Need help with itinerary different than what's described in your books

Cindy, the responses you see on this forum are from fellow travelers. Rick Steves does not personally respond to these posts. His staff is happy to consult with you about itineraries over the phone or in person, but there is a fee. You will probably get itinerary feedback to this question, but they won't actually be Rick Steves employees.

Have a fun trip.

No, they might well not be RS employees but they are likely to be people who have had vacations in England or even sometimes helpful Brits chip in. It is not Blenheim Castle but Blenheim Palace. You need to state whether you are using public transport or hiring a car for part of your trip. It would be best to do London last as then you will be near to Heathrow for your flight home.

I would also suggest you do London on the last leg of your trip. For a 2:00 am flight you need to be at Heathrow by 11:00 AM. You will need to sleep somewhere close by with a direct bus or rail link into Heathrow. The traffic into London in the mornings is very heavy and sometimes at a standstill. The Cotswolds is a beautiful part of the country. I use the Rick Steves books all the time to help organize my trips (and I am British). The books are a great place to start planning. You can do the planning yourself and IMO do not need a travel agent. There is so much information on this forum from people who have done this before. Scroll through the forum pages for ideas.

Thank you! Yes I realize that others will kick in and respond. I did not mean to imply that we are only interested in Rick Steve's (or his employees) input. Thank you for all of your responses.

At this point it is not possible to end our journey in London. That would have been our preference but we have others joining us in London at the beginning of the trip so we will have to end it in the countryside. It sounds like we will have to journey back to London the evening before our return flight. We can do that; we were just hoping there might be another way that we might not have been aware of.

I appreciate all of your input and suggestions; please feel free to further comment if you have any other ideas. Thank you, and we are very excited about our trip!

Cindy

Cindy since just going back for the night before flight.. stay in airport.. its so much easier than trying to get out to airport in morning after just getting into London the night before.

Dirt cheap would be the Yotel.. its right at airport. .and its a tiny but comfy room.. just for the night.. its nice to just wake up at airport. There are of course many other choices nearby .. but this way you are just already there. We stayed at the Bloc hotel at Gatwick.. same idea as Yotel.. tiny but comfy rooms.. and fairly cheap too! Think it was about 100 GBPs

I would suggest on your last day, around noon drive to Slough, turn in your car. Then you can take the train to Windsor £2.60 a six minute ride, there's a train about every 20 minutes. It's about 4 miles to Windsor so you could also take a taxi. By going to Windsor and staying over night there you could visit Windsor Castle, Great Windsor Park and walk to Eton (5 minute walk). With your plane leaving at 2pm you will want to be at the airport by 11am. Windsor is only a 15 minute taxi ride to Heathrow, so you won't have to get up super early and rush to get to the airport.

You guys are great! Wonderful ideas! Yes, we are open to getting a car. I just don't want to drive in London but don't mind having a car in the countryside. Having never driven on the left side of the road before, and the driving will be my responsibility, I'd rather not be in a congested area, for sure.