1st time England for 7 days, flying into or out of Manchester

We love walking in England and the Cotswolds are lovely. . . . but in March the days are short and the trails will likely be muddy.

This is highly subjective, but I would go to Paris after London, using the Eurostar train. You could do 3 nights each in London and Paris, but personally for a first visit I would do 4+ 2. Then fly home from Paris.

I would not be concerned with the language barrier in Paris. Most people associated with the tourism industry will speak English. Get a good, focused guidebook ( the RickmSteves on onparisnis on sale on this website!).

The evenings in Paris are lovely after dark. It is called the City of Light for a reason. And London is one of our two favorite cities in the world. A perfect place for the first-time Euro traveler, but also for those of us with lots of trips---we keep returning.

With only a week to travel I'd suggest saving Paris for the next time. There's plenty to do in England. Fly into or out of London (either Gatwick or Heathrow) and spend most of your time there. After you've booked your flights you can plan your time on the ground, beginning or ending with the conference. For weather purposes, you might have better luck to start with the conference and then be tourists.

There's plenty to do in London itself. You could also day-trip to Salisbury/Stonehenge by train and connecting bus tour, or to Windsor, or Hampton Court, or Greenwich, or Canterbury, or Oxford, or Cambridge. Bath could also be a day trip though a rushed one. Rick Steves' Pocket London plus a good city map would be all you need as a guidebook (unless you want to spend much time in Bath). But check your library for other guidebooks to help you with planning.

Take a train between London and Manchester. If your husband's conference leaves you with free time, there are things to see in Manchester, or in nearby Liverpool or Chester, easily reached by train.

The National Rail website can help you plan train travel, and buy advance tickets if you're willing to commit to particular trains. Like flights, these train fares will be lower a few months out, and increase as you get closer to the time. So there's a tradeoff between price and spontaneity. But for most of the day trips I listed above the train costs will be low anyway. You could go ahead and get advance tickets between London and Manchester because you'll be tied to the conference dates.

Have a great time on your first trip and hopefully you'll be able to return to Europe and spend more time later.

My two cents would be to stay in England. My twenty year old daughter and I were in England four years ago and just loved it! We decided to wanted to take on Paris as well and Paris was a nightmare- mostly because of the language barrier. The metro ate my daughter's multi use ticket and it took so long to find somebody to speak English well enough to retrieve them for us that we missed our catacombs tour. Because the people at the catacombs didn't speak English well, or hated Americans (I'll never know), they were very rude and kept my daughter and I waiting for nearly an hour before finally denying us entry even though we had pre-paid, skip the line tickets. People sent us on wild goose chases when we asked for directions- It was a horrible, horrible experience. I've since been to Paris and had a wonderful time, and met great people, but in my opinion, Paris is better suited when you have plenty of time and better yet, somebody with you who knows the city and/or the language.

While in England we signed up for a day tour that took us to the city of Bath and enjoyed the Roman baths there (and delicious scones!). That tour also took us to the charming village of Lacock where many scenes from Harry Potter were filmed. We paid a bit more and took a small group tour of Stonehenge at sunrise, where we could actually walk around the stones (most tours keep you on a path about 30 feet away from the stones). That was one of our best things! We also went to the theater district to see a play. Of course we had to see the Palace and picnic in Hyde Park. The Hard Rock Café was wonderful. We wanted to do so much more, but just didn't have enough time (four days). Whatever your decision, have a great time!
Lisa

At that time of year, with short daylight hours, stick to the UK. It's not the best time to visit the Cotswolds, particularly without a car. There won't be much colour in the gardens.

From Manchester, you can easily get to York by train for a couple of nights then to London. You could easily spend the entire week in London. Take a day trip by train to Bath from London.

Just for the record, fastest trains:

London to Bath, 1:28

London to York, 1:50

London to Paris, 2:16

Fares:

London to Bath, day return, £29pp Advance fare; £65 walk-up fare

London to York, £62.50 Advance fare for the fastest trains (1 hr 50 minutes);
£19-£30Advance fare for the ones taking 2 hr 2-5 minutes

From York you will have to return to London or Manchester for your flight home.

