Best places to visit in England and wales.

How long have you got - is that 10 days after the 10 in Scotland? In an ideal world you would fly home from Manchester rather than having to go all the way back to Glasgow but that particular horse may well have bolted by now.

Will you have a car or rely on public transport?

Logically the two simplest areas for someone coming to and from Glasgow and wanting more rural options would be the Lake District and Eryri (Snowdonia) National Parks. Both can easily be reached by train but a car whilst there would make things a lot easier to get around.

A train to Penrith or Windermere for the Lakes and llandudno or Conwy for North Wales. For the latter you will pass through Chester, a wonderful walled Roman city well worth a stop.

Are you wanting to visit London? (It isn't compulsory!). If not, concentrate on the north of England.

Will you have a car?

There's plenty to chose from (BUT don't try and do everything listed here!!!)

• Northumberland (with its castles, coast and Holy Island)

• Durham (with its castle and cathedral) - and do spend a day at Beamish, The Living Museum of the North.

• North York Moors or the Yorkshire Dales (possibly including a couple of days for York)

• Peak District (an area often ignored by the visitors but with some very pretty villages.

Then head over to North Wales - possibly another two days in Chester ? - for Snowdonia

I heartily concur with wasleys. Northumberland is wonderful and relatively undiscovered by tourists, which makes it so much better. There are lovely coastal towns, castles, ruins, Holy Island, and so much more. Durham Cathedral (which is also in that area) is drop-dead gorgeous and very much worth a visit.

And the North Yorkshire Moors is probably one of my favorite places on earth. If you are looking for quaint and off-the-beaten-path places, you can't go wrong here. I rented a cottage near Helmsley last year for a week and loved the area. Helmsley is a lovely town with nice restaurants, groceries and shops; some good hiking, a castle ruin, and close to Rievaulx Abbey, which is just incredible. You also are close to some really charming villages like Hutton-le-Hole, which has the wonderful Ryedale Folk Museum. And that area has some of the loveliest historic small churches going back to pre-Saxon times, like St. Gregory’s Minster in Kirkdale, and St. Hilda’s Church in Ellerburn, near Thornton-le-Dale, which is a tiny church almost 1200 years old. There are so many wonderful places in that area.

You are also close to the RSPB at Bempton Cliffs, where hundreds of thousands of sea birds gather between March and August to breed, mate, and survive. There are puffins, gannets, guillemots and many more birds flying in and out and nesting on the cliffs.

Thank you thank you! Thinking maybe we should rent a car in Glasgow . We will have a week to explore. In your opinion should we visit the Costwolds? ? What would be a good base town?
Thank you again for all your thoughts and suggestions.

No to the Cotswolds for me. It's too far to go and get back to Glasgow. Besides which you will be driving past a series of national parks to get there which in my mind are far more beautiful. One of the reasons the Cotswolds are so popular is that they are relatively close to London where many visitors come in and out of. in your case the opposite is the case. Stay north.

Another NO to the Cotswolds. You will use up two of those (valuable) days just to get there and back to Glasgow. There are plenty of equally as nice places in the north of England waiting to be discovered. Mardee has already extolled the virtues of the North York Moors and villages like Hutton le Hole and Thornton le Dale are as good if not better than any Cotswold village. Stay in the north....

If it matters Durham Cathedral also has Harry Potter connections, and interestingly the North cloister is in perfect alignment at the solstices.
And entry is free, although you can pay to see the museum, have a guided tour and go up the tower. I was only there last week at a service.

I agree. Stick to the northern part of England. Keswick is a great area. A lot of hiking in that area. Hadrian's Wall might be of interest also.

My wife and I loved Conwy, Wales. We stayed two nights and would have loved to stay a third. The town walls, castle, and Plas Mawr were amazing and Bodnant Garden just outside of town was well worth a visit (even for me as a non-garden person).

My daughters and I drove around Northern Wales a few years ago. It is breathtakingly beautiful. We saw a few of our ancestral homes and also visited Llandudno and Conwy Castle. We enjoyed our time in Wales very much.

