My daughters wanna tour the entire UK in 10 days in July. Need advice, yeah.

In My Humble Opinion
1

So we’re all en famille driving in the car to Grandma’s house this morning, and The Cat, who is 24 and married, and her kid sister La Principessa, who will be 18 in June, are in the back seat, talking. And out of nowhere, La P announces to the parental units in the front seat, “Cat and I are going to England in July.”

Short silence from the front seat.
“That’s nice, dear,” I say pleasantly. “Go with a tour group, it’s a lot easier, they do all the work for you. What were you planning on seeing?”

She says, “Ireland and Scotland, too.”

Another short silence from the front seat.
“Um, that’s quite a bit of territory to cover in only 10 days. You can spend 10 days just in London. What exactly was it you wanna see, in the entire British Isles?”

There’s a pause.
“History stuff,” says The Cat.
“Yeah, like, history stuff,” chimes in her kid sister.

So.

They wanna spend 10 days seeing “England, Ireland, and Scotland”. In July. The height of tourist season. Other than the Blarney Stone, and vague “history stuff” (“Like castles”, The Cat added helpfully), they really have no idea, other than it would be kewl to go to England this summer.

In which I concur.

Anyway, we are wide open for advice. Destinations, tour groups, what not to do, anything. We are absolute babes in the woods when it comes to foreign travel. We went across the bridge to Canada at Windsor once and that’s the sum total of our foreign travel experience.

Passports, right? Uh huh. My head explodes.

Anyway, if Mom has anything to say about it, they will go with some sort of tour group, and tomorrow I will go down to our local travel agency storefront and see what they can suggest.

Oy.
They grow up so damn fast. [snif]

2

I don’t see how it can be done, to be honest. Travelling from London to Scotland will take most of a day (I drove from Manchester to Edinburgh this afternoon, and it took 3.5 hours - the train can manage it in 2.5).

As much as it pains me to say it, I suggest just trying to do Southern England, leaving Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the rest of England for another visit. The south has London, Stonehenge, Oxford, Cambridge, Windsor etc.

3

Do they have their passports already? There are a lot of people applying for them right now because of the restrictions on reentry that are being phased in sometime in the next year or so. If not, it may be too late to get them, but they definitely need to apply right now.

4

I’ve done a two-week blitz of Britain (no pun intended) twice now. I picked out four or five cities or regions and connected them up. The first time I did Bath, North Wales, the Lake District, Edinburgh, York, and London, which got me around the country pretty well. The second time, we (I was married now) did Edinburgh, the Lake District, the Cotswolds, and London. If they want castles, Wales has the most castles per square mile of any country.

5

Unless they confine their trip to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, it seems a bit of a tight schedule.

Of course, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea. There are plenty of day trips they could take from all of those cities to see “historical stuff.”

And on the way to Edinburgh they could stop by in York. I loved York.

If they go to Dublin, Glendalough is a beautiful place for a day trip.

Near Edinbugh, Stirling and Doune both have castles that are amazing. And Doune is where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. They even have coconuts you can borrow, at the gift shop. And Doune is very quirky and off-the-beaten-path compared to the other castles.

6

I suggest that they check out this tour company. I just got back yesterday from their London and Paris plus 2 Days Paris tour and had an absolute blast. They’re exclusively for 18 to 35 year olds, hold your hands if you need it or just let you loose if you know what you’re doing. They book the hotel rooms, deal with a lot of the tours, all that stuff. On top of that, they were just a lot of fun.

7

Yeah, it sounds like a pretty tight schedule, but they’ll likely figure that out themselves. Get them a copy of Let’s Go and tell them to take note of the travel times and costs between cities.

And I, for one, would definitely recommend against the group tour – planning your own trip is the fun part! (Not to mention the part that teaches you Important Furrin Travel Skills and all that.) And in the UK, it’s dead easy; I really can’t think of an easier country for a first trip abroad, except maybe New Zealand.

Oh, and they will want sturdy backpacks and some good raingear.

8

I took smaller group tours for day trips out of the city. There are usually only around 10 people and it makes it a lot easier to get to rural areas without having to mill around with a bunch of strangers all the time. Usually they’re also a lot of fun - you meet people there and then after the tour you go to the pub afterwards and [del]make[/del] hang out.

9

10 days to see all of the British Isles? What a stupid notion.

