Seeking Advice on Trip to the Cotswalds

I've heard of people doing this using a tour group but do you folks think this is a viable option by ourselves?

I think it’s quite possible to do by yourselves. We were considering it for next summer’s trip, but decided to book an independent walk with Cotswold Walks instead. Mostly for ease, since they handle all of the accommodation arrangements, and provide (hopefully) clear directions. I think for weather you just have to hope for the best, but pack rain gear.

We also used Cotswolds Walks. They are a great company. I really highly recommend them.

Either town is fine. Both have plenty of places to stay and eat. I would consider pubs as well as B&Bs, The Stag in Stow is great, other options are available.

Most people do what you've described, and walk independently with luggage transfer. As others have said, Cotswolds Walks are great.

You have to prepare for rain. It is far from certain, we went four months last summer with barely any rain. Similarly, it sometimes rains for weeks on end. It is rarely constant and torrential though, rain here tends to be intermittent showers. Pack layers and you'll be fine.

the first comment refers to the spelling - the Cotswolds has two "o"s and no "a"s...

Stow on the Wold is bigger and well connected for out and back walks as long as you are OK with walking uphill on the last stretch of the day.

going in May, be aware of the two Bank Holidays in the month. They make for crowds, and higher hotel prices.

I've only been to the Cotwolds once, staying at the Mousetrap Inn at Bourton on the Water. The town gets busy during the day but a lot quieter after 5pm.
Agree about avoiding the two Bank Holidays in May.

Hello Again Everyone

First of all, my apologies for spelling Costwolds incorrectly. I'm embarrassed to have made such an elementary mistake but I have own up.

Secondly, many thanks to all of you who took the time to respond to my post. My family and I really appreciate your feedback. We are very excited to hear that some of you have toured the Cotswolds by walking village to village and using a tour company to transport your luggage between B&B's/Pub Inns. I'm definitely going to contact Cotswold Walks to see if they can customize a walk for us. We want to spend 4-5 nights there (including the night we arrive from London) and we do not want to spend 8 hours a day walking. We want to be able to enjoy the scenery, visit a pub or two along the way, and maybe even enjoy an afternoon tea one day. We are all in good physical condition but even so we do not want to spend all our time walking and not spending any time enjoying the villages we walk through.

I have one more question for all of you. Just in case we cannot customize a walking tour to our needs, we may rent a car and use it to travel to some of the villages that are a wee bit out of walking range. Is there a car rental center in Moreton-in-Marsh? As I mentioned, we are most likely going to take the train from London and if there is a rental car center in Moreton-in-Marsh, that is likely where we will rent a car.

We checked the dates for the May Bank Holidays in the UK before we decided on our travel dates and made sure that the two holidays do not clash with our plans. Many thanks for pointing this out in your responses.

Thanks again for all your responses and recommendations.

Penn

Hi Penn -

Don’t feel bad about the spelling faux pas. According to my (less than extensive) Google AI research you were close anyway:

"Wold" originates from the Old English (Anglian) wald or (West Saxon) weald, meaning a "forest" or "wooded upland". Derived from Proto-Germanic walþuz, the term originally referred to forested areas but evolved to describe high, open, or rolling countryside, particularly after deforestation. It is closely related to "weald" and cognate with the German Wald.

Personally, I think there’s no better way to see anywhere than to wander through on foot. You see more, get, for my money, a more nuanced appreciation of where you are. Have a great trip.

Ian

I'm afraid that the car hire company in Moreton in Marsh closed several years ago.

Cheltenham, Stratford upon Avon, Oxford (huge traffic issues), Birmingham Airport, Heathrow are the usual suspects

Hello Ian and Nigel

Thanks for your responses and pardoning me for my spelling faux pas!

I've reached out to Cotswolds Walks but have not heard from them yet. They have a US phone number listed on their website so if I do not hear from them in the next couple of days, I'll call them and hopefully they will respond.

Thanks also for the tip about the car hire (or rental as we Yankees call it!) center. Too bad there isn't one closer, but we definitely do not want to rent a car at Heathrow and drive all the way to the Cotswolds! I hope we can find a car that has an automatic transmission as it has been 25+ years since I drove a stick shift car!

