Best of England 14 Followed by Best of London 7?

Hmm. I think I would something different. How about a few days break before best of Paris? Easily reached via Eurostar.

London has so many wonderful places to visit. I never tire of it. Adding London to your Best of England could work but so could doing it all on your own. London is easy to get around. Stay in a different area from your tour hotel.

On one hand, I'm sure the London tour is excellent and worthwhile. On the other hand, London is easy to navigate and do by yourself and have money leftover to take a couple of guided day tours. I'd give yourself more than 2 days though.

Personally, there is no need to add the RS Best of London after your RS Best of England. Looking at the BOE tour, you end in London. Since you are already in London, I would recommend staying a few days extra and seeing some of the sights that would be included on the BOL tour but were not on the BOE tour. You could go to a cheaper hotel (there are many) than the hotel on the tour. I love London and have been many times. I always find something new. Enjoy!

Thanks for the advice everyone! Are there neighborhoods or hotels you could suggest if we decide to stay on our own? I have been to
London in the past, but don’t really know the city. I mostly remember it being very spread out. My daughter and I are traveling together. She just graduated college and is interested in a trip to Oxford and all things Jane Austen. I am an abstract painter and love modern (as well as classical) art. We both love fashion! Thanks for your help! 🌷

My favorite area is south of Victoria rail and Underground station between there and Pimlico Underground station. I like it because it is close to many of the 'must sees' and there is a great variety of restaurants, pubs, hotels. I have stayed at a couple different hotels, but my current fav is the Premier Inn chain which has several hotels in many neighborhoods of London. I like PI because of its value and consistency. I think Rick's London or England guides would help you to design a great visit on your own, especially after your intro to London provided at the end of the Best of England tour. I would recommend looking at the many walking tours the London Walks company has available. I took the one that went to Greenwich via the Thames and really enjoyed my day.

So helpful! I appreciate your willingness to share your experience 🌷

I agree with the others that London is probably the easiest city in Europe to DIY. And another vote for the Premier Inns.

Any art lover will easily fill their days in the many museums and galleries. You won't go wrong by starting with the National Gallery and the Tates. And you can check out some of the fashion exhibits at the V&A. It is a truth that you never run out if things to see and do in London, no matter how many times you visit. Samuel Johnson was right.

My favorite city on the planet. Visit often.

Definitely add a few days to explore on your own.

Premier Inns are good. Good locations are Victoria (blocks from the Palace), County Hall ( next to the London Eye and Westminster Bridge. Walk out front door and you can see Parliament across the Thames.) Tower Hill, 15 minute walk to the Tower Of London.

Given the interest in fashion I’d seriously consider the Premier Inn Tower Bridge as its an easy 15 minute stroll to the Fashion and Textile Museum.

Shopping for fashion try Oxford, Regent, Bond and Carnaby streets….Selfridges is huge, Liberty unique, and the V & A museum is worth seeing.

You will also find fashion vendors at Spitalfields Market.

So grateful for the tips! Thank you 🙏🏻

I would do it on your own. When you book a tour you are paying for the convenience of having your hotels arranged, for the guide and pre-booked admissions, and for transportation (both between hotels and for other sights that you visit). Having a bus that goes when the tour wants it to go beats public transportation and avoids having to drive and navigate. It may be a wash compared to trying to duplicate it on your own when you take the efficiency into account. Many of these advantages disappear when you stay in a single city, yet the prices don't really come down.

You have almost an entire year before your trip. I suggest watching YouTube videos on London (Rick Steves are online as are many others), checking your local library to see if they have any London travel DVDs. You should also buy the RS London Guide and perhaps another one to get a second opinion.

Armed with this preparation, easily done over the next few months, you will know what you want to do having been exposed to all the options (including daytrips). Some might involve guided tours; London Walks is uniformly excellent. Maybe it's even worth hiring a private guide for an afternoon or a day for some specific interests you have. Chart out your plans and maybe it turns out you'll want a different number of days than the RS Best of London 7 day tour (which is really 5 days, 7 is the way every company does "tour math"). Even with all this the cost will be much less than the RS Best of London

Agreed with others - on your own! We have stayed a few times at https://www.roseatehotels.com/london/roseatehouse/ which is just north of Hyde Park. Lovely area and near Tube and the park. We ALWAYS go to Rules for dinner - oldest restaurant and Downtown Abbey folks went there at least twice. Very special for us!

