Best of England - or ??

Oh gosh, this was one of my favorite tours AND tour guides (Tom).

I do not remember it being a lot of time on the bus. Some of the places would have been difficult to get to with public transport which is why I enjoyed the tour. The transit day from York to London was long but there were 2 difficult situations with trains which caused us lots of delay (NO way could the office or guide have prevented this....a train hit a horse on the tracks so it was delayed and then there was a mechanical problem with the next train.)

I went in mid-Sept but I'd say any of those 4 months will work. I've traveled to UK for other trips in April, May, September and October. I'd not go too early in September because it can still have some warm days early in the month. Do you have pollen allergies? April/May are probably worse for that but it's so beautiful then that I just take allergy pills, lol.

Any interest in Jane Austen? There is a cool Jane Austen Festival in September in Bath and I went a few days early to participate in some of the presentations they had. I DO recommend you arrive early and stay late if you can.

Here is a link to my Trip Report. I did this tour in combo with the Paris and Heart of France tour but I've posted in sections and you should be able to easily find just the part on the Best of Britain (which is what the guides call it since it includes Wales).

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tours/trip-tour-report-for-best-of-england-paris-hof

You can of course do anything on your own, but I found this tour outstanding. I learned SO much. And yes, I still remember Hadrian's Wall was built in 122AD. We had a few oral pop quizzes, hahaha!!

I have done this trip. For photography I would recommend Spring as there are more daylight hours. Going out before breakfast gets some good photographs.

You have a wonderful dilemma. The reason I say that it is wonderful is that no matter which way you finally choose to go, you can have a wonderful trip. It all gets down to what type of experience you really want. Do you want a group tour or do you want to travel independently? Both are great options. Pick one, and then don't look back.

It is doable by yourself.

If you don't want to rent a car, you could visit the areas around Bath by taking a one day tour with a company like Mad Max Tours. I've taken two tours with them and enjoyed them.

Rabbies has one day tours out of Manchester including the Lake District, Wales and Snowdonia, and other areas. (Different tours.)

If you did the Rabbies tours, you could base in Bath, Manchester and York. However, you wouldn't have a lot of time at each place.

Regarding the 30 hours.....not all the places the tour goes are on superhighways. Many are smaller roads and the coach can't go as fast as on a main road. All vehicle travel will be the same.

We have traveled using land tours, cruises, river cruises, bus tours, rail tours, as well as do it yourself (rail or rent a car) on your own.

Places like Russia, China, Egypt (as well as other third world countries) call for paying for a tour. Either the language, security issues or mechanics of travel just call for a tour.

Most European travel can be done on your own and from my experience less expensive than booking a tour. Still, for seeing the Norwegian fjords or Greek Island, a cruise just worked out the best.

We have done self planned car rental tours on our own twice in the UK and found that even through driving on the left is a little bit of a challenge, it works for us. British drivers tend to be polite and not aggressive. Still, we did a British Isles cruise that visited ports mainly in Scotland and Ireland and it worked very well.

Our 4 week self planned do it yourself tour of England and South Wales in 2017 was wonderful and we could not have done it on a private tour for what we spent. Check out my review on this link.
https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=599139
We did it in October, which was a nice month for travel in the UK.

I am 74 and as we age, we lean more to a private tour rather than do it yourself. Still, I suggest considering both a tour and doing it on your own. You can still purchase day tours in a city if you think it works best.

There are several days when you are spending 5 hours on the bus. Looking at Days 6 and 10 foir example, you are not going to have much time to sightsee - or to take photographs at the stops.

It is a straightforward tour and you could easily plan this by yourself. It would also mean you could stop off at many of the other interseting places the tour whizzes past.

May/June would be my optimum time. You get really long days and in June it is staying light until around 10pm. That gives really long days if you want. The wild flowers should also be at their best too.

"Looking at Days 6 and 10 foir example, you are not going to have much time to sightsee - or to take photographs at the stops."

On Day 6 we did Stokesay Castle and I felt like we had plenty of time to see the Castle/Manor House and have tea and a break from the bus. We also stopped in a small town just inside Wales for an independent walk around. I do not have which town in my notes. We struck out cross country after that and did not take the motorway to Conwy which I enjoyed.

Day 10 - Bus time didn't seem onerous because it was broken up with a short walk and with a tour around Vindolanda + lunch.

I'll also add that one of the early RS tours that I did was 21 day Best of Europe and that does have some quite long bus days. Perhaps I just compare every other tour's bus days to that particular tour (which was one of my favorites!). I also live in the West and think nothing of long drives, lol!! YMMV!!

