Road trip around UK

Hi everybody,
New on the website, I found it by looking through the internet about road tripping in UK.
Some friends and I wish to take a 7 or 10 days trip around this beautiful country.
I saw some advice while surfing on this website but I decided to suscribe and post my own topics in order to have more helpful ones...

So we come from south Brittany (Le Mans, you may know the 24 hours car race from there) and would like to go up to Scotland by the east coast of Great Britain, and then down to the south coast by the other side of UK and then go back home.

We pointed out so far a selection of cities/county we'd like to go by, but we don't really know if it's worth it and how long we have to stay to have a good look at those places. We'd rather go to the countryside, but nevertheless, we don't want to exclude cities that need to be seen.
Here is what we selected :

- Take the tunnel in Dover
- (Maybe London for a start)
- Cambridge
- Nottingham (sherwood Forest and Robin Hood)
- York and Lake District
- Northumberland National Park and the Hadrian's wall
- (stop by Newcastle upon Tyne?)
- Alnwick Castle (for Harry Potter's fan)
- Edinburgh
- Saint Andrews
- Perthshire
- Inverness
- (we'd like to do a distillerie of whisky at some point)
- Fort William and the mountains (Applecross / Kylesku / Glen Coe)
- Glasgow
- big gap there -
- Stratford upon Avon
- Oxford
- Bath
- Tintagel
- (Exeter)
- Stonhenge

For the end of the journey, we don't really know yet... maybe we should take the boat in plymouth in order to stay a little bit longer in the Cornwall or we go back the Tunnel and we can visit Brighton...
From Oxford we can go down directly to the south coast through Winchester...

We would be happy about some more advice if you could help!
Thanks a lot, looking forward to reading you around

in 7-10 days! thats madness. cut out half and you have the start of a itinerary.

3 days in London - head North to York, Whitbey?

Not much of Hadrians wall left really.

Alnwick Castle is worth it! Altho i have no idea its reference to Harry Potter, its a stunning site.

Edinburgh for 2 days

You wont make it to far north if you wanna head down south to Cornwall again. Id suggest leaving Scotland out and focusing only on England?

Hi similidave,

I agree with Colwarspy here - this is way, way too much to see in 10 days.
Try 2 months, then you'll be able to see the things you've listed without getting travel weary.

If i had 10 days coming from Le Mans under the sea, i would start in London and then head to Cornwall, stopping off in Bath along the way.
Stunning area of the countryside, which you alluded to in your post being an important feature, and you get to see London too.

H

Thanks to you coldwarspy & BowenH1,

Yeah, you're probably true about this trip being madness in 10 days... However we might lengthen this trip to 2 weeks... Still there is much to do, we'll have to cut down some stuff...

The first Idea was to go to Scotland, and then one of us wanted to see Tintagel and the Stonhenge... We may have to decide something...

We all know a little bit London and I know some of the english countryside in the oxfordshire as I spent 2 years studying there. So this part of the trip is probably not a big deal even if I really enjoyed visiting Oxford and Stratford upon Avon.

We still take ideas and as the spokesman of the group, I'll take those ideas to my friends and keep you posted.

smilidave

Ah Tintagel, Arthurian Lore! good stuff

If you like Castles chekc out this site: http://www.anglotopia.net/anglophilia/countries/england/top-16-best-castles-in-england/

Save Scotland for another trip

Its a big ask but I have to say my family did Cambridge to the Costwolds to Fort William and back again in 4 days. Its possible if you want to spend ALL your time driving.
If you do still want to do England and Scotland definitely cut out some of that itinerary and maybe don't aim too far north. Applecross is a long way north of Glen Coe for example. Equally getting to the depths of Cornwall is a long way no matter how you hit it.

A couple of ways of establishing what you can achieve:
Decide the mileage you think you want to do per day, check an AA route map for your itinerary and establish if those two fit together. Adjust until they do!
Alternatively, check how much of your journey can be done on decent A roads and M roads and cut out everything else.

I'd personally go with option A - you'll see more of interest than A and M roads offer and you've basically severed the country in half by saying you want to do the south and the north but you are ok to miss the bit in the middle.

As to things like Hadrians wall - its a 15 minute stop off on the way so why not include it if you're passing by? You'd probably be wise to include lots of little stops rather than trying to get to know each destination. And if you do head north of sterling look out for Braco - the inn there is fantastic!!

Just go for it - see how far you get and have fun. Its a road trip afterall - all about the journey!!

Got to agree with everyone else, you're going to have your work cut out packing it into 10 days. Parts of Scotland are stunning - I cycled through much of it and it was breathtaking - but you'll be spending a lot of time travelling just to get there.
York is one of my favourite places in the UK, really pretty and a lot to do (some great museums). Likewise, Bath is a fascinating place.
I'd also recommend visiting Wales if you get the chance. I went to Snowdonia last week (pics in my profile) and it was amazing.

Just aviod the cheesy beach places like Blackpool/Brighton/Skeggie, tacky doesn't even begin to describe it!

You have had good advice so far, apart from missing out Scotland which is a must (as a Scot I am biased). Personally I would miss out London on this trip and come back for a few days at another time.

Cities you must visit - York, Edinburgh and Bath.

Every year I spend some time on the Isle of Iona on the west coast of Scotland which is a magical place, but it is a long trip to get there. The west side of Scotland is more scenic than the east.

I would take some time to travel up the east of England and perhaps come down the west side ie M6 stopping off in the Lake district and then head for Bath.

Enjoy your travels.

Brian L

I agree with the last poster who mentions the Lake District in Cumbria. Some really beautiful places to see, even if just passing through by car. The road from Keswick to Windermere is quite spectacular. Or, alternatively, going to Whitehaven on the coast then driving down the West coast of Cumbria? Off the beaten track, plenty of picturesque villages along the way.

Many thanks for all your time and answers on our trip.

We talked about it between us and decided to follow your advices. We'll balance + and - about Cornwall and Scotland and decide which way we wanna go...

As we heard in France, Prince William is marrying on the 29th of April... Unfortunately, we planned to do our little trip at the end of may (14th to 28th) so we won't be here for the big day (might be better though...).

I'll keep you posted with the details and a map of what we're planning to do when decided.

Thanks again for all these good advices!