Recommendation for Cotswolds villages (first timer visitor)

We LOVED Bourton-on-the-water. we stayed at Stratford-upon-Avon because we were going to the theatre and then drove through. We planned on only stopping for a couple of hours but, 7 hours later dragged ourselves from Bourton-on-the-water.

Last September, we spent 2 full days in the Cotswolds for the first time. Gathering information from this forum, we stayed in Chipping Campden and thoroughly explored the charming town. We also ventured out to Stow on the Wold, and walked between Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter on the trail between the two villages. We enjoyed visiting the small churches, the pubs, learning the history of the area, attending a cricket match between employees of 2 local pubs and seeing the unique thatched roof homes. We could not have been happier with our choices.

Chipping Campden is a favorite place to stay, and all of the villages mentioned above are great. Greater Tew, is very small but has a great pub, and lots of beautiful thatches. My favorite thing is to just get in the car and start driving... there are amazing little villages and fields of sheep and pubs around every turn. It is one of my favorite places to just wander about without a plan.

Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Painswick, Chipping Campden, Stow-on-the-Wold, Burford to name a few.

Will you have a car?

We spent 5 days there last summer with a car and rented a gorgeous little cottage in a small village.

I guess it depends what you are looking for. Do you like towns with shopping or tiny villages with old churches and cemetery?

Do you want to wander villages or go to castles/palaces?

How many days will you have?

We'll be in Cotswolds beginning 5/3 for six nights. Would be happy to share trip report. Does anyone know where we can get get a detailed map only of Cotswolds? We have a car as well as Rick Steves helpful description (in Great Britain guidebook) of this area beginning page 384. Recommend you take a copy with you.

Here are photos from the Cotswolds. If you hover the mouse over each one, it will tell you where it is. Each photo has also been mapped so you can see where these places are in relation to one another. On the right is a menu. You may also like to click some of the neighbouring areas such as Oxfordshire, Bath, Wiltshire, Stratford-upon-Avon or even across into south east Wales where the nearest area is 'Lower Wye Valley'.
http://www.panoramio.com/user/528528/tags/Gloucestershire%20-%20inc.%20Cotswolds%20%28England%29

jcnarva,

once you are in the vicinity, stop in at any petrol station, bookshop, WH Smith (other newsagents are available) or Tourist Information office and you will be pleased.

Great tips. We are driving from Wales to Cornwall through Stratford upon Avon and the Cotswolds. Sounds like our decision to grab a B&B in Stow-on-Wold was a good one. Thoughts on Bibury? Castle Combe?

As regards maps, the absolute best map for travelling the side roads between villages in Britain are Ordnance Survey (the national mapping agency), 1:50000 maps. Any lesser scale it is difficult to navigate the minor roads. You will need more than one sheet to cover the whole Cotswold. You can get these at most bookshops in Britain.
For an example, see here: https://www.bing.com/maps/?mkt=en-gb&v=2&cp=51.886~-1.759&lvl=14&sp=Point.51.886_-1.759_Bourton-on-the-Water&sty=s&ignoreoptin=1
or here: https://www.bing.com/maps/?mkt=en-gb&v=2&cp=51.928~-1.718&lvl=14&sp=Point.51.928_-1.718_Stow-on-the-Wold&sty=s&ignoreoptin=1

Wonderful photos James - thanks for sharing. Brought back many wonderful memories.

Thanks for that Frances. Hopefully readers will click on some of the areas that they have never heard of in order to discover 'new' regions away from the usual 'hot spots' on the tourist trail.

Sounds like you will have a lot of time! That is great!

We had an adorable cottage: www.rentcotswoldcottage.com

We enjoyed going to Blenheim Palace as well Sudeley Castle in addition to all the little villages. We enjoy Chipping Campden and wish we had more time there (we just went to for dinner at a very old pub). It was very beautiful. So many great places.

We did Broadway, Bourton-on-the-Water, didn't walk too much in the Slaughters because it was windy and not great weather. Saw the Swells, Stow -on-the-Wold, Hook Norton, Great Tew, many others.

I really enjoyed Snowshill, it was one of my favorites. It is just a tiny little village of houses and a church and pub. It was really special. Also, go to the Lavender fields nearby. Do you watch Downton Abby? You probably can not get tickets to Highclere Castle if you haven't already bought them. But, we loved going to Bampton!! It is their major film site outside of Highclere. We had only watched a few episodes when we left for England, but since we have come back we now see that almost all street scenes, church scenes are all filmed right there in Bampton. And, we were the only people walking around the village.

We really loved the area, and really enjoyed staying in a cottage in a little village with a pub on one end and a church on the other. Diving distances are pretty short and somehow we managed to not have any crowds.

Nigel has great information and helped us, as he grew up in the area.

Have a great time!

Just wanted to add a recommendation for the Ebrington Arms, outside of Chipping Camden. I stayed there while roaming the Cottswolds in my rented car. Lovely place and inexpensive. Great food (breakfast and dinner both if you want) and unbelievable bathroom/room. Found it on Booking.com. Went to Burton on water, upper Slaughter, lower Slaughter, Stratford on Avon etc. See Anonymous the movie before you go. Saw a play in Stratford (Othello) discovered how good my memory was in the dark on the way back to Ebrington in the middle of the night - no, no, no lights. I do not recommend that trip unless you want a lot of adrenalin to keep you up during the trip home. Seems everyone is down for the count at 10 in all the surrounding areas. I survived. Barbara

Hi All,

sorry for the late response. Finally, i've chosen almost all villages mentioned here :D we would like to spend around 5-6 days around the Cotswolds area and that'd be the part of the trip we'll be looking forward to as we like rural areas rather than cities.

