Hello all.
My husband and I are taking a transatlantic Queen Mary 2 crossing leaving Southampton on August 27. We plan to spend about 10 days prior in the south of England. We have visited the UK several times but never south of London/Bath. We are fit and have simple tastes- history/castles, pubs, hiking, and scenery. We are comfortable driving and try to avoid spending too much time jammed with tourists. I would love some advice on whether my tentative itinerary plan before I start firming things up.
We plan to fly in to Heathrow and rent a car. We're going to skip London this time and head south to the seven sisters and do some walking in the South Downs, then head to Portsmouth for naval history, over to Salisbury and Stonehenge (I have been to several other impressive albeit smaller stone circles- is this something that is worth doing given the immense crowds?), over to Dorset/ the Jurassic Coast for some more hiking, and then to Southampton for the crossing.
Does this seem like a reasonable trip for about 10 days? We had considered Cornwall but thought it would be crowded and have done coastal Wales and the west coast of Scotland our last 2 trips so thought perhaps something that wasn't so focused only on coastal scenery (and not as much driving). Also considered including Dover but that seemed like a lot of driving for 10 days.