London To Paris, £45 pp for tickets bought now for March travel

When these opportunities come along it's possible to be overwhelmed with the choices.

I would keep it simple and do London and Edinburgh with a stop in York if time allows. No point in doing the Cotswolds when the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District are much closer.

If Paris is a must then there are plenty of flights from Manchester.

Overwhelmed is a great description! :) It sounds like the Cotswolds is a natural place to cut out. What is the draw to visiting York or Edinburgh?

Another option is to visit London and then go to an Ireland destination or Italy instead (my dream!) Initially my thought is we would be limited to visiting only one city due to time. It's so hard knowing how close we are without the luxury of more time.

Thank you all so much for your advice and input, it is so greatly appreciated!

Lola- other than the Eurostar from London to Paris, what train are those fare quotes from?

You have received a lot of great advice already. So I will just add.....

When booking your air, fly into Manchester and out of London (either Heathrow or Gatwick). This is called Open Jaw. You may find it listed this way on some websites for booking airline tickets.

Fly into Manchester, do your conference/business meeting, then take the train to York. Stay overnight in York. It is a great town, with a lot of medieval buildings, ancient city walls, and museums to see.

Take the train to London and stay there for the remainder of your trip. There is enough in London to keep you busy for several weeks! You won't have several weeks, of course, so you will have to pick and choose what to see. But you will have enough to do there without going to Paris.

You can do all kinds of day trips out of London. One website to look at for guided day trips is that of the London Walks Company.
www.walks.com

I would also buy one of the Rick Steves guidebooks. The RS Best of England is on sale now half price:
https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/best-england-guidebook
This will have a section on London, and on Manchester and York. There is also a section on Bath, which you may find useful, since you might go there on a day trip out of London.

If you want a small, lightweight guidebook, buy the Rick Steves "Pocket London" guidebook. It has all the information you need for London, plus a city map, in a book small enough to slip into your coat pocket.

Day trips out of London are very easy to do. England has an excellent train system, with clean and comfortable cars and seats. You can just walk up to the ticket window at the right station, on the day you want to travel, and say, "Ticket to Bath, please." and get on the next train out. Or you can go online and buy train tickets ahead of time, and save a lot of money with advance purchase.

The Rick Steves guidebook will have all the details.

In your recent post, you said,
"Another option is to visit London and then go to an Ireland destination or Italy instead (my dream!) Initially my thought is we would be limited to visiting only one city due to time. It's so hard knowing how close we are without the luxury of more time."

What Ireland destination have you researched that you like?

What locations in Italy (which you said was your dream) have you researched that you like?

It is always good to know why you are going to a place before you buy airline tickets. The research should come first before buying the airline tickets. And lots more research afterwards, too!

What cities in Italy interest you? You could certainly fly into Manchester, do your business meeting, then immediately fly out for Italy. I only mention this because you seem like you do not want to stay in England after the business conference, but are itching to go somewhere else...like France or Italy.

Rick Steves has several Italy tours which have mid-March start dates. You could sign up for one of those. The Rome tour is a 7-day tour. So you would fly home from Italy.

Or you may want to leave Italy for another trip, when you will have two to three weeks to spend there. I would also recommend the Rick Steves Italy tours when you get ready for that.

Since you will be in England, I suggest that you enjoy it while you are there, and possibly start planning your next vacation for Italy, France, or Ireland.

But Paris is easily and quickly reached from London on the Eurostar. If that is what you want to do after your business conference, then go for it. You would want to fly home from Paris. Again, look at open jaw air tickets.

One comment....you need to have a firm plan for your trip before you buy airline tickets, to state the obvious. Right now, you seem to still be in the planning stages. So don't buy tickets yet.

The fare quotes are from the National Rail website. Dick gave you the link above, but here it is again: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk

This site will display the fares from the different train companies that serve a given route. You pick a time and fare you like, and then the website will send you to the correct train website for ticket purchase.

