Best airport for Hadrians Wall trip?

The main international airports would probably be Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, or London. From any of these you could take the train to wherever you decide to start your walk. I guess I would decide what else I wanted to see in the area, what cities I might like to visit in addition to the walk and let that determine which airport best suits.

I'm sure the England experts on here will chime in on what makes the most sense, but even they may need to know where you are flying from and what you want to see before giving you the best option for airport.

Newcastle is the nearest airport - there are direct flights from Newark or you can fly via a hub airport such as Heathrow, Amsterdam, Dublin or Paris.

Nancy,
Thanks for your reply. We are pretty flexible on what else we do during our stay and are open to each areas unique attractions. London would be the least desirable on the list as I was just there for 2 wonderful weeks. We are interested in history, nature, music, food, cultural activities, art, etc, so you can tell this is pretty open ended. What we don't enjoy is rushing around and trying to see too much. I intentionally left the question a little vague as I would like to hear suggestions for fun ideas that perhaps we hadn't even thought of.

I suggest walking west to east as the prevailing winds will be in your back.

Lots to see in Northumberland - castles, coastline, and more countryside - the Cheviot Hills
http://www.visitnorthumberland.com/

Newcastle is a vibrant city with a strong cultural hertiage

http://www.newcastlegateshead.com/

Durham and its cathedral is nearby, as is the outstanding Beamish Museum

Plus you've got the Lake District and Yorkshire not far away

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/travel/lost-in-time-in-englands-northeast.html?_r=0

If you decide to walk west to east as suggested above ( a good idea, at least for the short section we walked last week), then you could include some time in the Lake District beforehand. We just spent three days at a country house on Derwentwater, near Keswick, on a walking holiday with HF Holidays. The guided walking was as challenging as we wanted, and the accommodations, food, and company were all excellent. They take care of transport to and from the hikes, and you get to see quite a bit of the area that way. They pick you up at Penrith train station.

https://www.hfholidays.co.uk/holidays-and-tours/guided-walking-derwentwater/

To do this, fly into Manchester, and take the train up to Penrith. You can book either 3or 4 nights at Derwentwater. They return you to Penrith where you can take the train up to Carlisle to begin your walk. End at Newcastle with good train connections to the north and south. Where next? Durham sounds nice, or there is Scotland if you head north.

I'll add in this: rest easy on the "dependent on public transportation" aspect. My wife and I went Penrith to Carlisle to Once Brewed to Newcastle and on to York with minimal problems on public transport. (Our only hangup was the AD122 bus which is great when you can catch it.)

Sadly, no suggestions on which airport as our Hadrians time was sandwiched in the middle of our trip, rather than beginning or end.

Have a great time (and although it's hard to miss, be sure to stop in to the Twice Brewed Inn)

When we did this trip (10 years ago already!), we flew into and out of Manchester. The Manchester airport has a train station, so from there you can catch a train to either Newcastle or Carlisle, depending on which way you want to walk.

There may not be nonstop flights to Manchester from Boston, though. If you have to connect, it might be worth looking into connections into Newcastle, as someone else has suggested. London will have the most options, but it's a long haul up to Hadrian's Wall country from there.

BTW, the most common walking route is east to west, which is what we did. I'm not sure why!
It's an amazing walk. You'll love it!

Manchester seems like a good choice. Icelandair flies there from Boston, with an easy change in Reykjavik.

British Airways flies from Boston to Newcastle with a change in Dublin, or a change at Heathrow with a longer connection.

I don't understand why walk the wall from east to west when the prevailing winds are (should be?) from the west and also the afternoon sun's in your eyes. (On second thought, given the weather up there I guess afternoon sun's not so much a factor.) Maybe something to do with the terrain. Any wall walkers know the answer?

Dick---I believe rambling' on's recommendation is to walk from west to east, so afternoon sun will not be a problem, nor the wind. As for terrain, we only walked a short (3-mile) section ending at Steel Rigg, but this included the hilly part and the highest point along the wall. There was one really steep hill---fine going UP ( heading east) but people coming down had trouble if they did not have hiking poles.

On the other hand, I have seen suggestions that way-finding is more difficult going from west to east. And the guidebook we have is written for going from Newcastle to Carlisle ( heading west). It was difficult to use it going the other way.

I walked the whole Wall a few years ago and logistically it was better for me to walk west to east. I agree most of the guide books are written for east to west (though some can be used for both directions). I've no idea why; it doesn't really matter. I guess most walkers do it east to west so the books are written for their benefit, and most walkers follow the books so it becomes self-fulfilling.

Way-finding is easy in either direction - it's quite difficult to get lost - the path is well sign posted. As for the steep sections, well you have to climb them all at least once and come down the other side.

The weather is unpredictable. I had five days of sunshine with sunscreen and hat needed, while on the sixth I was like a drowned rat. But when a breeze got up I was glad I wasn't walking into it - and that's more likely if you walk westwards.