Last September I spent a week seeing family and friends in London-Oxford-Midlands, then flew to Glasgow for another week.

10

Welll…maybe not “stupid”, just “young and inexperienced”. Also, they both grew up with annual family camping vacations, in which Daddy simply pointed the bigass Chevy van towing a trailer at the horizon and didn’t stop till suppertime, so they may have a skewed perception of distances, and what’s possible. After all, from their viewpoint, “vacation” meant “put your Barbies in a backpack and hop in the car”, and they spent lengthy drives to places like North Carolina and the Pacific Northwest listening to CD players and playing Uno in the back seat, so they may just not realize what’s involved in the logistics of a vacation.

I’ve ordered the current Let’s Go Britain for both of them.

Passports cost $100. :eek:

11

American passports? I just got one for my stepson last month for $60.

12

They might want to fly into Glasgow or Edinburgh and work their way down. I don’t see them doing all 3 countries in 10 days.

Do they have any idea how expensive London is? (hell, all of UK, but London will shock them)
I’d get them a credit card. And make sure their cell phone (UKers call it a mobile) can be switched over to international mode (whatever it’s called) and that they know how to do that.
I’d read up on B & B’s–the preferred way to stay over there. Holiday Inns etc do exist, but they cost a mint. In a B&B you get a full English breakfast (usually) which is hearty (to save money, I always ate a huge English breakfast and then skipped lunch and had dinner a bit early). TVs are now in some rooms of some B&B’s! It’s very exciting. Don’t be surprised if the bathroom is communal–just like in college. I’ve traveled alone in UK and this has never been a problem.

Make a Xerox of their passports and other picture ID, and of their credit card number and have them take that with them, but keep it separate from the passport etc. Just in case…

13

Is he young? There’s an age cut-off, like 16 or something, where the passport price goes up.

As students I’d strongly recommend staying at a hostel. I’ve stayed in B&Bs and hostels both and hostels are a LOT more fun.

Seriously, if they want advice, they can email me. I travelled by myself around Europe at the age of 20 for two months - it was my first time travelling by myself, and I planned everything on my own, and had a spectacular time. :slight_smile:

14

Here’s a similar thread. Myself, amongst most others, suggested constraining the trip. London and Edinburgh are pretty awesome, but going to Ireland would really make your traveling take up way too much time. I made a quick jaunt up to the Isle of Skye which I thought was well worth it.

15

10 days to see the whole of the UK?

Hey we may be a small island but we aint that small

16

I am going to Europe this Summer, and I am using this company called EF College Break. I have traveled with them before, and I had a good experience with them so I am using them again. Maybe you should look into them if you are looking for a touring company. They were the cheapest thing I could find, and it really was a good value. Its packages, and it included airfare, hotels and everything. Well almost everything, because you do have to pay for lunch and dinner. I have their discount code if your daughters want to use them, its hesseln1188 and it gets you $50 off. I really liked the tour thing because you really are more efficient for the time you are there. You don’t have to worry about getting lost, or being stranded/lost on some train. Personally I just liked it. Tell your daughters to have funn!!!

-H

17

They don’t need a Travel Agent. They need a Tardis… :dubious:

18

They may also not realise just how much stuff there is to look at in a country with a few thousand years of history and 60 million people crammed into a space a bit smaller than Oregon. Heck, 10 days is barely enough to thoroughly check out the stuff around Exhibition Road.

19

I did five weeks in Europe, including less time in England Ireland and Scotland when I did my college summer in Europe.

Take the night train up to Scotland and sleep. Go to Inverness in Scotland. Eat Hagis, see castle, visit quaint Scottish town, sleep on train on way back

Spent three days in London - The Tower of London is easily worth half a day.

Went out to Bath - Bath is a cool town, went from Bath to Glastonbury and saw the abbey ruins which are very cool.

After a week (we had a week long Britrail pass) we hopped over to Ireland and spent a day in Dublin, went down to Cork, kissed the Blarney stone (on a month long Eurail pass) took the ferry over to Brussels and spent the rest of the trip on the continent. This would have been 1986.

Of course you can’t see EVERYTHING in ten days. I bet most people who live in London haven’t bothered to see everything. But ten days, when you are young, is a great way to see the highlights, getting a ‘tasters menu’ of a place.

(Do make the most of it by sleeping on trains)