Note that U.K. Train fares fall into various types---off-peak, anytime, Advance, etc. The Advance fares are very economical but not flexible--you are committed to a specific train. These fares are released approximately 12 weeks in advanced. Right now the National Rail site is showing fares through Feb. 24. I checked that date and every day back to Feb. 15 to see if they changed. ( I learned this lesson when I bought tickets for our own trip to York last May---the lowest Advance fares for that route were not released at the 12-week mark, but about a week later. So study a route for a week or so before deciding on the right time to purchase Advance fares).

My point in posting the travel times and fares is to show that it will take little if any extra time to go to Paris over some other places suggested---and less than Edinburgh. You have time in a week for two cities---so why not Paris?

I wonder if people have given due consideration to the March date. It can be cold, rainy and gloomy in the U.K. In March, and the farther north you go, the shorter the days will be --- at least until March 21. Paris is south of London, not north like York and Edinburgh, and being farther from the sea, should be a bit warmer and dryer. One website I consulted should average high temperatures and rainfall during March as follows:

London, average high 10 degrees C, 37 mm rainfall
York, average high 7 degrees C, 50 mm rainfall
Paris, average high 12 degrees, 24 mm rainfall

Of course, in any given year it could be different---but those differences do match my personal experience. York was so cold when we were there at the end of April that we had sleet and hail that piled up and made walking a bit dicey for an hour or so.

I would discourage you, however, from considering destinations outside the U.K. If you have to fly there ( Italy or Ireland). The reality of air travel is that even for a short flight, by the time you add travel to and from the airport, and security buffer time ( 2 hours for most flights), you have used up 6 hours or so.

First, Rebecca is quite right: don't book any airline tickets until you know your itinerary.

Second, count the number of nights you have to travel after the conference is over. Two nights in a place equals one full day; one night is less than a full day.

Door to door, it takes a half day to connect close destinations (like Manchester and London), and most of a day or a full day to connect further-flung ones (like Manchester and Rome). Sure, the flight you're looking at may only be 2 hours, but you have allow time to check out of the hotel, get to the airport (60-90 minutes before a flight within Europe), get from the arrival airport into the city, check in, and get your bearings before setting out.

Remember that the day of arrival is often a jet-lagged haze, and the day of departure to the US is taken up with getting back to the airport. Also, you arrive in Europe the day after you leave the US. All of this "lost" time has to be figured into your planning - particularly for a first trip.

If you only have 5 or 6 nights after the business part of your trip, limit yourself to one place, or at most two close together places (say, London and Paris, or Rome and Florence). Which ones to see? That's up to you. Everyone will have suggestions (as you can see), and there is no right or wrong choice - only the place you want to see first.

The open jaw flights being referred to above (say, Chicago to Manchester and Paris to Chicago) are called "multi city" or "multiple destinations" on websites like Kayak, Google Flights, or the airline's own websites. You definitely want one of these; on a short trip such as yours, you don't have time to backtrack.

If you're staying in the UK or going to Paris, the trains are the way to go. Many of the trains will be much cheaper if booked in advance as non-refundable fares, and MUCH more expensive closer to travel. Once you know where you are going, we can give more specifics.

If you're going further afield, you'll want to fly. Note that Manchester airport is the third largest in the UK, with flights to all kinds of places; there's no need to go to London just to catch a flight (say, to Italy or Ireland). For a list of all of the places you can go nonstop from Manchester airport, here's their Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations

To find flights within Europe, use Skyscanner https://www.skyscanner.com, then go directly to the airline's website to find out about ALL the rules. Most flights within Europe are on budget airlines; they have strict rules, they enforce the rules strictly (to make more money) and charge extra for almost everything. As long as you're prepared, they work fine. (Hint: pay extra at the time of booking for the larger checked baggage allowance, so you don't have to worry; if your bags are too heavy, the surcharge at the airport is much higher than if paid beforehand online).

Finally, if you want to learn how I spent my recent trip to Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, and Glasgow, here's my trip report (including a great place to stay in Manchester): https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/uk-trip-report-glasgow-manchester-liverpool-in-september-2016. With only 5-6 nights after your business trip, you could certainly spend all your time in this area (York and Edinburgh are close as well).

