7 days in England countryside end of Sept. 2025 - seeking advice please

A few comments:

Although I have never used one, the Hop On-Hop Off buses routinely come in for heavy criticism on this forum because they go slowly and are frequently full. I'm sure a search will bring this up. In my view using the top of ordinary buses is much cheaper - the number 26 goes past a number of key tourist sites and gets very close to the Churchill War Rooms when it's in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey.

Port Isaac is very pretty but very small indeed with narrow streets with 90 degree bends. The nearest car parking is at the top of the hill opposite Doc Martin's house but the parking is very limited. Otherwise there is a car park on the edge of the village but this may be too far for an 82 year old. I don't know if there is a bus. I think you need to look at driving times using something like Google Maps to see how much of this itinerary you can reasonably achieve. What seems a reasonably short distance can take a long time to cover.. Port Isaac, particularly, is nowhere near a fast road - perhaps why it has stayed relatively untouched for so long - but it'll take you a fair while to get here and back.

In London (and Oxford) a car is a liability. My suggestion would be to try to pick up a car in London as you leave and drop it off in Oxford on the way back and get bus back to Heathrow from there (a better option that the train in my view). If you can stay in the retrace of Oxford, everywhere is pretty much walkable (even for an 82 year old) with no hills.

We didn't want to do the underground, so we purchased two day passes on a HoHo bus (also included a river cruise).
There were three routes offered and we picked one that wasn't the shortest, but wasn't the longest.
We did get to see a lot of London, without getting off much.

Still, starting at Victoria Station, it took us over an hour and a half to arrive at St. Paul's Cathedral. After, St. Paul's we got on the shortest route and around the Tower of London, we picked up the Thames River cruise, which was nice.
We ended up at Westminister, next to Parliament. We decided to do Westminister Abbey the next day, and got back on the short loop, which took us 40 minutes to get back to Victoria Station (near our hotel).

The next day, we used the short loop to go back to Westminister and loved Westminister Abbey, spending over 3 hours there.

The bus worked, but remember that the HoHo buses are very slow due to all the traffic. Also, a few times our bus just sat still for 5 minutes while new passengers paid and were briefed by staff. That, we didn't appreciate.

As I understand it, one of the reasons that the HoHo buses are slow is that they are not allowed to use the 'bus lanes' which are dedicated for use by TfL buses, black cabs (and a few other users??). So they have to fight it out with the rest of the traffic.

Interestingly, the Number 26 goes from Victoria to St Pauls (and on to the Bank of England and Liverpool St Station):

https://tfl.gov.uk/bus/route/26/?direction=inbound

If you can get on the top at the front, you'll get a great view. Just looking att the route, you won't see much of Covent Garden from the bus. You need to go up a smallish side street and then it all opens out.

This is a lot to fit into a week, especially as Cornwall is the better part of a day's drive each way, realistically from London.

And these destinations are in three different directions from each other.

Maybe something like this would work-
Day 1 Arrival day
Days 2'and 3- London;
Day 4- Fly from Gatwick or Southend on Eastern Airways to Newquay. Rent car, drive to Port Isaac, approx 1 hour.
Afterwards it is 90 minutes down the fast A30 to Exeter, or stay on the A30 to maybe Honiton (as an example) for overnight.
Day 5 Jurassic Coast, and overnight maybe in the Bristol area.
Day 6- Cotswolds, ending the day by off renting the car at Oxford, as a one way rental
Day 7- Oxford, either transfer that night or early next day, depending on flight time by direct bus to Heathrow.

This is fast paced, and each destination would cleary benefit from a lot more time.
This is also a sketch itinerary.

However it seems a fairly good way to complete the wish list.

isn31c - I had a look at flights to Newquay but the flights from Gatwick seem very expensive (over £250 one-way) and as far as I could see there was only one flight from Southend each day at 1400 which didn't seem very convenient. I wonder if an alternative would be to leave London , in the afternoon of day 3 by train to Exeter and stay overnight there picking up a car in the morning.

Apologies if there are cheaper flights or ones with better times.