Get the RS London guidebook. Your interests may be different than what the BOL tour includes. For example, Kew Gardens is not on the tour and you can take a nice boat ride from Westminster Pier to get there. The tour also omits the museums.

Well Christine, I was confronted with the same dilemma. In early 2015, I woke up one day thinking about travel. You know, I said to myself, I’ve traveled the world all my life, but have never visited England. That seemed silly. I had enjoyed RS tours in Italy, so looked at the RS tours in England. Hmmm, should I take the Best of England tour, and add on some days in London on my own, or should I take the London tour, then visit some other spots on my own? Turns out I did it all, first the London tour, arriving one day in advance. The tour ended one morning, I took the train to Bath that afternoon, and began the Best of England tour that same evening. When the tour got to London, I took off to do some other things rather than repeat the same sites as before. Then I took off and spent a few days and nights in Cambridge, and a couple in Oxford, before heading home. I enjoyed it all! A nice mix of group time, 2 groups, and solo time.
About the London tour, I found the tour hotel, the Washington Mayfair (?), was spacious, comfortable, with a wonderful buffet breakfast (I still remember the “Cumberland Sausages”, I think they were called!), and was MUCH nicer than where I likely would have stayed on my own. I think the rack rate of the hotel alone would have cost more than the whole tour. I was surprised that RS was using such a lovely hotel.
One thing I realized about the London tour: our guide was excellent and very knowledgeable, but the nature of the tour meant that he spent most of his time leading us around through the tube, buses, crowded streets, and crowded entries to various sites, keeping the group together, rather than actually sharing his knowledge with us. Often more chaperone than guide. With no “private bus time” like most other RS tours, he did not have those blocks of time to share his knowledge and insights with us, and answer our questions. I remember one occasion when I was standing by him while he was waiting for the rest of our group to cross the street and gather, to enter a museum. There were other tour groups nearby, and many guides were holding up those little umbrellas so their groups could find them, which RS tours do NOT use, thank goodness. Our guide said jokingly to me, as we waited for the rest of our group, “sometimes I think I actually need to carry one of those little umbrellas for people to find me.” “Robert”, I said, “you’re 6 foot 5, you’re bald, and you’re black, you don’t need any umbrella!” Ah, the things we remember from our travels.

@Larry!! I laughed so hard at your last sentence. I had Robert for Best of Southern England…what a treasure he is!!

Christine…I can only compare your question to my decision on Paris. I was going to finish the 21 day Best of Europe with 2 nights in Paris. I added on the Best of Paris and it was one of the best travel decisions I’ve ever made. Wow, I really felt like I dug in to Paris with the guide and have had difficulty staying away since then!

I faced a similar decision - whether to do both the Best of Istanbul tour and the Best of Turkey tour, or just do Istanbul ourselves.

The key for me was my traveling partner, a long time friend. She has traveled much less than I have and I knew that I didn't want to become our tour guide, which I'm certain would have happened. It was much more relaxing for me to turn over the guide role to a guide so that we could both enjoy the Best of Istanbul tour equally.

So I would take that aspect into consideration with your daughter. Would you rather let a guide take the responsibility for your days, or would you rather have that responsibility? And if the latter, depending on your daughter's age, perhaps you give her responsibility for planning some of your time.

Edit: I see you mentioned your daughter just graduated college. Perhaps she could take responsibility to research and plan the day trip to Oxford and some Jane Austen sightseeing activities.

@Larry, I laughed too at that last sentence! I also like how you did your trip, tour time+ solo travel time. The best of both worlds.

OH! I missed the Jane Austen reference! This in no way answers your original question but....

I hope you are going early to Bath so you have extra time to spend there. The Jane Austen Centre is not worth the money (she did not live there nor do they have anything original of hers in the building). IF they are back to doing walks in Bath they are good (did one during the JA Festival one September). I did stumble across this free downloadable walking tour of Bath put together by the Bath tourist board.

https://visitbath.co.uk/blog/read/2019/11/in-the-footsteps-of-jane-austen-a-free-audio-walking-tour-b124

I'd suggest you visit #1 Royal Crescent museum as well and if you are up to an uphill walk, visit Prior Park with it's Palladian bridge. You may also want to have tea at the Pump Room.

