Advice for first time visitor itinerary, SW England and Wales?

It’s just as well that you’re confident drivers as you will probably be spending a lot of time in a car. :)

I’ve never been to the desert SW US but suspect the roads are very different from those in Cornwall and N Wales, particularly. Even by British standards, these are narrow, full of bends and slow. In May, you could have problems with parking in some of the more popular places. Are you familiar with roundabouts?

I think I’d look to cut down the miles and concentrate on either SW England or N Wales but not both.

So do you not plan on seeing London at all?

Regardless, I agree with Bill. Trying to get in both SW England and Wales will involve a lot of driving, and I can vouch for the fact that driving in the UK is nothing like driving in the in the US, desert or not. Cornwall especially is tough. It's not just the roads and the distances between each place, but the fact that many roads are single track with no shoulder and are bordered by high stone walls covered with greenery. It's really hard, especially if you're not used to it, and it will definitely take you more time than you anticipated.

I spent 10 days last year in Cornwall and Devon and could easily have spent 10 more. I would really consider limiting your visit to Cornwall and Devon and the surrounding area. In fact, I actually enjoyed Devon more than Cornwall. It was gorgeous and Dartmoor National Park was one of the most beautiful and interesting places I've been to. You could also add in places like Bath, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Avebury and Bristol. Then if you really want to see Wales, just tack on a short trip over the border to south Wales.

Or as Bill said, you could concentrate on Wales itself and save the SW of England for another trip.

The 14-16 days will fly by . As already pointed out driving in the UK is very different to driving long distances in the US. It will take a lot longer to cover the miles than you might expect. Slow down and concentrate on a much smaller area. The UK really does pack quite a punch in a small area. Seriously rethink your plans. Concentrate on the SW - Devon and Cornwall, possibly getting into Somerset or Dorset. (Somerset and Dorset are also less busy/crowded than Cornwall.) You will see lots of attactive small villages and towns There is dramatic coastal scenery with plenty of small fiushing villages to choose from. There plenty of wildlife - think areas like Dartmoor, Exmoor and the New Forest which would tick the box for mountain/woodland as well as the ponies... There are ruined castles aplenty. Corfe castle is equally as dramatic as Tintagel. You can even do a horse drawn canal trip from Tiverton.

Taking the train to then pick up the car does make sense. You won't want to tackle a long drive off a transatlantic flight. Catch the train to Penzance or possibly Truro and hire a car there. Do a one way hire , slowly working your way back to Heathrow to drop off the car before leaving the UK back to the States.

The slight problem we have now is that the car rental facilities at both Truro and Penzance railway stations have closed - so not quite as easy as it used to be.

If you like nature and birds, I really recommend looking into visiting some RSPB sites: https://www.rspb.org.uk/days-out/reserves

RSPB = the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. They have many protected sites around the UK which are beautiful nature reserves that are perfect for walking and seeing birds (and other wildlife). Whenever we are visiting other parts of the UK, if we see there is an RSPB site nearby we always visit and have never been disappointed. Once you know which region you are focussing on you can use the map on the link above to see if there is an RSPB site nearby. Good luck with your planning.

My reservation about Cornwall is that you say you aren’t really sea/beach people. To me, Cornwall is all about the sea and you’ll find the most interesting and scenic towns and villages on the coast. Cornwall doesn’t have mountains or forests. Bearing that in mind, maybe you’d prefer to focus on North Wales if you only do one or the other.

I really appreciate the replies! My comment about being from the southwest US was referring to how used we are to driving longer distances. Driving 3-4 hours is a easy short trip, and we've made many transcontinental drives. But I understand that the roads are much more challenging in more rural areas of the UK. I do want to try to scale down the distances we tackle on this trip! I'm trying to figure out how. Part of the challenge is that I want to see so much of the UK and Ireland, but will have to break it down into at least 4 smaller trips. And we can only travel internationally every 2 years or so. So it's very tempting to try to pack things in! Anyway, I realize these are very privileged problems to have, and I'm so fortunate to be able to see any of these places.

