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Southeast England Trip Report from a family of 5

I loved being able to read other people’s trip reports and found them so helpful, so I wanted to share my own of Southeast England. We did a big loop and visited Canterbury, Dover, Seven Sisters Cliffs, Arundel, Portsmouth, and London.

We are a husband and wife with 3 children: 8 years old, 5 years old, and 21 months. We absolutely loved our trip and thought it was well paced and well planned (for a young family).

Day 1: We landed at Gatwick at 10am from an overnight flight from the East coast. We got our rental car from the airport, drove 10 minutes to the town of Crawley to get a quick lunch, then headed over to Hever Castle, about a 30 minute drive. We spent the rest of the afternoon there, and absolutely loved this place. Even some rain didn’t ruin our enjoyment of the castle and grounds. I had originally planned to spend a night there, and my maybe one regret of the entire trip was nixing that night. The reason we did is because they have a very early checkout time and breakfast that’s included in the rate, and because it was our first day adjusting to the new time zone, we knew it’d be a struggle to basically eat breakfast and go at 3am our time. I would like to come back here another time and stay, except make it the last location of the trip, so we’re already adjusted to the time change. After the castle closed, we ended up driving an hour to Maidstone to a rented apartment, just a place to cut the drive to Leeds Castle the next day.

Day 2: We woke up and drove 10 minutes to Leeds Castle. We enjoyed Leeds Castle very much, though Hever Castle is definitely the more interesting of the two. We liked the grounds and the kids loved the playground and aviary. By the way: a few people had said to take the train from the gatehouse to avoid a 20 minute walk on “hard paths.” I am so glad we did NOT do this. The walk to the castle is very pleasant and the kids enjoyed all the sculptures and ducks and things along the way. Do not take the train! Once Leeds Castle closed at 5, we drove to Canterbury, about one hour. We ate dinner at the Goodshed (SO GOOD!) and settled into our airbnb in Canterbury.

Day 3: We visited Canterbury Cathedral, St. Augustine’s Abbey Ruins, and St. Martin’s Church. We had planned to visit Eastbridge Hospital but it was closed to the public at that time for an undisclosed reason. It was easy for us to see the cathedral, ruins, and St. Martin’s in one day, and we liked exploring Canterbury, walking inside the city walls and also walking along the river and in the parks. We ate dinner at Cafe De Amis which was excellent, then slept in our airbnb in Canterbury.

Day 4: We drove a half hour to Dover Castle and spent the whole day there. We really, really loved Dover Castle. It is certainly worth getting all the way “over” to the East side of England for it. We actually thought the WWII tunnels were underwhelming (especially having seen the Churchill War Rooms in London, which is such a richly detailed experience by contrast), but the rest of it was fantastic. The grounds are just great to walk around and be at, and there’s a lookout where you can see a great view of the White Cliffs of Dover, which was a bonus, since I had read that you can’t really see them from land there. This day we packed a picnic, and I'm so glad we did, because we loved eating at their picnic tables. Great views, and plenty of space. We drove 30 minutes back to Canterbury to sleep.

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Day 5: This was our one big driving day. We got some pastries from Goodshed (again, incredible) and checked out of our airbnb. We were planning to drive through Rye on our way to Seven Sisters Cliffs, to break up the 2 hour drive, but we hit a major detour and ended up nixing it altogether. I’ll also note we had considered driving by Bodiam Castle just to get a look from the outside, as many had said you should see the outside but don’t bother going in, but we nixed that last minute as well. When we arrived to the Seven Sisters Cliffs area, first we went to Beachy Head, which was INCREDIBLY crowded. Wow! This was in early October, so I can’t imagine what it’s like in the summer. The view is worth it though, and here you can walk along the cliffs and also get down to the beach easily. Then, we drove to the South Hill Barn Car Park area of Seven Sisters, to see another view of the cliffs from the other side. We liked this view point and path a lot better (though we did like the first too and I do recommend it). The views are amazing. I wish I could’ve stayed longer. Someday I’d consider staying at the Cuckmere Inn so I’d be right there “in” the Seven Sisters Cliffs area. The drive is beautiful. I loved this area and didn’t want to leave. However, once it started to get dark, we drove one more hour to the town of Arundel, and settled into our Airbnb in town. There were plenty of good options for dinner.

Day 6: First we tried to go to Mass at the cathedral but got the time wrong, but we did spend some time looking there. Then we went to Arundel Castle. This place was INCREDIBLE. To be honest, I didn’t really like Arundel as a town (I liked Canterbury much more) but the castle was really amazing and made it all worth it. This was definitely my favorite castle of the trip, which makes sense, as it’s still lived in and is closed for late fall and winter while they live there. The library in the castle was beautiful and amazing, as were the rooms. We did “everything” and got the most inclusive ticket, and I’m glad we did. Don't just see the grounds. We spent the whole day there, then made dinner in our airbnb and went to bed.

Day 7: We drove about 45 minutes to Portsmouth and started with the Mary Rose Museum. WOW!!! My husband and I were stunned by how cool this is. We were not expecting to like it so much, but the museum is incredibly well done, and the story of how it came to be there is fascinating. They also have a 3D show that the kids loved, and that we found very interesting. After the Mary Rose, we walked over to see the HMS Victory, which was also fantastic. We saw a few of the other museums in the Historic Dockyard, then left around 4pm or so. It definitely required the whole day, and we didn’t even see everything. We drove 45 minutes back to Arundel to sleep.