You have gotten a lot of good advice about where to go after you husband has finished working. But don't neglect daytrips on your own while he's working.

There are hourly trains taking just an hour between Chester and Manchester. Chester has nearly intact city walls, a lovely cathedral, and a walkable old town. I think of it as a mini less crowded York.

York is only an hour and fifteen minutes away by express train.

Liverpool is also just a hour away, with trains leaving every hour.

Not exactly a destination town, but Skipton (I haven't been there) appears to have a mideveal castle and some ruins and might give you a taste of northern England. It's an hour and a half away with a change in LeedS.

You could do any of those in a day and be back in time for dinner with your husband.

Emma---you are correct; the difference in number of daylight hours in mid-March is negligible. But the total amount of daylight at that time of year is still rather short, and as much as I love rural places I would prefer to be in a city with bright lights and nighttime activities. But that is me and we don't know what Samantha might prefer.

I still think there will be quite a difference in weather. Mid-March is still winter, especially in the north. Many North Americans who have never been to Europe do not realize just how far north much of Europe lies, compared to our continent. Paris, at 48.8 degrees latitude, is actually north of St. Johns, Newfoundland (47.5) and Seattle (47.6). London is comparable to Calgary, Alberta ( but enjoys the moderating effects of the ocean). Edinburgh, at 55.9 degrees, lies north of Ketchikan, Alaska (55.3 degrees). Just to put things in perspective.

I certainly do not mean to dissuade them from going to London, which is wonderful anytime---and apparently a "must" for them. I do think they should consider carefully before deciding to spend their valuable time (valuable because it is so short) in places like the Lake District, Cotswolds, or Edinburgh. York is certainly an appealing place, but it was not on their radar screen.

Paris, on the other hand, was on their original list. Since they can get there from London in just 15-20 minutes more time than it takes to get to York, why not go?

If they do decide to go to York instead, then the suggestion above to go straight there from Manchester is a good one. Then train to London for 3-4 days and fly home from there.

If budget is a concern, they will want to price and compare their flight options (into Manchester and out of Paris versus into Manchester and out from London). And compare lodging prices. London hotels are notoriously expensive, but bargains can be found. York was more expensive than I expected, but we wanted to be right in the historic center, within walking distance of the train station and the Minster,mso paid a premium for that. Of all the places we went on our trip last May (UK plus Paris), our Paris apartment hotel was the most budget friendly.

I just finished up London, York, and Edinburgh in 8 days not counting flight days (no car, November weather)

I did 4.5 days in London, 1.5 in York, and 2 in Edinburgh. For me that was plenty of time in London, but quite enough in York, and a little too much in Edinburgh (though partially because I was too cold to enjoy all the outdoor things I wanted to do). I did miss out on one day trip I would have liked (Oxford) because of time and a few other things due to weather, but in the whole I think that's a very doable itinerary.

Britain may be a long way north but it is influenced by the Gulf Stream/ North Atlantic Drift so the seas never freeze and snow is rare in the south and on the lowlands. The state of the trees roughly = that in Washington regarding fall and coming into leaf. In mid & late March, Magnolias are out in the south along with daffodils. March is also, on average, the driest month of the year. March 21 is the Spring Equinox which means that daylight will = 12 hours.

I presume that you only have about a week? That being so, forget about Paris - you will find more than enough in England. If saying in Manchester, you could make day trips by train to these places:>
York - Takes 1 hour 20 minutes. £28.20 off peak return. www.visityork.org
Chester - Takes about 1 hour 15 minutes. £10.80 off peak return (which means 9.55am or later Monday to Friday on this route. Anytime on weekend but beware of engineering work on Sundays and shops being closed - not advised).www.visitchester.com
Conway/Conwy - 2 hours - be sure to advance book specific trains - even if doing the day before will get lower fares than turn up & go on this route (it goes via Chester - so you could split the ticket at Chester & try and do the 2 in 1 day- though it is pushing it). If going direct from Man to Conwy, buy ticket to Llandudno Junction (LLJ) as the fare is cheaper and you have direct trains. Otherwise you have to hang around in LLJ for about 50 minutes for connecting train to Conwy - which is only 1 mile away - so use a local bus. Direct trains do link Chester with Conwy/Conway. http://www.conwy.com
Another way you could save time is when finished with Manchester, take train to York & stay overnight. Then train direct to London Kings Cross.