For JA era sites in London, I used the book Walking Jane Austen's London by Louise Allen (who has an awesome Regency blog as well).

I also recommend the Georgian House and Pump Room Tea. I think there is also a fashion museum and the assembly hall, which I did not visit.

You will want to get a London guidebook, such as the Rick Steves London guidebook, either the full size book or this one, the travel size one, "Pocket London":
https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/pocket-london

Another excellent guidebook is "Lonely Planet--London". Great maps of neighborhoods throughout the book, plus a pull-out map in the back. Browse at your local bookstore before buying a guidebook and select one that suits your needs.

One important thing to do ahead of time is to study a map of London and become more familiar with where things are. It will help when choosing a hotel for yourself and when planning your days, as you will want to group attractions that are near to one another.

Get your guidebook soon, and start reading and studying it. Some people wait until the day of their trip and throw it into their suitcase. That's too late to begin learning about London.

If you have decided to go on your own around London after your tour is over, I would hit the art museums first, given your stated interests.
Tate Modern
Tate Britain
National Gallery
National Portrait Gallery
The Victoria and Albert Museum, otherwise known as The V&A
The British Museum

About your trip to Oxford--I would go and stay several days there. In my opinion, a day trip is not enough. I would stay 3 nights, then take a bus from Oxford to Heathrow Airport for your departure. There's really no need to go back into London.
A longer stay in Oxford would satisfy your daughter's interest in it.
Oxford is a lovely town, and the Tourist Information office has walking tours of the colleges given by students.
Oxford has an excellent museum--The Ashmolean. Collection of paintings, archeological finds and artifacts.
It's a slower pace than London, and would be a good place to decompress at the end of your trip.
Going straight from Oxford to Heathrow would be a good idea.

I suppose it depends on what you are looking for. I freely admit that right now I need a vacation which means minimized choices and planning. I tend to overdo both those in my job, and I have been know to over plan for trips. Right now, I feel how appealing taking both tours back to back can be. You will have such a fine grounding of knowledge and experience after both these tours. I have been to London several times and have only experienced the tip of the iceberg. If you go back in the future, you will not run out of things to do and see.

Do go to Bath early. Wish I were there!

I love the above comments of the guide being more of a hand holder in the Best of London tour and not getting the insight during idle hours on bus trips.

For me, that would be the decision maker. And you can always use London Walks for £15 for a two hour excellent tour of just about anything in London. You speak the language (somewhat!) and there’s almost nowhere that a tourist will end up that isn’t safe.

I have taken both the Best of England and Best of London tours but they were not in the same year. For me one of the big draws of a tour is the guide and their knowledge. The whisper system was in use in my BOL tour and our guide used it all the time. So, when we were walking or on the bus or tube we got a constant stream of information, she was not just herding us to the next site. I fully agree with previous posters that London is a great place and you will learn all the skills to easily navigate it on the BOE tour. Christine, I think for you to evaluate whether you want to do the London tour you need to look at how you like to travel and what you want to see. The tour will give you a relatively stress free in depth look at the major attractions in London. On your own you could tailor your visit to just what you want to visit but it would require a lot of research on your part, particularly if you want a deep dive into a particular subject. I really enjoyed the BOL tour and felt like it gave me a great insight into a big city. I have been back to London a few times since and have been at ease to ferret out some of the lesser known places that suit my interests.

And you can always use London Walks for £15 for a two hour excellent tour of just about anything in London.

Very true! They do pub walks and museum tours as well as the traditional walking tour of an area of the city. One thing not immediately obvious on their website is that you if you are taking multiple tours you can do the 3rd and subsequent ones for £10. We took advantage of that on our last London visit. On your first tour you buy a pass from the guide for £5 that lets you take tours for £10; so the 2nd one still costs £15 when you include the pass cost but after that they are £10.

You are in for a real treat! We have been on the Best of England In 14 Days tour, and it was great!

Two of the sights on this tour during the days in London are the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.
These two sights are repeated on the RS Best of London tour, so do you really need to see each one twice in back-to-back tours?

I understand what others have mentioned, that Best of London tour has the guide plus all the planning is done for you.
Only you can decide which way you want to see London.