Our family took a three week trip to the United Kingdom visiting: London, Edinburgh, York, Leeds, The Isle of Skye, Portree, and Berwick-Upon-Tweed. I will share some information we learned along the way in hopes it may help you if you plan to visit the UK.
We started saving for this trip years ago, and we started planning for it about a year in advance with a heavy concentration six months prior booking flights, hotels, trains, and tours.
Our Itinerary:
Day One: Flew from Nashville (BNA) to New York (JFK). We sent a couple of days in New York before catching our flight to Heathrow London.
Day Two: Explored New York
Day Three: Took a 6:20pm flight to London. In flight meals were served and lots of snacks. The flight was around six hours. The time difference between Alabama and the United Kingdom is six hours. So prepare for jet lag. When we arrived, we went through customs easily. They have a lane for those with United States passports. Just follow the signs and directions. Everything was fairly automated and self-serve.
We arrived a few hours before our check in at the hotel, so keep that in mind when you arrive. Our room wasn’t ready, but we are Titanium Marriott members, so we were able to wait in the Club Lounge and get drinks/snacks and rest.
After a nap, we had an English Tea Bus experience where the bus drove around the city of London pointing out different touristy spots and serving us high tea. We had finger foods mostly. It was enough food for me, but the teenagers were still hungry afterwards.
Day Four: We took a “Best of London” tour on a bus with others. This was not our favorite experience. It was a lot of hurry up and wait. And we couldn’t hear our tour guide when she was speaking. One of the main reasons we booked this particular tour was because we were supposed to get an up close and personal experience with the Changing of the Guard ceremonies, but the tour guide decided it wasn’t the best use of our time, and we didn’t get to see it. We did visit Buckingham Palace, Tower of London (which was great), and the outside of some other landmarks. This tour company was called Premium Tours. I would avoid them.
Day Five: We took another “bus” tour called “Stonehenge, Bath, and Windsor Castle.” It was amazing. The guide was the person who made it amazing. It was through a company called Evan Evans. We had earphones and audio the entire time so we could hear everything he was saying —even when we were at the venue, he could talk to us, so we always knew what was going on. I recommend this tour.
Day Six: We had a free day to explore on our own. We visited the Imperial War Museum and the British Museum. Both are free—as are most of the museums in London.
Day Seven: We took a train from Paddington Station to Oxford. We spent the day in Oxford touring on our own.
Day Eight: We took a train from London to Edinburgh. It was a 7 hour ride. When we arrived in Edinburgh, everyone was fairly beat, so we didn’t do much exploring.
Day Nine: A day in Edinburgh exploring and doing what we wanted to do.
Day Ten: Met our Tour Bus for the “Isle of Skye” tour which I booked through Tour Skye tours. It was supposed to be a tour for 8, but we ended up with a bus of 15. The tour took us through the Highlands, Isle of Skye, etc. Our itinerary was Edinburgh to Portree. We had to book rooms in Portree for 2 nights. The bus would drop us off and pick us up each day. We stayed at the Skye View Cottage which we booked through Bookings.com
Day Eleven: Isle of Skye Tour continued
Day Twelve: Voyage back to Edinburgh from Isle of Skye. We got back to Edinburgh around 7pm
Day Thirteen: We got up, had breakfast, and caught a train to York.
Day Fourteen: Spent the day in York, saw the City Walls, York Museum, and Jvorik Viking Museum
Day Fifteen: Took a 30 minute train ride to Leeds to the Royal Armouries which is a free museum. It was very fascinating and worth the trip.
Day Sixteen: Train to Berwick-Upon-Tweed where we stayed in a coast side Airbnb.
Day Seventeen: Walked a mile to the bus stop to take a bus to Alnwick Castle.
Day Eighteen: Spent the day at the Seaside Cottage, walked half a mile to Pot-A-Doodle Do for lunch, played on the beach.
Day Nineteen: Took a train to Leeds. David and Isaiah got to visit the Royal Armouries since they missed it the first go around due to being under the weather.
Day Twenty: Train from London to Leeds
Day Twenty-One: Flight home. It took about 6 hours to fly from London Heathrow to New York’s JFK. And then another two hours to fly to Nashville.
Apps we used on the trip:
Uber: This works in the UK just like in the US. Berwick-Upon-Tweed was the only place we visited that didn’t have an Uber service. Some rural and smaller places may not have it.
City Mapper: This will show you with tubes to take in London to go from place to place. Have your contactless payment ready and tap in and out of the tube stations. Your card will be charged at the end of the day. This was very affordable. I think the most my card was charged in a single day was $10 for all four of us to travel.
Rail Europe and Rail Ninja: Used both of these apps to book train tickets. I have since learned a Brit Rail pass may be the way to go if you plan to take a lot of trains. Ticket prices can vary. Buying in advance saved us money. The closer it is to your travel time, just like an air fare, the more expensive the ticket price will be.
Viator: I used this app to book bus tours. We loved most of our tours. It depends on your guide and how it is set up. We liked that it took the guess work out of how to get different places, especially on the first few days of our travel when we were learning where everything was located.
Trip It: This is a fantastic app where you can store all of your travel documents and itinerary. It will map it all out day by day to make seeing what’s next so easy and convenient.
Marriott Bonvoy App: Most of our hotels were booked through this app since we are members. We used points for all of our hotel stays.
Expedia is who we used to book our rental car, but we ended up cancelling it due to David not feeling well. The roads are very narrow and intimidating. Driving on the left is not the biggest issue you will face. It is more about learning how to get over and when. You have to always look ahead. The speed limit is in kilometers. Keep that in mind. And the traffic signs are different than we have in the US.
