Traveling to England for the first time: advice?

In My Humble Opinion
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I know this is a delicate subject, but please do not do this. We have our own tipping system over here, and too many American tourists applying their own system can only lead to changed expectations and erosion of our way of doing things.

The first thing to be aware of is that we have a minimum wage in this country, and that includes wait staff. You are not effectively paying their wages like you do back home. I know this will make you feel like you are being mean, or even stiffing your server, but please do it our way. And that includes no tip at all for lousy service - remember the server is still making a wage.

As a rough guide, around 10% if your happy with the service. If you’re in a Bella Pasta type place where a couple of plates of pasta and a couple of drinks will run to say £22, I would normally pay for that using a card, and then chuck a couple of pound coins on the wee plate that the mints come on. If in a pub where they let you put two meals and two drinks on a bill and it comes to £18.50, I would normally hand over a £20 and say keep the change. In a higher end restaurant, 10% and round up would be the norm, as is adding the tip to the card. So a £76.20 bill I would round up to £85 on the card for normal service, £90 for good service, or pay exactly £76.20 for crap service.

I’ll now duck and run, and await comments about stingy Scots.

Anyway, enjoy your trip, don’t worry about standing out, and just go with the flow when things turn out different. I remember my first trip to the States when I ordered a steak sandwich, which over here would be two slices of Sunblest with a bit of frying steak and salad on it (I don’t have a huge appetite). I just about died when an 8 oz sirloin atop four slices of toast (with flags in it), a mound of fries and salad in separate bowl turned up. But I knew to tip 15-20%!

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I can only add Fenwicks in Newcastle and Jenners in Edinburgh to that list.

One small thing to add when it comes to tipping - it’s better to tip in cash. There are still some perverse rules as to whose money the tip is when you pay by card; some companies perfectly legally treat it as being for them rather than the staff. This is a lot less widespread than it used to be thanks to some media coverage but you can be more certain that the money will go to the server or into a pot by using cash. Also, some places are a bit cheeky and automatically add the “service charge” onto the bill. Ironically, these are usually the worst for service and they are effectively daring you to complain. Check for this to avoid tipping twice.

Pronunciation: in placenames ending with “ham”, the h is silent; those ending in burgh or borough do not rhyme with borrow, it’s more like -burra or -bru; and, as you’ll be close, Derby is pronounced Darby. The moment of surprise on the face of anyone who thinks you’ll pronounce it the American way should be worth it :slight_smile:

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Bought my tickets last night! I’ll be there for two weeks in April. Very excited.

Thanks again for all the advice and tips (ha). Right now I am in “obsessively checking to make sure I have my passport” mode.

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Bumping this because I just got back. It was an absolutely lovely trip and I had a really great time. I spent most of the time just hanging out with my friend, so we did very little sightseeing, but that was all right by me. We did go to see Wicked in the West End, which was great. (A friend’s father plays violin in the orchestra, and was able to get us discounted seats in the fourth row, which was awesome.)

For all of the discussion here about tipping and pubs, it really wasn’t an issue, as we never did manage to make it to a pub while it was open. My friend did stop me from automatically tipping the waitress at the Chinese buffet place we went to. I had to ask him twice if he was really sure, because it just feels wrong not to tip for table service, but he assured me it was just not the done thing, especially at a buffet restaurant. So that was okay.

I wasn’t quite sure how my debit card would work out, but it turned out to be not really a problem, although it was kind of a pain in the ass since I don’t have a chip in mine, obviously, so I couldn’t use the chip and pin readers. Every place we went was able to just swipe my card instead, but then there was always a bit of rigamarole with printing the receipt and finding a pen and all and it just got old. Halfway through the trip I just transferred a pile of money into my friend’s account (thanks, Paypal) and let him pay for everything with his card from that point onward. Next time I’m going to make sure to have a lot of cash with me.

Oh, right, tip for anyone else reading this: Of all the places I checked, Paypal had the best currency exchange rate, so if you have an amenable friend whose account you can transfer money into, I’d recommend that.

I did try a lot of different foods while I was there. Curry-flavored crisps: Delicious. Black pudding: delicious. Learned to love malt vinegar on my chips. Cornish pasties: Also delicious, although the lamb/mint one we had at Alton Towers made my friend’s stomach a little urpy. Oh yes, also we went to Alton Towers and did all of the coasters there, which I very much enjoyed.

The weather was cold and drizzly the whole time, and the house was indeed quite drafty and chilly, but I had planned ahead and brought fleeces and layers, so that worked out. Drank my own weight in tea. The thing I was most surprised by is that people are apparently allowed to park facing either direction on streets. Everywhere I’ve ever lived, you’re supposed to park in the direction of traffic, so all the cars on one side of the street face the same direction. People also seemed to feel very free to make three-point turns in the middle of the street to get turned around, which seemed strange to me.

Everyone was really friendly and welcoming to me. We visited a few different people’s homes, and I was offered tea and sometimes coffee within the first minute of being in the house, every time. (I almost said yes to the coffee before realizing that it was instant coffee crystals, and I’d really much rather have a good cup of tea than an instant cup of coffee. :wink: )

Next time I visit, I do hope to do more actual sightseeing, but the purpose of this trip really was more about visiting friends than about tourism.

Thanks again to everyone who offered suggestions and advice! I had a really great time.

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Ha, I love this! Well done, I hope you’ll stick with the correct spelling, now that you know :smiley:

Thanks for the update, I’m glad you had a good time :slight_smile: Sorry about the weather. It was boiling (no really, I swear!) just a month ago. My tulips came out early in the confusion and that may well have been it for summer.

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That’s also the case in the U.K. (Highway code s. 239) but most people are relaxed about it. Traffic wardens and police have better things to do.

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“Fanny.” That word doesn’t mean what you think it means. Don’t use it.

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That’s great news. Here’s hoping you come back.

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What? Is that it? You had a good time? You didn’t get murdered by a psychopathic minicab driver or get violently attacked by an enraged cabbie/bartender/waitress for not tipping enough? Bloody Yanks coming over here and destroying everyones preconceptions. Next time you show up we’ll kick your sorry ass all the way back to Ohio.:slight_smile:

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Well, I was on my best behavior. I even waited until we were back at Heathrow for my return journey before referring to something as “quaint.” :wink: (It was the red post box, complete with letters inside.)