For South Wales, Cardiff, do it the Cardiff Castle, the Museum of Welsh Life and Caerfilly Castle.
Tenby and St. David as well.

North Wales, do Conwy Castle (also Chester in England) and more.

I'd suggest 2 areas: York and Conwy, Wales. Both can be reached by train, but you might want a car to better explore the surrounding areas. There is quite a bit you could explore from both towns. York is one of my favorite places in England. I was in Conwy during the late Queen's funeral and while much was closed I still enjoyed the lovely area and intend to make a return visit. I also agree the Lake District is wonderful, but you would definitely need a car to really enjoy that area.

It is totally and utterly untrue that you need a car to enjoy the Lake District. Or at least where 95% of visitors get to.

Hi Becky, I am no expert on England & Wales, but my husband & I enjoyed staying at Betws-y-Coed & Conwy in the north part of Wales and Chester & York in the north part of England.

Thank you so much for the suggestions ! The itinerary you suggested sounds amazing!! Thank you for taking the time to put that together !! I am really looking forward to our trip!
Do you have any suggestions of where to stay in Conway?

We traveled to North Wales (on a Tuesday-Friday) during summer of 2019 and stayed at Gwynfryn B&B in Conwy. We loved it there. I learned of it then through Rick's tourbook and notice it now on facebook.

We took a train from London to Chester, a pretty town that we explored for about 4 hours until "Enterprise picked us up" and we drove to Conwy. Conwy has a coast and a castle and was a lovely place to walk around, day and night. While in Conwy, we drove to Caernarfon Castle one day and another to Llanberis and caught a tram to the top of Mount Snowdonia.

After Conwy we drove down to Portmeirion, which was a very unique experience. Enjoyable in its own way . . . BUT we were very glad that Portmeirion only had one night available which is what led us to staying in Conwy.

I havent read every post, to know if Liverpool was already mentioned, but we left North Wales by driving 2-3 hours to Liverpool, where we turned in our rental car and spent Friday night. What a lively friendly place to spend Friday and Saturday! Good museums plus pubs with Beatles cover bands.

My favorite thing I ever did in the UK was spending a long, quiet afternoon picking up sea glass on a beach in a remote little village on the northeast coast of England. Seaham isn't even mentioned in Rick Steve's Great Britain travel guide, but the day I spent there was one of the best things I ever did. We stayed in Lumley Castle in Chester-le-Street which is right on the train line between London and Edinburgh. (We then hired a car to take us to Seaham which is about 20 minutes away.)

If you want small and quaint, this would be right up your alley. It's just a tiny little seaside town with no bells and whistles but I got a fabulous assortment of sea glass and I've had some pieces of jewelry made from it that I will treasure forever.

Seaham even has direct trains from London Kings Cross on Grand Central Trains. It, like much of the undiscovered Durham Coast, is former coal mining country- now recovered from it's industrial past.
Even the National Trust are now involved in the Durham coast.
There is the 5* Seaham Hall Hotel and Spa, as well as other accommodation on the coast.

Just down the coast (on the coastal rail line) is Hartlepool Historic Quay and the National Museum of the Royal Navy which features HMS Trincomalee- Europe's oldest floating warship, built in 1817.

Please ignore the post by Thomas Delange above until the admin team has been able to review it. It looks like it was generated by AI.

The itineray may sound "amazing" but I'd agree with Mardee that it alsolooks AI generated to me, especially those last three sentences.

With the different suggestions randomly thrown in for each day, I'm not sure how this would actually work out in practice - eg Day 3.Day 5 you would be pushing it to fit everything in too... Also check out drivng times as they may be a bit otimistic.

There are a lot of one night stops too which are hard work.

Some of the suggestions are very vague too like "Limestone valleys, quaint villages" or " Rolling hills, stone walls, waterfalls" or "Welsh slate villages, old railways"

If it's not too late... my wife and I enjoyed staying at the Castle Hotel in Conwy (while on our RS Best if England tour). It is located in the middle of the town and so it's like a five-minute (or less) walk to all the cool sites and pubs.