Yes, comfortable with roundabouts--when driving on the right side of the road. :-) Will quickly adjust! We've both driven in a lot of challenging driving situations.
We will have a night or two in London either when we arrive or when we are leaving. Want to focus more on countryside on this trip.

I will look into RSPB! Wonderful, thanks.

I'm now maybe thinking of train to south Cornwall (Penzance ideally, but possibly Plymouth?), staying 2-3 days in south Cornwall, 2 in Dartmoor, 2-3 in Devon, then up to south Wales, maybe Brecon Beacons area for 3-4 days. Then head to Stonehenge/Avebury/Bath for a day or two, return car in Bath or Bristol, then train to London.

Specific questions:

It's really helpful to know that we can't hire a car at the Penzance station. But surely somewhere in Penzance? If not, would Plymouth be the next largest city that would be good for care hire?

How long might it take to drive from Plymouth to Penzance? Penzance to Bath?

Where would you suggest staying in Devon, considering the rest of this itinerary? If we just have one base in Devon for 2-3 days, what would be a good town for that?

It will be a tough decision to skip north Wales. Is the main issue that it takes a long time to get to north Wales, say, Snowdonia area, from south Wales?

I've just had a quick look at car rental in Penzance and see Enterprise at Long Rock.
That's only 5 minutes ride by bus or taxi from the Railway station. I would guess that any other options are also out by Long Rock- it's where the big stores and the industrial estates are. The untouristy side of the town. I can't see any others in my minds eye, but then haven't been looking for them.
Long Rock to me is more yay I've arrived after a long journey, a place to get through.
The Sleeper gets in to Plymouth at 5am- too early. A section used to detach there and you could sleep on to 8am but those days are gone.
The train normally sits at Exeter for an hour waiting for Plymouth station to open for the day
For Devon towns maybe look at Tavistock, Okehampton or Bideford?
Penzance to Plymouth probably around 2 hours, to Bath 4 or a bit more.

Canals- the Llangollen is very popular, and for very good reason. The Mon and Brec much less so, but very scenic. Whether you can find a 2 or 3 day boat hire on the Mon and Brec is a different question - I would have thought that was more likely to be weekly hires, but I may well be wrong.

https://www.dragonfly-cruises.co.uk have canal boats carrying many people for trips on the Brecon Canal.
https://www.brecondayboats.com have small boats for day hire.

For anyone reading this who wishes to hire sleeper boats on the Brecon Canal - suggest you check out:> https://beaconparkboats.com

If you happen to be driving on the main S > N road through Wales (A470), you may be interested in this place near Rhayader in mid Wales:>https://www.gigrin.co.uk (Wild Red Kites come to this place for free food).

To risk a massive over simplification, Devon is 3 places - north coast (full on to the Atlantic), south coast (on the channel and more sheltered) with much of the centre being Dartmoor (remote, bleak, rugged, awe inspiring??). The north and south coasts are not well connected; one small, slow train from Barnstaple to Exeter.

So, it depends which bit(s) of Devon you want to see as to where the best base is. That said, on the north coast, I’d go for Barnstaple over Bideford.

I did a very similar trip to your general plan back in 2019. It was do-able, even for a group of several families with young kids in tow. It was a lot of driving, and by the end we were a bit tired, but we did feel like we got absolutely as much out of the trip as possible. I wrote up a trip report, here's a link to it: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/2-weeks-in-the-uk-cornwall-wales-midlands

We did Stonehenge and Avebury in a different trip, but I think it's totally possible to head to the Bath area after Snowdonia and use that as a point to get to both of those sites. On another past vacation we booked a sunrise tour of Stonehenge so that we could actually go up to the stones beyond the visitor fence, and it was completely worth it. That sunrise tour left from Bath, but we were staying in Salisbury, and the tour company was cool with us just meeting them at Stonehenge. Avebury is also totally worth it, and while you're in that area, find the West Kennet Long Barrow and do a quick visit there.

