard to get to without a car ... you *can* get tours there ... if it was me, i'd just rent a car and go, but be warned that it means both driving on the left *and* navigating roundabouts. (the problem americans have when driving the wrong side is they sideswipe the far side of the car because the lanes are narrower -- an american colleague did it to my company car in england.) i actually prefer the stone circle at avebury (because you can walk through the henge [which is the ditch circle, not the rocks] and touch the rocks), but it doesn't have the same sex appeal and raw attraction as SH.
* if you like prehistoric monuments, consider both the uffington horse and the cerne abbas giant (if you keep your eyes open you'll see silbury hill on the way to stonehenge -- do google image searches for all these.) you'll need a car for those.
* dover is a great place and the castle-within-a-castle is amazing. nice beach. big-time WWII history. you're also a short hovercraft ride away from france -- you could skip over and back for lunch/dinner.
* brighton is the place to go if you want to see brits being brits in the summer. it's sort of the way the american atlantic city was 50 years ago. strange, stony beach. this is where most of quadrophenia was filmed. my british pals would be mortified that i recommended it.
* deal castle is also a spectacular place.
for a trip this brief, i think scotland boils down to 2 places:
* edinburgh. *always* dark and brooding. great castle. nice brisk couple hour walk up a nearby hill that'll let you look over everything.
* loch ness. i was obsessed with the monster as a kid. i love this place.
glasgow, to me, is the *true* scotish experience and would be worth the trip if you really liked edinburgh. they have the best food in the UK, but it's really more of a experience-the-people-and-the-
my favorite way to travel all of the UK is bed and breakfasts. B&B's are cheaper than hotels, the food is better, and it gives you the briefest glimpses of the way people actually live. if you can't deal with sharing a bathroom/shower or the idea of only being able to eat until a certain time in the morning, this isn't for you.
the cheapest hotels will be had on priceline and hotwire ... there's probably UK specific sites that will do the same ... do a UK G search for cheap hotels and look at the ads that come up. (a british phrase you'll run across is "cheap and cheerful.")
cars should be arranged online from the US ahead of time -- you'll save about 1/2 this way. ALWAYS REQUEST AN AUTOMATIC. you may not get 1, but believe me, if they have it, you want it. driving on the left is 1 thing ... doing that and shifting with your left hand at the same time quite another. (alternatively you could just hire me along as your driver and guide.)
i'm sure there are travel agents who specialize in the UK. you could probably tell them everything you wanted to do, and when, and they could set you up a custom-package that would be tailored to you. as you've probably gathered, i travel a bit more loose and open than that, but it would work.
expedia/orbitz packages usually can't be changed, but sometimes can be upgraded (give me a bigger room, nicer car, etc.). note: with the exception of the olympics, i have NEVER seen a commercial package that i wasn't able to beat in both price and experience; but i'm pretty hardcore about this kind of stuff. your time/effort may not be worth the ease of just taking something you're pointed at.
my favorite way to travel distance throughout europe is by train. if you've never been to GB before, i would recommend doing it during the day so you can see the world around you -- if you have, take a night train with a sleeper, you save a hotel and a day of vacation. (bring earplugs to sleep.)
there are also super-cheap airlines. they fly to/from strange off-beat airports (make their money off advertising, not the flights themselves). they sprang up since i lived there -- i don't know anything about them, but they're a possibility as well. [a mutual friend of ours] could tell you tons about it.
if rick steves has a book that's something like "england through the backdoor," get it and plow through it now. he's absolutely on the mark and may give you some ideas about anything related to this that you'd be interested in.
you're well ahead of the curve on next july. i'd hold off on booking things until april or so ... it'll give you a chance to see how the dollar is doing next to the pound, read up a bit, evaluate your health and let any world stage weirdness unfold that may affect things (think: terrorism and war). by booking earlier you will save yourself little money and may lose quite a bit more either through penalties for having to cancel or by not being able to take advantage of a currency/tourism anomaly.
buy me lunch or dinner and you can pick my mind as endlessly as you'd like on any of this (repeatedly if necessary). i'm not evangelical in my beliefs and won't try to get you to convert to a certain way of england or travel thinking, but pretty much anything that can be done over there in this world i've experienced either directly or indirectly.
you'll have to excuse me, i'm planning my jetblue all-you-can-jet itinerary,
b1
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my pal karpov's addendum
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A couple of quick hits...as b1 mentions, my wife and I did a 2-week trip to England and Wales back in the early 90's, and it was our first time visiting this area (actually first time anywhere in Europe. Depressingly, we have not returned, so my 'first trip' impressions are untainted by additional trips.) B1 was our tour guide, and we had a super great time. The scale of history there is completely unlike anything we have here in the US.
The big (and typically more crowded) attractions were very interesting (Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Stonehenge) but I also really enjoyed the little things like tidy rolling landscapes with the ever-present rows of hedges, and ornate churches everywhere we went. I'm not particularly religious, but the churches left a big impression on me.
I enjoyed our quick trip to Wales, and we hit two of the sites b1 mentioned above.
My favorite spot there was Tintern Abbey--a well preserved 'ruins' site. Imagine a magnificent church structure built long ago (1250 - 1300) that now has no roof or windows. We were allowed to wander around inside the structures, and well-kept grass is growing inside the shell. (Of course you don't have to imagine, you can find images on the web.) It was very impressive, and for me the highlight of our 2 days in Wales.
We went to Conwy Castle too, another place where you are allowed to explore certain areas, and it was a classic castle with towers and turrets. I second b1's recommendation here, though I don't have many other Castle experiences to compare it to. This castle is not particularly close to Tintern Abbey.
I studied a fair amount of Shakespeare while getting my math degree, so we did a couple of things not mentioned below that I would recommend if you have any interest in Shakespeare. We saw one or two plays at the Globe Theatre in London (including one of the King Henry plays, and our production had a spectacular Falstaff), and a third at the Royal Shakespeare Company (at his birthplace at Stratford-upon-Avon--the church here is worth a visit too.) All of this was a highlight for me too.
Hope you have a great time, it is fun for me to recall our trip!
Karpov
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