I choose: Bradford on Avon - Lacock - Castle Combe - Bibury - Woodstock (Blenheim Palace) - Wyck Rissington - Bourton on the Water - Upper & Lower Slaughter - Broadway - Snowshill - Stanton - Chipping Campden (w/ the nearby Broad Campden) and it depends on the route as i'd leave that on my other post, I'm really attracted with Aynhoe House and Park so i'd try to squeeze in Banbury as well.

but i also need to squeeze liverpool and manchester afterwards as my hubby is a soccer fan. so if there's any of those villages that you might think similar or have repetitive aspects that visiting one of them would be sufficient, please let me know :)

i'd also love to see orchards and flower fields (wild ones not ones in the manor or park). does any of the villages we're going to visit above would have them? i only know there's a lavender field which might be in peak bloom around my visiting time (early July) in Snowshill and really looking forward to it.

Susan and Monte
since you mention about car, i just realize this is rural areas and more difficult to get by via train. my husband initially wouldn't start driving until Scotland but I told him it would save us a lot of time by half of it. i prefer little quaint villages than market city such as chipping campden, stow in the wold etc but i think we do need to visit them as it's easier to get around and stock amenities if needed. i plan for around 5-6 days in the area

Nigel
i just knew that you grew up in that area. lucky you!

hill.barbarahill.barbara
thanks for the inn recommendation. i haven't started looking for the inn. my visit would be at the end of june till mid of july. hopefully the ones i'd want still available

Cheers

Cambridge is great, but it is on the opposite side of London and going from there to the Cotswolds might involve the M25, which can be a parking lot.

I was thinking of Cambridge too before but Oxford is more one way with my itinerary. Looking at the pics from Internet, Cambridge looks lovelier but I also read reviews that most of the colleges could only be seen from punting boats which is quite expensive. Oxford has that Harry Potter's appeal to me

The easiest way from from the Cotswolds area is the A14. From, say Banbury or Oxford, is to get onto the M40 to the A43, A43 all the way around Northampton (watch the 50 mph speed cameras east of Northampton) to the A14. Watch out for the speed cameras, and also the speed averaging ones in Cambridgeshire and Huntington.

You really must have a car! Most of the roads are tiny country roads between villages. I don't know how well served they are by public transport, but if you are not afraid to drive on the wrong side, then definitely get a car so you have the freedom to see all you want. We found a lot of the villages we wanted to see were very close to one another and easy to drive between.

I ordered a map online before we left and then I circled the areas where we wanted to go. It can become overwhelming trying to understand where each village is in relation to another. This made it much easier. We did use a GPS, but I liked having the map too. I bought- Ordnance Survey The Cotswolds & Gloucestershire 1:100,000 scale.

I think you should watch Downton Abby and then go to Bampton! It was a highlight for us!

We rented our car at Heathrow and drove out to the Cotswolds from there. Yep, jet lagged and all from the west coast! I know that is not recommended by most people, but we usually do rent and drive when we arrive. It really isn't that bad, for us anyway.

Nigel,
thanks for the A14 tips. By the way, I posted in another thread about my itinerary options: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/england/need-help-with-my-cotswolds-itinerary-options

i include Banbury in one of the option because there's a direct train from Oxford to Manchester but the thing is it's quite a detour back down from Chipping Campden via Banbury to Oxford. By taking the A14 I should take more or less the same travelling time from and to Cotswolds you mean? what about heading to Manchester afterwards? Is it better I go back down to Oxford from Chipping Campden then go by train or keep continue driving ahead from Chipping Campden? What do you think?

Chris F ; Susan and Monte
i will use Garmin as gps and though overall i'm very satisfied with it (more than gmaps), we found difficulty in Monaco in which the signal lagged in every single turn causing us to miss each turns since the lanes are so narrow and quite steep there.

so with the Ordnance Survey Map, could i install it online and use it as a gps as well (with a voice directing us to the places) OR it's only an online map that i still need to read and find out the way myself?

TIA

Hi Jen,

We also used our Garmin and it worked great for us. The Ordnance Survey Map is a paper map I ordered. I used it for planning and as a resource when we were there. I just helps to see the area as a whole and then see the small roads which are marked on the map, etc. I took the map and then highlighted where we were staying and the areas we wanted to visit. There are so many, many tiny villages it was hard for me to grasp the overall picture by using online maps. I wanted to chose routes to drive to get the most of the villages we wanted to see. If you only spend 30 min or 1 hour in a village, you can see a lot in a day. So, it really helped me in planning, not as much getting around. We used the GPS primarily for that. But, if the GPS lags or is wrong, you have a detailed map of the area. You might even discover places outside of guide books or internet searches.

I agree that you definitely will see a lot more if you have your own car... plus, if you get to a village and its not what you expected, you can just hop in the car and travel on. I did use my GPS last trip, but you also do need a paper map. Lots of the village are pretty well marked, but the map will help with planning. One of the most fun days can be just setting off without a plan and finding all kinds of amazing little villages. I enjoy staying in Chipping Campden, but would be happy most anywhere in the Cotswolds. I also love Cambridge and felt I saw lots of the college without going on a boat. The grounds are lovely and while I enjoyed Oxford, I felt Cambridge was much prettier.

Hi Susan and Monte
glad to know Garmin works perfectly. a bit anxious with the small lanes and turns when using Garmin. i guess in Cotswolds though there're small lanes but they should be pretty straightforward route. any recommendation on villages you passed that i haven't had any plan on visiting?

Hi Terry kathryn
yes i do wish i could visit cambridge. it looks lovelier than oxford in pics (i rarely go wrong with the pics found on internet). but it swayed quite a lot from Cotswolds direction and wish i could have more time but i dont. so hopefully next time. did you see the college from their front? i guess the reviews i read were meant from the back of the buildings where it's actually hard for walking straight next to the river as fences surrounding the colleges as private properties.