Rick Steves: Britain's Best Three-Week Trip By Car(Page 35 0f "Great Britain—published October 2024)

Take a younger friend or relative at least 25 years old to drive a rental. You can pay for their accomodation. If they are clever, they can study up on the best way to go and are not afraid of driving on the left. Most cars now come with navigation technology. Most places you would be visiting will have plenty of information presented to you by signs and literature, and possible inhouse guides to show you around. We have done several self drive vacations. What we like to do is study where we want to go and what is there to see along the way. If you want to visit busy cities, you can stay outside of town in a smaller place and take a bus or commuter train into town. If you are staying in London, the Underground is fairly easy to use if the station has elevators/escalators. Beware most castles have loads of stairs. We enjoyed Hadrian's Wall, which has easy walking paths. Best of Luck!

Thanks for the suggestion, but having someone constantly with us is what we’re trying to avoid. We did the Corniglia to Vernazza hike last week, so hills and stairs shouldn’t be a problem. We did road trips in Ireland and England when we were younger but don’t want to take that driving on now. Thanks again. I’ll continue to investigate.

If you have an itinerary, you could contact a cab company in each of your subsequent destination towns and arrange for them to come and collect you from the previous location. If you Google something like "Taxi Company Townname" (where Townname is the place you're going) you'll get a number of hits and you can ask them for quotes, check reviews etc.

I am not aware of any firm that would provide a service like this for the whole of a 22 day stay. Most UK taxi firms are local.

I'm sure that there will be no national service organised to do this for you, as there simply is not the demand. I'm sure that you could do it yourselves by contacting a car company in each of the places you stay and arranging for a driver to take you to the next place, but that would be time time consuming for you to arrange from outside the UK and you would not know the suitability of each company. And the really big point is arranging road transfers will be eye wateringly expensive.

Anyone from the UK planning to do something like this without a car would just use trains and maybe coaches to get around. Is this something that you could do or are there reasons of mobility which would make that impossible? You can arrange for assistance at each station to help you and your bags on to and off trains.

Looking at a map of the journey that someone else has published on this site under another thread, it starts in the South West, goes up the West side of Great Britain to Inverness and then back down the Eastern side to London.

I wouldn't fancy doing this much driving in my own car in 3 weeks and, even though I previously suggested it, I think that to use taxis would be ruinously expensive (I didn't release just how long the trip was). I would suggest cutting back on the number of destination towns. In particular only going to Edinburgh in Scotland?

I would then look at doing at least some of the travel by train (or bus - we call them coaches). The leg from Edinburgh, to Durham, to York to London is all on the same line with frequent direct trains. As Johnew says, you can request assistance with bags etc at the stations.

It doesn't sound like mobility is a problem for you so I don't understand your aversion to using public transportation. I would pack light and only go to places with good public transportation. I would also take some day tours, such as Mad Max in Bath or Mountain Goat in the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District. It sounds like you don't want to be with other people but you might consider a Rabbies tour of a few days. They don't really feel rushed and you can choose your own accommodations. All of these seem a lot easier than trying to find taxis to drive you from one destination to the next.

Here is a link to a discussion of RS's 3-week Britain itinerary. The discussion might hold some interest for you if you haven't found it already:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/england/rick-s-best-three-week-trip-to-britain

I have had two trips to the UK this year, no car, visited some out-of-the-way spots. My first thought on reading your post was local taxi and transport companies from different towns. I had very good luck finding excellent transport via websites or checking with my hotel. Unlike the US, there are a number of taxi/transport companies in various locations that provide transport for school kids, town to town transfer, airports, etc. I noted that this option was also suggested by several UK citizens above.

There are certainly many 80+ year olds on the excellent train system!

Could you not use trains?

As you will see via the link to the previous discussion, above, many of us locals think the suggested 3 week route is too rushed. It really is a bit of a route march giving very little time to ‘see’ anything. It simply looks exhausting. But others who prefer fast travel disagree.

If you do want to do this type of trip without driving the train really is the best option. You could also mix up the travel using the train for some legs and local mini cabs for other shorter legs.

Using mini cabs for this type of travel is not going to be cheap. As an example, today I have had to use a local mini cab firms to get from the northern suburbs of Chester to north Liverpool, a 25-30mile journey. This was a straightforward journey with no delays and cost £63 one way and £74 the other. These kind of costs will really add up, but obviously you might have a budget to cover it.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I got the Rick Steves Great Britain book yesterday and felt overwhelmed by the ambitious 3-week schedule, especially if I'd have to tote suitcases up and down flights of stairs at train stations when elevators/lifts aren't working. We've done it before, and it's a drag as 80 year-olds no matter how lightly we pack and how small our suitcases. A private driver would be prohibitive, so the best alternative would be trains and coaches with the help you mentioned. How do you arrange this help? Who do you ask, or is it not that organized? Thanks again.