Thanks again for your responses.

Penn

Penn, in 2024 we stayed in Moreton for two weeks without a car. The bus service to Chipping Campden and Broadway is decent, to Stow and Bourton (and the Slaughters) more frequent. Quick bus to Stratford.

You can also make use of the excellent and well-priced 'Robin' service to travel further afield eg Winchcombe (Sudely Castle is a fantastic visit) and Burford.

I liked Moreton. It might not be as attractive as some of the cutesy villages but it's practical and has a few good places to eat. Short hike to Batsford Aboretum, where you can spend a few hours walking around. Short hike to Bourton House Garden and on to Sezincote. Regular train to Oxford and a stop close to Blenheim Palace.

You can hire a car in Oxford, plenty of places near the train station.

In the UK though, the challenging aspects are the winding country roads, the simplest driving and easiest way to acclimate is on the motorways. I would personally just hire a car at Heathrow if needed, it is also by far the most convenient for travellers

@OliviaHoughton, the reason I put caution around Oxford is the never ending kerfuffle about the railway bridge rebuild over the Botley Road which causes tourists unfamiliar with the intricacies of Oxford driving and the centre city emission zone fee to have to wend around a complicated and long diversion to reach the roads to the Cotswolds.

Before the road was shut for so extremely long (we're 2 years over at the moment) Oxford was my best choice recommendation for folks who didn't want to hire at Heathrow. There are indeed a number of companies at Oxford station, but they are all on the wrong side of the railway bridge closure.

Once the Botley Road reopens and stays open I can go back to recommending Oxford for car hire.

My family and I are not too keen to rent a car at Heathrow because we worry about the traffic. Nigel has also cautioned against renting a car in Oxford. Of the remaining places, which would be the preferred choice to rent a car, keeping in mind that we are looking for an automatic drive? Birmingham airport would be one option but looking at a map, some of the other options might be closer to the Cotswolds. Another point to keep in mind that we need to get to the car rental location by train from London!

Thanks again to everyone for your help. My family and I are very excited about going on this trip.

Penn

PS: No response to the E-Mail I sent Cotswold Walks a couple of days ago, so I will try telephoning them today. I hope that they can help.

I understand that Heathrow sounds like it might be difficult but lots of people are successful using them every year.

Elizabeth Line, Piccadilly Line and Heathrow Express, as well as National Express coaches all go directly to all the terminals at Heathrow. There are desks of all the majors in every terminal. Shuttle to the lot.

As you drive on Bath Road where most of the rentals are, you go almost instantly onto the M4 motorway, like a north American freeway. and then a couple of miles later turn north on the M25, and then after a short bit of the M25 you bear off onto the generally calm, scenic, and easy M40 towards Oxford and onwards into the North Cotswolds.

Not wishing to influence you in any way, just wanting to paint the picture for you

I'm frequently on all those highways - twice in the last week on the M4, M25 bit, and the M40 bit a month or so ago. Also frequently in Oxford and the Cotswolds where my parents used to live and I had a business.

A lovely part of the world.

Everything coming before my comments is excellent advice so will just add a bit from my own experience.
I've been to the Cotswolds several times, always by public transit.
For us the easiest way to get there from Heathrow is to take the express bus directly from the airport to Oxford, walk the short way to the train station, and then take the train to Moreton-in-Marsh, where I've stayed on every visit. It's bigger than Chipping Camden so has more options for lodging, food, and shopping, and also has the Tuesday Market which has been going on for, I believe, literally centuries. From MIM you can take a local bus to the other towns and villages - Broadway, CC, Stow, etc., although traffic can be really slow and congested between MIM and Stow. There are lots of circular walks from any of those towns. You can also use local taxi services.
For point-to-point walks, I recommend Hillwalk Tours - we used them for our Cotswold Way Walk (Chipping Camden to Bath) and they were outstanding. We could have done the research to find accommodations, but because we needed to stay in 10 different places it was worth it to me to have Hillwalk do it all, including luggage transfers. They have a variety of tours and were highly responsive to questions etc.