The morning flight I'm seeing is £87.49 on 22 to 24 Sep, £149.99 on 25 Sep, £99.99 on 27 Sep, £149.99 on 28 Sep, £99.99 on 29 Sep, and £87.49 on 30 Sep.
Until recently I'd have said to take the overnight train to Truro, pick up a car at 7am on arrival and off you go. But the rental place on Truro Station has closed.

At Exeter there is a Premier Inn opposite the mainline St David's Station.

You would either need to go down to the trading estate at Marsh Barton for all the car rental places (south side of Exeter) or go to Exeter Airport.
From Marsh Barton you are straight onto the A30.

I'm also tempted to suggest Plymouth for overnight and car pick up , to vary the scenery. I think it's about the same sort of drive time from Plymouth as from Exeter and at least you could do a two night stay in Exeter. Being where it is there must be parking at Exeter.

For me, I would either drop Port Isaac or drop Cotswolds/Oxford. With only seven days it's a lot of travelling. Port Isaac is quite an outlier from the rest but if it's a high priority for you then you could just focus on London, Dorset, and Cornwall. I would get a train from London to where you want to get to in Dorset and then rent the car from there. Honestly when driving from London to anywhere else you spend half the time just getting out of London, so it's much easier to rent elsewhere. Good luck with your planning.

Thank you for all of these replies so far! Good insights to share as my friend makes his decisions. Port Isaac is indeed an outlier, but a sentimental choice for them, so good to know more details about getting there.

Thanks again!
Laurie

We drove to Port Isaac and spent two nights - in a hotel that was the "schoolhouse" in Doc Martin. We overlooked his surgery! The room and hotel and town just wonderful. We also did a Doc Martin tour and thoroughly enjoyed it. Port Isaac is small - VERY difficult to drive around - well, you don't drive around! Even the parking at the hotel was a challenge. But you might want to consider a night there. As Doc Martin fans - we absolutely loved it!

We have just spent a week in Cornwall. It is a long drive from London, and when you get there the local roads can be very narrow and need care to negotiate. One highlight was having to reverse 100 yards when we came face to face with a double decker bus and no passing place!
As others have said, it may be a good idea to drop Port Isaac. If you do decide to go, book accommodation with a guaranteed parking place and be prepared to use local taxis. Everywhere we went, parking was a nightmare!

The OP is looking to travel outside school holidays, so parking ought to be easier (but not easy).

I have been going to Port Isaac on and off for about 50 years, and a few years ago the provision for tourists to park on the beach at low tide was removed. I don’t know if this was due to cars clogging up the tiny road to the beach, cars getting stuck as the tide came in or to force drivers to use the car park on the outskirts of the village (or maybe a combination of all three).

One way or another, parking in PI will be “challenging “.

Edited to say Cotswold, not Cornwall. Sorry, my early morning mistake. Thanks for your input, Helen!:-)

Many thanks to all of you for these great suggestions! My friend took your advice to heart, dropped Port Isaac, and he’s now planned to stay in a cozy cottage in the Cotswold area for that part of their trip. They will do day trips from there, which will be a much more relaxed pace for them. I think his mom will be delighted! :)

Bonus-he now knows about the abundant resources on the Rick Steves website!

Thank you!
Laurie

Parking is a nightmare everywhere in Cornwall. You will need to read the information in each car park carefully as many are privately run and have a range of different ways of charging and collecting payment. It would be useful to have some of the main parking apps set up before you go if possible. Don’t expect to park anywhere for free.

Building on Helen’s point about parking in Cornwall, I don’t think it’ll be easy in the Cotswolds either. Most car parks have gone cash-free and quite a few will only accept payment via an App. Life will be a lot easier if you have a mobile app pre-loaded with a few of the more common parking apps (Ringo comes to mind). A problem can be poor signal in the car park. Be aware that enforcement of non payment may well be by cameras taking photos of the vehicle’s registration rather than by human traffic wardens.

This late in the year, I'd expect a fair amount of available street parking in Broadway, Evesham, Bourton on the Water, Stow on the Wold (and free parking in the Tesco car park within time limits), Chipping Campden, etc. And in the smaller villages.

If there is a double yellow line - no parking ever. Single yellow line, no parking during the times on the sign. Marked meter spaces, read the rules carefully and probably need an app or phone. No markings - fair game as long as you don't obstruct, block a junction, park on zig-zags, or obstruct a dropped kerb.