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Day 8: We checked out of the Airbnb in Arundel and drove back to Gatwick airport to drop off the car, about 1 hour. Then we took the train to London Victoria station, and walked to our airbnb in the soho district. It was about a 40 minute walk, but all of it was interesting. We went to the British Museum mid-afternoon, and mostly walked around and ate good food.

Day 9: We took the kids to the natural history museum, which was interesting, though uncomfortably crowded. We are used to crowds (we live by Disney World and also used to live in Midtown Manhattan), but we hit our max pretty quickly. Reminded me of the museums in DC. Makes sense because this was also free, so at least there's that! We hit some other foods places and walked around different areas of London.

Day 10: We took the kids to Hyde Park in the morning, then went to Apsley House. This wasn’t something I’d originally planned for the trip, however we had an English Heritage pass so it was already paid for. I’m SO GLAD we went here. WOW this is a jewel in London. Absolutely fascinating story and items in the home. Definitely in my top 3 points of interest during this trip. This evidently is also a place that closes for part of the year. Then later that day we went to Pyx Chamber and Chapter House, which is a part of Westminster Abbey that is also part of the English Heritage pass. We looked at Big Ben, walked through Trafalgar square, and more. The rest of the evening we took the kids to Hamley’s toy store, and ate good food.

Day 11: We woke up, checked out of the airbnb, walked back to London Victoria Station, took the Southern line back to Gatwick, then flew out on a 2pm flight.

Odds and ends:

People rave about the punt tours in Canterbury, and we considered it, but didn’t really want to spend the money. With 3 young kids, we didn’t think it’d be a great experience for us. We saw some of the punts while we were walking along the river, and we don’t feel like we missed out. But we also like walking and need to go at our own pace.

To get from Gatwick airport to London Victoria station, take the Southern line (the Gatwick express is very expensive and not much faster). It will stop at East Croydon and Clapham Junction, then Victoria. Very easy.

Food Recommendations in London: Pierre Herme for macarons in Covent Garden, Dishoom for Indian food also in Covent Garden, Amorino gelato around the city, Santa de Nata for a pasteis de nata tart, Humble Crumble for a to-go dessert (the berry is better than apple in my opinion, with hot custard), and Cedric Grolet at the Berkeley for croissants and pastries.

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Places we stayed:

I have no affiliation with any of these people and don't get referrals or anything. These are the places I picked from my research.

I don't particularly recommend the place we stayed at in Maidstone on the first night, but it wasn't meant to be special so that's fine. But, if you can stay at Hever castle, it looks amazing. I kind of wish we left that in.

Canterbury: We stayed in this airbnb and LOVED IT. It was a good location for us. It's only a few minutes walk to most everything but it's not inside the walls, which for us was a good thing. Here's the place: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/48736497?source_impression_id=p3_1730338452_P3TW-q-yJ8uscN9_

Arundel: We stayed in the Unicorn cottage airbnb and it was quite eclectic, but I'm glad we stayed. The location was incredible and the host was awesome. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/52045142?source_impression_id=p3_1730338583_P32LuiTyfnMzvKV7

London: We stayed on the border of Soho and Chinatown and the location was perfect for us. It was right in the middle of most of the places we wanted to visit in terms of dining and such. You can't be close to everything in London (like I guess some of the museums aren't close to here, but we didn't want to stay in those neighborhoods). It was very lively, which we like. Noisy, yes, but we liked being in the middle of everything. This is the place we stayed at: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1011361861301227681?source_impression_id=p3_1730338608_P3FWj3M9H7nUiXc3

Flight:

We flew Norse airways on this trip. I had never flown with them before, and aside from the absolutely absurd baggage requirements, it was fine. We knew it'd be bare bones, and we were fine with that. Flights were on time and we got a good value.

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33708 posts

a wonderful trip for all five of you - yay!

How did the little'un adjust to the time? Did you do anything special for them?

A great idea to top it all off at Hamleys

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486 posts

Joanne, thank you for sharing such a great report. It sounds like you had a marvelous time. I’m always in awe of young parents who can juggle a trip such as this when you are “outnumbered” by your young ones. :) Kudos to you and your partner!

You’ve definitely piqued my interest for future trips. We only spent a day trip down by the South Downs Way, and I would really like to return someday to investigate this part of England. Your descriptions of the castles are so interesting. So glad you had such a good time and your planning worked so well! Memory maker for your family for sure!

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2730 posts

We were in Canterbury, Dover, and London earlier this year. Dover in particular seemed very well suited to families and there were many there while we were there. I enjoyed reading about well you managed traveling with three young children.

We did a boat ride in Canterbury and it was probably my least favorite activity on our trip. You didn’t miss much in my view.

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5314 posts

What a fun trip and great memories! I remembered that library at Arundel some 30 years later. It sounds like you have a great little group of young travelers!

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7832 posts

Joanne, I really enjoyed your trip report! You managed to cover a lot of wonderful ground in your 11-12 days. Very impressive especially with the youngers. I loved Canterbury and your report just makes me want to get back there. It's been 25 years since I was there, so maybe it's about time. :-)

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277 posts

This was such a fun report to read. And you guys absolutely aced it. Kudos for your planning and execution, and with 3 kids yet. I've been to several of the places you went, so it was fun to revisit in my mind. Well done.