Just out of curiosity, is omitting the "p" in Chipping Campden common practice in England?

Hi jph -

Not for us grammar pedants it’s not!

Ian

may I have a P please, Bob = in the Cotswolds - Chipping Campden

no P, thanks very much = an inner London borough and home of a famous counter culture market - Camden Market, London Borough of Camden

I visited the Cotswolds with my husband and two of our friends back in May of 2023. We originally had wanted to do a village to village walking trip, but the tour we wanted was sold out. Instead we decided to rent a cottage in Moreton-in-Marsh, and use that as our basecamp for taking day trips to places nearby. We did not have a car, but we successfully managed our day trips using a variety of transport methods - cab, bus, train, foot - to travel to visit: Hidcote and Kiftsgate Gardens (arranged cab to drive us and pick us up), lunch at The Wild Rabbit in Kingham (by train & foot), Broadway (by bus). We did end up planning our own self guided village to village walk on one day. We took the bus to Stow on the Wold, and from there we did a one way walk through Upper and Lower Slaughter and ended up in Bourton on the Water. We caught a bus back to Moreton at the end of the day. Turned out that one day was enough walking for our group, and we were happy that we didn't commit the tour in retrospect.

Many thanks to all of you for your suggestions and comments. I reached out to Cotswold Walks and they designed a 4-day walking tour for my family and me. It involves walking between 7-11 miles each day, so we are debating if we want to spend 4-5 hours each day just walking from village to village, or if we want to rent a car and combine some walking with some driving. There is no "correct" answer, so the debate continues until tomorrow. I will let you know what our decision is!

Thanks again for your help.

Penn

We are doing the same type of trip after being in London for a week in May. We will begin in Salisbury for two nights, take a day trip out to Stonehenge, and then explore around Salisbury and do a short hike out to Old Sarum.

Then we are off to Moreton-in-Marsh for four nights; planning on taking a bus to Chipping Campden for a day, then a bus to Avon-upon-Stratford for a day, then a bus to Bourton-on-the-Water, walk the upper/lower slaughters to Stow-on-the-Wold and then bus back to Moreton-in-Marsh one day. I think those day trips will keep us plenty busy exploring some of the Cotswolds. There are so many little towns and hiking paths. We printed out a couple of maps of the area and then looked at transportation, and how far each town was; that is how we decided on the above plan. Of course, open to change if we find some other really exciting must see place.

Hi All

My family and I decided to go with the walking tour designed for us by Cotswold Walks. We know it will be strenuous, but we are training and preparing for it. We will be walking 9 miles on one day but the other three days will be 7 miles or less. We figured that we could call a taxi, or take a bus, if we get tired on the day we have to walk 9 miles. Cotswold Walks even upgraded one of our rooms at two of the inns at no cost to us since they could book a room for us at the price they had quoted. Excellent customer service.

Our plan is to fly into Heathrow and take a bus to Cheltenham Spa. On the way back, we will take the train to London Paddington from Moreton-in-Marsh and stay in London for two nights before returning home.

Many thanks again to all of you for helping my family and me design a holiday that I know will be terrific.

Penn

Late to this party … and just to confuse the issue … we are presently looking into cycle tours for May ‘27.

There are (at least) two companies that offer them. Mac’s Adventures and Saddle Skedaddle. E-bikes are available. Guided and the less expensive “self-guided.” Same situation in terms of luggage transfers as the walking tours, but perhaps some loop days, so there is not a hotel transfer every day.

If you’re interested in cycling, check them out.

that sounds wonderful, Penn, I hope you have a wonderful trip...

Hello again everyone

I am back with another question. Actually it is a question in two parts so here goes:

1) We plan to take a National Express bus from London Heathrow to Cheltenham Spa. Is it better to purchase the bus tickets in advance? Does one get a discount on the price of the tickets if purchased in advance?

2) If we purchase tickets in advance and our flight is delayed, will the National Express bus company honor our tickets for a later bus? I ask the question because we had a bad experience with tickets purchased in advance with Deutsche Bahn a few years ago. We missed our train because of a delayed flight and we had to pay an additional charge (almost as much as the discounted tickets) to get a reservation on another train.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Penn