For passenger assistance on the railways each train company has a form on their website, there is also a national number to call or text, a national app and a website.
Https://passengerassistance.com
On long distance buses (coaches) it just happens when you arrive.
On local buses the vast majority are now low floor buses.

On Day 9 of his rail itinerary Rick says it is a 3 hour bus ride from Penrith to Keswick, when it is actually 40 minutes. Also his driving itinerary takes you to Keswick via the south lakes, but his train itinerary in and out via Penrith.
But there are direct trains from Liverpool to Oxenholme, cross platform change for Windermere, level access at Windermere to buses to Keswick.
On Day 11 Keswick to Oban- you have to change stations in Glasgow, use the free inter station bus #398 every ten minutes or so.

On his rail itinerary he says the Ironbridge Gorge is too hard to get to. Not neccesarily. One of the rail routes from the Cotswolds to North Wales takes you via Shrewsbury. This year a new bus service from Shrewsbury railway station to Ironbridge has started, on a Sunday to Wednesday. So it is now easy to build in a diversion to Ironbridge.

At Durham there is a bus #40 every 20 minutes from the Railway Station to the Cathedral.

If you wanted to do Hadrians Wall and Beamish you could look at staying at Newcastle -upon- Tyne.
The obvious choice would be the Station hotel. You don't even have to go out on the street for that hotel, as there is a direct entrance from the station concourse.
From Newcastle the wall is a train ride to Hexham or Haltwhistle for direct transfer onto the bus at either station entrance.
Beamish has several direct buses an hour.
You can also do Durham and even Thirsk and York from there.

Thanks a lot. That was very helpful.

the Passenger Assistance App is excellent. I use it regularly for my wife and it works really well on an iPhone - I don't know how well it does on Android.

The app button is a white square with a greenish circular-ish track with a short stem forming a stylised capital "P".

I have previously been a regular user of passenger assistance on the trains.
All the information you need is here -https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/help-and-assistance/passenger-assist/

I have only ever used the passenger assistance app to book it and the booking process is reasonably straightforward.
You can select the level of help you need and receive confirmation when it is booked.

How it works at stations can vary. In most cases you need to get yourself to the ticket office or approach a member of staff and they will find the right person to help you.
At London Euston they have a specific passenger assistance waiting area and a pickup point at the drop off/taxi rank which is really helpful but not really the norm.
When using it to change trains if you provide your carriage number in the booking they will be waiting by the train door for you.

Generally it has always worked for me with the exception of problems at Crewe, a major train interchange. I have been stuck there twice. From talking to staff they apparently have a shortage of assistance chairs which isn't great, but the staff are always pleasant and do their best.

I am not quite as optimistic as Rebecca about lifts etc being out of service. It does happen, and at some stations regularly (looking at you Milton Keynes Central!) but again the staff do their best, within some constraints of what they can and can't do.
What you will find is other passengers are also really helpful. People will always help with bags etc.

If you were our age, you wouldn’t consider carrying all your belongings in a backpack over an international-sized, light weight 4-wheel drive. For me, backpacks are for ready access to walking sticks and noise-cancelling headphones.

I think the important point is that your luggage should be easily manoeuvrable. It's not just about 'travelling light'.
You should be able to lift your bag up a few steps, onto a table or on a shelf in a luggage rack.
Ideal world you should be able to lift it onto a rack above your seat but you need to be realistic. Due to disabilities i haven't been able to lift any bag onto a high shelf for years and it has never been a problem. I have very rarely needed to and when I have someone has always been able to help.

For this type of trip a set of sturdy wheels is vital, able to go over slightly uneven ground and bounced up some stairs. I would avoid spinner types of cases. the ones with 4 small wheels st the corner. These are great for wheeling around airports with smooth floors, but less so when travelling out and about.

I agree with both of you regarding packing light. I followed the Rick Steves packing list but found I had more than I needed, so I scaled back. E.g., colored short sleeve quick drying t-shirts are good for both outer and underwear. Three of those and three quick dry underpants have been enough. I wash what’s used every night. I wish I could convince myself to take only one pair of long pants, but I feel a need for insurance against spills although I haven’t had any yet, so that’s been an unnecessary extra. Insurance usually is though, thank goodness. Likewise with shirts. I try to take one long and one short sleeve. I bring a sweater in case it gets cold, which gives me three layers. Obviously, this only applies to summer vacations. If you’re going to the Rockies or the Alps any time or a winter trip, you need to be prepared for rain and snow. My suitcase is sized to fit any overhead airplane bins. That said, packing usually seems like a stretch. I’ve been happy with the four little wheels on my Victorinox, and its small size limits what I take. I wouldn’t try to carry everything in a backpack, but I’ve seen hikers on trails with more. They are younger, stronger or usually both. Thanks again for your thoughts.