Day 6 - 5 hours on the bus with a stop for Stokesay Castle and a small town inside the Welsh Border for a walk....

Day 10 - There's a lot more to Hadrian's Wall than Vindolanda...

However, each to their own.

My husband and I took this tour in 2019, however, we usually travel in England on our own.
There are pros and cons to both, which I will discuss a bit.

Number 1 benefit of taking a tour for me = Transportation.
When traveling on our own, we have always booked train tickets, used local buses and taxis to get where we were going.
The Best of England goes to some destinations that would be a little hard to access without a rental car. So for us, this was one of the pleasures of having all transportation arranged for us.

Number 2 benefit of taking the RS Best of England tour = If you have a good guide, they will add historic information and background to the sights.

Number 3 benefit = This tour took us to some places we would never have chosen to go on our own, and we would have missed out on some truly great sights. Wells Cathedral, to name one! We might not have gone to Conwy Castle and Caernarfon Castle, Wales; two more favorite sights of the trip.

To you, is it a benefit to have all hotels booked for you and about the half the meals/restaurants chosen for you?
Not a factor for me. We enjoy researching and choosing our own hotels and restaurants.

Definitely read the trip reports by Pam and geovagriffith to help you decide.

As usual, Frank II has given great advice. Check out the links he gave you to Mad Max Tours and Rabbies Tours. Explore both sites thoroughly.

Everyone on this thread has given you great advice.
You can also read some of the Scrapbook entries for this tour, to help you decide.

If you decide to do your trip on your own, here are some of the benefits:
You will get up in the morning when you want and have a leisurely breakfast, if you wish. No one will rush you to get on a bus or out the door to see a sight. This is the one thing that some members of our tour group did not like on the RS tour. These people were retired, so had gotten out of the habit of getting up at the crack of dawn to go to work when back home.
So some were not happy to be told to be downstairs for breakfast at 6:00 AM, and ready to get on the bus with their bags packed by 6:30 AM.
They were not happy to have only a continental breakfast (cereal) when they had paid (through the cost of the tour) for a full English breakfast.
But the hotel staff were made to get up early and fix a continental breakfast just for our tour group, who were up earlier than normal breakfasttime in order to get on the bus from Keswick to Hadrian's Wall and York.
Many disliked this.
When a person feels this way, it's time to stop going on tours and do your own trip.

You will decide how long to stay at each sight, not the tour director. Many on our tour wished we had had longer at Caernarfon Castle in Wales, time to explore and walk around in the town.
Many wished we had made several stops (3 or 4 stops) along Hadrian's Wall to see much more than Vindolanda. There was not time in the schedule, because we had to get on to York before dark. So back on the tour bus.

You will choose the towns you go to, leaving out the ones on the RS tour that do not appeal to you. Therefore, you will have more time at each. For example, the tour ends in London. If you've been to London before and have had enough of it, then you may want to skip it.

The one city on the RS tour that we wanted more of was York. Not enough time there. Lots to see and do. Two great museums we didn't have time to go to. We'll go back next trip.

The tour starts in Bath. We arrived there 3 days early, so we had plenty of time before the tour started. There's lots to see and do in Bath, as well as good restaurants.

If you want the freedom to do as you wish, wake up in the morning when you wish, and don't want someone telling you what to do, then plan your own trip.

If you'd rather not do all the research yourself, planning an itinerary, choosing hotels, booking them, booking train tickets, etc. then do the RS Best of England tour.

I'd add another difference: If you want to socialize with other Americans, then take a group tour. If you want to interact with more local residents, go solo.

Again - -great comments to consider. Thinks to all.

The idea of spending most of the trip around Americans would definitely be a strong disadvantage to me. There’s always day or shorter tours you can do. Going on a London Walk, you’ll be often accompanied by a United Nations of visitors.

Tour bus cliques can happen and you might feel like you’re back in high school.

A 6AM wake up call sounds brutal. I work from home starting at 7 am and I don’t even get up there early unless I need to get the gym in early.

While you won’t most likely ‘meet the locals’ you will definitely interact with them more on a solo tour.

"Tour bus cliques can happen and you might feel like you’re back in high school."

Exactly!

Many people become good friends while on the tour together, keeping in touch for years and taking another Rick Steves tour together. Many members of our tour group are friends on Facebook.

Some people feel that the element of having to socialize and deal with the personality quirks of other people is not something they want to have to deal with on their vacation.
I have communicated with several people on this forum who feel this way, so they travel on their own.

It can go either way.