My one point of caution is the canal boat rental- my husband I and did that for our honeymoon years ago, and it was so much harder to steer the boat than we expected. It was kind of a hilarious failure for us that we now look back on fondly, but if you're doing an action packed trip, save yourself the stress. Instead, find a place that does scheduled public canal boat rides for a couple of hours and experience a canal that way.

Factor in longer for drives than Google Maps leads you to believe. Double check before you start driving that Google Maps isn't sending you down B roads unnecessarily when there's an option for an A road. On our last trip to England we lost a lot of time to driving down slow B roads behind tractors because we didn't double check the route that Google chose, and it was so much slower on the narrow roads than it would have been to drive some extra miles on faster A roads.

I've found a similar problem with Google maps in rural areas. I think that it may be due to the fact that the legal speed limit on these narrow country roads is 60mph (yes, really) when you'd be crazy to go over 30 and that's before tractors, flocks of sheep etc. Google maps 'sees' an empty road where you can go 60mph and suggests it as the best route, not realizing that 60mph is quite unachievable.

for the south of Devon, loads of National Trust including Greenway (Agatha Christie's last home and left as she left it) I'd plump for the English Riviera - Torquay or Paignton. Or maybe Dartmouth or Totnes.

If driving in northern Devon be aware that the walls are closer (barely room for two skilled cyclists to pass - slow and steady wins the race) and the walls are higher, with the added advantage of water running down and across the roads if it has rained at all recently. Never drive into a puddle you don't know the depth of.

A couple of years ago we were behind a steam traction engine on the way to Greenway for about 5 miles. Nothing came the other way until a junction. Yay.

Cornwall certainly ticks the boxes for dramatic coastline and fishing villages (some overwhelmed by tourists searching for certain TV Doc) but fails to tick the one for moderate speed - everything except the trains in Cornwall moves S-O s-l-o-w-l-y.

Stonehenge, and probably Avebury (yes, I know Stonehenge is touristy
but I've wanted to see it since i was a child);

I wouldn't consider it touristy at all, I'd consider it historical. To get the most bang for your buck I'd recommend the sunrise tickets that gives you access within the stones instead of a roped off area further back.

Take the advice of people warning you about the driving conditions. Being used to 3-4 hours in a car is one thing, 3-4 hours on single track roads is another. It's doable, but completely different experience than at home. I'd recommend you read about it before you leave, to be prepared.

Dartmouth is really nice. Very historic and a beautiful natural setting. You can take some walks along the coast path to the castle and beyond without having to get back in the car. It’s also known for its high quality restaurants although I didn’t try any. There are boat trips and a passenger ferry across to Kingswear where you can take a steam train ride.

I really enjoyed visiting Coleton Fishacre (NT) in the same area. It is a 1920s country house with preserved interiors and beautiful gardens.

Allen - does 'single track road' mean the same in the US/Canada as in the UK?

In the UK, a single track road is wide enough for only a single vehicle. Every few hundred yards or so, there is a passing place wide enough for two vehicles and if something comes the other way one of them has to wait there while the other passes. A single carriageway road is wide enough for two vehicles, one going in each direction. So, the two lines can pass each other but if you get stuck behind something going slowly, it can be hard (or borderline impossible) to overtake it.

Other than the A30 and a few roads round Truro, almost every road that I can think of in Cornwall is single carriageway, including the wonderfully-named 'Atlantic Coast Highway'. There are also a lot of single track roads, but roads with a 'A' or 'B' letter in front of their number will be single carriageway (although on B roads there might be short sections of single track where the road goes through a village).

Adjusting to driving on the left won’t take long. Roundabouts take a little more time to figure out regarding which lane to be in, when. In Cornwall and parts of Wales roads can be very narrow with plenty of twists and turns. Driving is slow and a 12 miles drive might take an hour. Some really rural roads may only be one lane (single track) so someone needs to pull over if there’s two way traffic. Pack your patience.

As an aside, in many places where you only plan to visit for a short period of time, many grocery stores have 1 hour free parking. Just read the sign to ensure you get a ticket if needed. You may need to go in a buy something small to be legitimate.