Itinerary Help- Mostly Small Towns, Lots of Nice Walks

"We hope to see smallish towns"
Well Bath, York, London and Oxford are all cities.

Harley spoke my words exactly. For me, a small town with nice walks is Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales Natl Park and the like.

If you have English Ancestors this could be the time to visit their hometown. I discovered a lot of mine were from villages in Norfolk County. Another bunch were Country Folk in Dorset and Somerset. This could lead you to a lot of out of way the places that could be wonderful. If you are used to driving; it is not that hard to travel on the road in England. They have freeways, the Ms, just like us. The As are connectors. The Bs tend to be more scenic and slow going. The steering wheel is on the right side making it easier to drive on the left. Just follow the traffic. If you don't drive a stick...be sure to get an automatic. The www.nationaltrust.org.uk has some great reccomendations for hikes. Their Overseas Visitor Touring Pass can save you money on admissions. P.S. I would spend more time in Wales; it is just what you are looking for. Bon Voyage

You are going to be spending a lot of time in transit vs time spent visiting places, unless you cut the number of stops.

The Lake District will be practically gridlocked with traffic in August, so I would stay in the remote Eskdale for good walking or just outside the Park in Cartmel.

Hi -

Much is made by Mr Steves of using Keswick as a base for the Lake District and to be fair it would suit your purposes - small town, plenty of easy walking nearby. It does get incredibly busy, as does the majority of the Lake District, so early booking is a must.

Other places you might consider include Grasmere, further south, which would also suit your purposes but because of the Wordsworth connection it also does get very, very busy. Coniston, further south is a favourite of mine but can only be described as a large village and I have a soft spot for Langdale (Elterwater is the only real ‘village’ thereabouts). I would be inclined to avoid staying in the Bowness/Windermere and Ambleside areas - worth visiting for sure, but to many this IS the Lake District and it can be something of a trial to base oneself there as it attracts literal busloads of day trippers.

York is a good hub for branching out in all directions but if you’ve never visited before, York itself has plenty of attractions to keep you occupied for the duration of your stay. And it is a very ‘walkable’ city. However, you could branch out to Ripon, and just beyond, Fountains Abbey with its formal water gardens (be warned, it’s not a flower garden per se so isn’t the colour riot you might be wanting). Heading north east there are the North Yorks Moors - Helmsley has a Castle ruin and not far away are the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey. Pickering is home to the North Yorks Moors Railway which will take you through the moors to the east coast at Whitby if needs be, by steam hauled train if you plan carefully.

Going south east you’ll encounter the not much visited Yorkshire Wolds, which we walked through recently - we were very taken by Thixendale and the confluence of the dry valleys there, quite unlike anything else in the area. It was my first visit there and I’ve lived in Yorkshire all my life. That said, there’s not much else there - big fields given over to farming - feels remote if not wild.

If you need more information on these northern areas please feel free to ask, either here or by pm. Hope you get the information you require and will have a great trip. Fingers crossed for half decent weather!

Ian

I agree with Jennifer. My first thought was, with so much moving around when will you have time to take those 'nice walks'. I couldn't keep up that pace for 3 weeks, but maybe you're much more ambitious than I.

We hope to see smallish towns, and have walks in the countryside and also in the small towns.

None of which tally's with the locations you have picked out. Is this an itinerary based on RS and other tourists as it follows the same well worn path? Or are these places somewhere that you have a genuine interest in visiting?

For gardens it's worth having a look at the National Trust website which looks after many gardens and stately homes. They offer an overseas visitor pass which provides free entry to all NT properties. Many of these properties are in areas that are not on the tourist beaten path so should be relatively free from tourists however in July and August expect to encounter large numbers of Brits but it also means that the immediate areas are quieter and more conducive to relaxed and crowd free exploration. You don't need to go to The Cotswolds to see chocolate box villages, you'll find them up and down the country, many of which have never experienced a single busload of tourists.

Of the places you've listed I haven't been to Oxford or the Lake District. In August the others will be very busy. They all have their attraction but you really need to have a specific desire to visit them otherwise what's the point? England is absolutely chock full of places to visit and three weeks with a car offers a great opportunity to veer off the beaten path and explore some equally worthy or better places which, more importantly may be more suitable for your interests.

It really is too difficult to offer advice about where the best places to go are as there are so many so my suggestion is to have a look at the NT site, the properties are listed per area so you can see what's available in the locations you are interested in. Once you have narrowed down some places then it will be much easier for us to provide more useful advice.

Unfortunately it looks like you'll be skipping my area of detailed knowledge but for the North, Ian is a wealth of knowledge (as well as a few others).

By all means, if you're completely decided on Windsor, Oxford, Bath, Cotswolds etc then don't let me deter you.

While in Bath, consider staying at the Brooks Guesthouse. It is a great B&B and they can provide nearby parking.
Also, the fish and chips at the Scallop Shell restaurant is fantastic.

We stayed in Keswick while in the Lake District.

York is wonderful.

Also, we loved South Wales. Tenby is special.

We did 4 weeks in Wales in England in 2017 here is my detailed trip report.
https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=599139

My wife and I just spent a week in England / Scotland
We landed in Heathrow and took the train to Cambridge (about 1 1/2 hour train ride) from there we
spent th first night in Grantchester . Stayed at the Blue Ball Inn . Great little B&B . Next day we took the
walk to The Tea Gardens along the canal there. Beautiful ! Tea Gardens has great food/snacks and drinks. Grantchester was in the TV series named after the town . (Great TV Series also)
Next day we took the walk into Cambridge along the canal , Beautiful Country side , great walk to Cambridge . Do a search for the Blue Ball Inn and check it out. Toby and his wife will make u feel very
welcome - from Cambridge u can catch trains to almost anywhere . After our stay there we took the train along the coast to Scotland . Fantastic trip!

Happy Travels !

Thanks so much for all these great ideas. We want to mostly focus on smaller places, but at this point in our research (and especially because of the interests of our 26 year old son) we would like to also see Bath, York and London.
I really appreciate ideas about how to enjoy the countryside, while also avoiding major crowd areas. We don't want to spend much of our time in heavily crowded areas (except for London, York and Bath).

Maybe we should spend more days in fewer places.
Yes, we have been starting out using the Rick Steves info on where to go, but we want to taylor it to be in more out of the way places, which is one reason I posted on here.
Any more ideas are welcome!

The Cotswold Way is a walking/hiking trail that connects some of the small Cotswolds towns or villages.
Consider staying a bit longer in the Cotswolds and walking a small section of the Cotswolds Way.
https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/cotswold-way
A short story about it here from the Wall Street Journal:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203441704577068530481870536

While in Bath, we did a beautiful, easy day walk along the canal to the village of Bathampton with a nice pub lunch at the "George Inn." Rick recommends this walk in his England guide.

Yes some of these small towns/villges in palces like the Lake District can be over run with visitors. But we experienced the thinning of the crowds as you walk further and higher from the trailheads.