Cotswolds

Look up the "Cotswold Way" which is a long distance route. There are decent OS maps covering the area.

Pick two villages or towns on it connected by bus so you can get out or back, and walk one way and bus the other. If using it for the return be careful about the schedule - many buses are infrequent.

Have you considered Burford? Nice hill in town, excellent wool church, nice bridge, decent teas. Not many tourists, relatively.

Janet,
We spent 28 days driving around S. Wales and England in October 2017. It was a wonderful trip.

We visited Stonehenge and Salisbury in 2013 on our first time driving on the left. We did Avebury in addition to Stonehenge and Salisbury in one day. Loved visiting the Cathedral after reading Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.

In 2017 we stayed in Bath for three nights and also did a day trip to Wells and Glastonbury that was nice.

We did six nights at the Volunteer Inn in Chipping Campden. The room was spacious with lots of windows and had a good bathroom. The small hotel has a great pub as well as a great Indian restaurant. While there, we did a day and a half touring the Cotswolds. Make sure you check out Rick Steves Great Britain guide for doing a day at the Cotswolds.

Also, we did day trips to Oxford, Blenheim Palace and Stratford Upon Avon (loved that city). We had been in country for 11 days, so on our last day there, we did our laundry at Moreton-on-Marsh. Also, that is were we took the train in to Oxford.

While in Stratford Upon Avon, go to the Shakespeare birth place, which has a nice small museum and buy the ticket for five sites. Be sure to go to all. We used the HoHo bus to get to all five.

If you aren't used to driving on the left, I recommend you get a nav system in the vehicle as well as an automatic.

Also, driving through those little towns in Britain, when it says 30 MPH, they mean it and have cameras. I tried to stick to the speed limit, but got a 40 pound ticket for going 35 MPH.

For personal safety, if you aren't experienced driving on the left side, with the totally different turns in town traffic, then I highly recommend going to effort of making sure you actually get an automatic transmission. 98% of the car rentals in that area are manual shift. This topic has been previously discussed here, use the Search box.

Some villages well worth a visit to name just a view......Ebrington, Stanton, Painswick, Broadway, Bourton on the Water (the miniature model village)...there are many more.

You could walk the Cotswolds Way National Trail from Chipping Campden to Broadway, 6 miles with beautiful views.

Bourton on the Water, Lower Slaughter, Stow on Wold, and Bibury are worth visiting; most for only a couple hours. The first three are very close to each other. Stratford-Upon-Avon is worth the better part of a day. Chipping Campden is a nice base. Of course, there are other villages equally as interesting.

It would be a good idea to read the relevant section of the Highway Code:

http://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/uploads/3/2/9/2/3292309/the-official-highway-code-with-annexes-uk-en-12-04.pdf (Downloadable version).

It's not just driving on the other side of the road that's different to what you're used to.

The walk between Upper and Lower Slaughter is short but very popular, I think it would only take about 20 minutes though. It's also a unique drive for those of us that aren't used to narrow roads. I wish I could post photos, part of the drive is barely 1 lane wide and tree canopied. Very Pretty. I don't know if you like castles but Warwick Castle is about a 40 minute drive north of Chipping Campden. We loved it.

The Windrush Way. 14 miles. Burton on the Water to Winchcombe or vice versa. Or for a pleasant 5 miler try the lovely and interesting walk in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds from the village of Salford to up to the Rollright Stones and then down into an through Little Rollright back to Salford.

We started our walk on the Cotswold Way in Chipping Campden. The first day we did the loop hike up Dover's Hill, which gives you a good introduction to hiking there as well as some beautiful views. We walked from Chipping Campden to Broadway (much easier to go north to south due to the long climb out of Broadway) and from Broadway to Stanton with a detour to Snowshill. We loved every bit of it!

Some of these distances are probably longer than you want to do, but at least climb up Dover's Hill.

Get a good Cotswolds guide that will give you distances between towns as well as detailed maps. Generally the signs are easy to follow, but it's always good to have a good map. You could even do a loop going out of town and back. We passed a lot of loop trails on our walks.

Thanks for the Official Highway Code link. We're considering a inn to inn walking holiday in the Cotswolds. Will the Cotswolds have a lot of Pelican, Tucan and Puffin crossings or are those more for urban areas? I'm understanding the walk only on the green while watch for drivers who don't understand the rules.

Will the Cotswolds have a lot of Pelican, Tucan and Puffin crossings
or are those more for urban areas? I'm understanding the walk only on
the green while watch for drivers who don't understand the rules.

As a middle-aged Brit who’s been driving for decades, I confess I don’t know exactly what a Tucan or Puffin crossing is. Pelican crossings are there ones you’ll see the most but only in towns and cities. Are you asking from the point of view of a driver of pedestrian? All you need to know is that green means go, and the other colours don’t!

Oh hang on, you’re on a rural walking tour. You probably won’t see any of them.

The different types of crossings:
https://www.safedrivingforlife.info/blog/whats-difference-between-zebra-puffin-and-pelican-crossings

Thanks. Pelican, Toucan and Puffin: Don't walk on the red, walk on green but look for confused American drivers.

a Toucan crossing is a play on words. It is designed so both pedestrians and cyclists can cross, each with their own lights and portion of the crossing . Two can, get it?