Find fares at www.nationalrail.co.uk Pre-book the longer journeys such as London to Manchester.

My two cents, stay in England. I'm going to the UK for the 5th time in 15years and still have at least 3 more trips in me yet after that. I like to really see where I am and not just bounce around. Save your dream trip to Italy for another time to really immerse yourself in that country. Have a great time!

If you fly into Manchester you could take the train from Manchester Piccadilly station down to London. Even with the daylight hours are shorter in March I wouldn't count out the Cotswolds, the daffodils will be starting to bloom and you can see a couple of beautiful villages. You can take an earl train from London Paddington station to Moreton-in-Marsh, there is a 7:50am train arriving at 9:36am,
Take a cab to Bourton-on-the-Water, you could spend the day there or even visit on other village then take a train back to London, that way you could see a tiny bit of the beautiful Cotswolds.

Fly into Manchester, spend the balance of the day and all the next exploring the city's industrial history, galleries and fine Indian restaurants. Train to London for the balance, then home. Any more than one change of cities in a week turns the vacation into a commute.

Given its March, I would wait for a future trip when you have more time to enjoy the slowness of the country.

Day 1 - Train from Manchester to London - 3 nts
Days 2, 3 - London sights
Day 4 - Afternoon Eurostar to Paris - 4 nts
Days 5, 6, 7 - Paris sights
Day 8 - Fly home from Paris

David's plan looks great! It is just two cities, perfect for a one-week time frame. And it gets them to Paris, which she expressed interest in seeing.

( I have noticed David from Sydney is very good at itineraries that match what a person said they want to do).

Haha.
So kind.
Is it possible to make an old man blush?
(I think so)

(I just looked up where to find Bainbridge Island, and what a beautiful part of the world that must be. Somewhere I hope to get to one day.)

Thanks so much! After a lot of researching, I'm coming to much of the same conclusion. York and the Lake District are out of the way, eating up more time if we want to do London and possibly another stop like Paris. I'll have to save English countryside for a future trip with more time, maybe one that includes Ireland. ;) I am however trying to squeeze just one more day into our trip and contemplating driving ourselves to London, making a one night stop in the north cotswolds area, then explore oxford for a bit on our way to London. Thinking the drive would give me some of the scenery I would love to see and even one night in an old farmhouse would be better than none. :)

If we leave the day our conference ends, we can drive straight to our B&B in the north Cotswolds, stay the night there. The next day when we feel we're ready, head out, stop in Oxford, then get to London and figure out where to drop off the car. We would use trains and public transportation for the rest of the trip. Stay in London and then take the euro star to Paris where we would end our trip and fly home from.

No car needed. Train from Manchester to Moreton-In-Marsh. Small Cotswolds town. Stay the night. Walk around it and enjoy. Next day, train a short distance to Oxford (which can be a difficult city with a car). Look around Oxford. Train to London.

You will get plenty of scenery out the window of the train. Driving the distances you speak of in a car may not be as pleasant or fast as you think. Plus you may get lost. The train is much quicker than a car. You do not want to drive a car into London. The train takes you into the center of London. This is a much more convenient way to arrive than to drive into London and then figure out where to return the car!

The train system in England is very good. Seats are comfy. Food service onboard. Better to sit back and relax on the train than to drive for two solid days (stressful). Taking the train is a good way to do your trip.

David from Sydney--- happy to make you blush! And we hope to visit Australia someday. Bainbridge Island where I live is close to Seattle. We ride a ferry to go to work in the big city every day. From photos I have seen, our area is somewhat similar to Sydney Harbor---but much colder in our winter. We have had snow already this year. Best time to come is July-mid September.