Air Doctor: We purchased this just in case we needed medical care while there. We didn’t have to use it, thankfully, but we come close a couple of times.
Notes to Remember:
The food was not our favorite. We did have some good fish and chips a couple of times. And I raved about an acai bowl I got at a hotel breakfast. Oh, and don’t forget the scones. Otherwise, I wasn’t the biggest fan. Everything seemed loaded with carbs and fried. Chips (fries) are served with everything….we even got them with a pizza we ordered. We had some decent food, but nothing I craved—other than the scones, clotted cream and jam. Bacon looks more like what we call ham in the US. The food was reasonably priced in most places, but expensive in others—just like in the US. You will pay more for a bottle of water at a Starbucks than you will at at grab and go convenience store or grocery store.
I didn’t see any iced tea while there. It was all hot tea. I love hot tea, but I did miss my unsweet, iced tea. Most places don’t have refills on any drinks. There are watering stations where you can help yourself. If you buy a Coke, that is all you will get. One Coke. No refills.
Make sure you have good walking shoes. Some days we walked up to 12 miles. The UK is not very disability friendly. We didn’t need any accommodations, but I did notice some places weren’t wheelchair friendly. Or they would be hard to navigate unless you are in good, walking condition.
Be careful about exchanging your US dollars for pounds at your hotel. Use an Exchange Station—usually fairly easy to find—and make sure you aren’t getting ripped off. For example, the exchange rate may be $1.26 USD for every British Pound, but whoever is exchanging it will charge you a fee to exchange it, so it’s more like $1.30 USD for a British Pound.
Make sure you take a credit card that doesn’t charge Foreign Transaction Fees. We used our Amazon Prime Card. You will save a lot of money by making sure you aren’t paying Foreign Transaction Fees on each purchase. A lot of places we visited do not take cash, so you will need a good credit card. I do not recommend you taking your debit card. Skimming is real, and it can be a big mess if someone gets your debit card information.
Do your research on tips. Tipping isn’t as big in the UK. And most of the times, a service charge of 10% was already added to our bill. The servers typically never returned to our table after taking our order and bringing us the food. Since there are no refills, there was really not a reason.
You have to pay for shopping bags for anything you buy. So take a daypack or something with you to avoid buying bags. A day pack is easy to fold up and store when not in use. I used mine every day.
Allow yourself plenty of time to find your way around train stations. Every station is different and can vary in size. Some are tiny and easy to navigate and others have up to twenty something platforms. Sometimes, the platform for our train wasn’t announced until fifteen to twenty minutes before the train departed, so you have to be ready to go. Also, the trains aren’t always displayed on the monitor the same as your ticket. For example, you may be going to York, but there is no York train. It may be called Plymouth or Saltburn. You can look at the schedule and see that York is one of the stops, so that will be your cue. And you can match up the time of departure. There’s an information desk in the station that can help, as well.
Sometimes people will be in your assigned seats on the train. It’s fine to politely tell them they are in your seat. Some people are new to the trains and don’t realize. Some will test you to see if you will ask them—especially at the table seats. But you are entitled to your seat if it’s on your ticket.
Some train stations make you scan your ticket as you are boarding. Some while on the train. And some when you exit. Some do all three. I never figured out the rhyme or reason to it. Just always have your ticket ready. We used digital tickets, so it was easy.
Call your phone provider to make sure you have International Calling on your plan. Make sure they know where you are going and for how long. Roaming charges can eat you alive.
Take a UK to US outlet converter. We took one that could connect to multiple charges at one time. They are fairly inexpensive. I ordered a two pack from Amazon.
Pack as light as you can, especially if you are going to be traveling to various places. Pulling heavy luggage through train stations is difficult. There’s storage areas on the trains, but it is limited. Anything larger than a carry on won’t fit above your seat—just like an airplane. And a couple of trains had even smaller compartments for luggage. We each had a carry on roller bag and a backpack. It was difficult at times, but manageable. I can’t imagine anything larger. I took a foldable tote bag for extras we bought along the way, and it come in handy.
Laundromats or Launderettes, as they are called in the UK, were difficult for us to find. We found one in Edinburgh. It was a delightful place. One guy run the place. We left our belongings and returned for them in two hours. We thought it would cost around $6-$7 USD but it was $26 USD for one basket. We took a lot of dry fit clothing. It was easy to wash out in the sink with body wash or bar soap and would dry overnight. I took a camping clothes hanger to hang in our room for our clothes to dry.
You will need an umbrella and rain jacket of some kind. I took a light one since it was May/June. The weather is as sporadic and unpredictable as others say. The sun can be beating down on you one minute and it can be chilly and raining the next.
Some restrooms are paid. Make sure you have some pounds in coins to pay. I only had to pay a couple of times. There are a lot of free toilets.
Take a portable/collapsible bottle for water refills.
Ages for tickets to museums and for trains can vary by location. In some places, a child is considered anyone under 25. If you are traveling with teens/young adults, check the ages before you buy.
Originally, we planned to rent a car and went through Expedia. Most cars are 5 speed, but you can pay more for an automatic. Driving on the UK roads can be tricky due to how narrow they are. And there’s a certain way the “pull offs'“ work that would take some getting used to.
There’s a lot of YouTube videos that were very helpful regarding what to pack, how to get around, what apps to use, etc. I suggest checking for the latest information since things can change so quickly.
