Suggestion of place to stay at

Hi everyone. I am Irrestry from Indonesia. I am planning to visit UK on the next year and now I am about to make the itinerary. I am going to visit some places in UK : London, Stonehenge + Bath, Windsor, Cambridge, York as well as Edinburgh. For all the places, I will spend 9 days in a row. However, I am confused about the best place to stay at. I think it would be better to stay at London while I am travelling to Stonehenge + Bath, Windsor, Cambridge and I will move to Edinburgh and stay there while I am visiting York and of course Edinburgh. Anyone fancy to give me a suggestion as to does my plan make sense? How would you recommend me? I am going to use air bnb for my accommodation.

Thank you. Your suggestion will be much appreciated.

Windsor is easy to get to from London so I would use a train to get there and back to London. Cambridge is also accessible by rail and will take an hour or two. Bath too is easy to get to from London Paddington Station that journey will take about one and a half hours, Stonehenge is a way outside Bath and is nearer the town of Salisbury you can get a train from London Waterloo and a bus outside the station.

York is a considerable distance from Edinburg and as I am Welsh and only visited Edinburgh twice I am unable to offer any advice on this except that trains for each city will start at Euston. It may be a good idea to travel to York stay for a night and continue to Edinburgh from there.

Try these two useful sites on global rail travel and the next on rail travel to Stonehenge.

http://www.seat61.com/

https://www.raileurope.com/blog/14667-london-to-stonehenge-traveling-by-train-to-legend-mystery

Depending on your age I would also suggest that you investigate buying a rail card which offers discounted rail travel as travelling by train in the UK is one of the most expensive in the European Union.

Hello Irresty
How are you planning to travel? By train or bus or are you hiring a car?
If I were doing that trip I would stay locally to each place. you have chosen some lovely places to visit and there will be lots of choice, I would look on TripAdvisor UK. You could choose either a city centre hotel, the Premier Inn chain of hotels is very reliable.
Stay in London when you visit Windsor, it is a small town and easy to get to by train. London will have many more things to interest you.
It sounds like a good trip
Jane

Hello Irrestry

I think your post means that you have 9 days in the UK, including arrival day and departure day? That means 7 'real' days to explore. If that is the case then you have included a lot of places and, to be honest, your trip is going to be very rushed. The UK may look small on the map but you should not underestimate the time it takes to get from place to place....nor the cost of doing so.

I'll give you an example. You intend to stay in Edinburgh (a wonderful city) and visit York (another wonderful city) as a daytrip. But Edinburgh> York by car will take you at least 4 hours and by train it will take at least 2.5 hours.....

I'm guessing that you do not intend to hire a car? Have you looked at the public transport in the UK and worked out potential costs?

For all train times, details and fares look at www.nationalrail.co.uk

Long-distance buses are cheaper than trains but the journeys take longer. Look at www.nationalexpress.com and https://uk.megabus.com/ for routes, times, fares and online booking.

Remember that long-distance buses can and do get full-up. UK trains cannot get so full that you are not allowed to board but it is not uncommon to have to stand for all or part of a journey. UK train fares are not cheap.

If you are set on visiting all the places you list then this is my suggestion:

Base yourself in London and either a) take an organised daytrip to Stonehenge and Bath (google 'stonehenge bath tour' to find operators) or b) visist the two places independently. If you visit independently it will be difficult, though not impossible, to combine Stonehenge and Bath in one day.

For Stonehenge: train from London to Salisbury then the hop-on bus from outside Salisbury station. Hop-on bus times and fares here:
http://www.thestonehengetour.info/

It takes from around an hour by train from Salisbury Bath.

You can easily visit Windsor independently by train from London. Use the nationalrail site above to find information.

Cambridge is also an easy daytrip from London although you might decide to move on and make it your base for one or two nights. I suggest you do that and then take the train (or, possibly, long-distance bus) to York.

Ideally, stay in York for two nights (there is a lot to see) and then take the train to Edinburgh. Stay for two nights (not really enough time) and then take the train back to London (a journey of 4+ hours).

A better suggestion if you only have 7 days, is to cut out either York or Edinburgh and save them for another trip. That is what I would do. I would cut out Edinburgh and focus entirely on England.

Also remember that airbnbs are often not in the centre of cities...especially very expensive cities such as London and Edinburgh....so you will need to factor in time for travelling into and out of the centres.

I'm confused. In your "Hi" post today you seemed to say you've lived in Edinburgh, and visited London and Cambridge. So you should have an idea about travelling around the UK already, and you can abandon Cambridge, do York en route to Edinburgh, and everything else can be done as days out from London with the possible exception of Bath.

Interesting.......

You could base your trip on Bath & visit the West country .. should be a bit cheaper than London.

I highly recommend Mad Max Tours from Bath .. I used them a couple of years ago & had a great time for a not outrageous price .. my TP blogo of that tour is here .. & of Bath

Staying in London and relying on public transport in the UK will end up costing you a small fortune. If I were you I would look to stay in various Air B n Bs in order to save yourself some money.

The OP does actually say:

> I am going to use air bnb for my accommodation. < ?

[ Edit: Edited on 17-Mar-2017, at 05:48 by leics2 ]