Thoughts on RS UK itenerary start in Bath

That's not whining. It's being realistic about what you can handle after a long flight. I've never had a problem seeing London on the first part of the trip and honestly, Bath would not be on my itinerary if it were my first trip to the UK. Do not just follow his itinerary; look at videos on this website and think about what interests you: museums? castles? scenery? churches? history? and make an itinerary that suits you. I will say that I think everyone should go to the British Museum. Instead of Bath, I would take the train from London to Cardiff Wales and then the bus to the Museum of Welsh Life. I also think York is better than Bath, unless you want to see the Roman Baths and go to Stonehenge.

It’s just one man’s opinion and you really don’t have to follow it :-)
It maybe depends on your attitude towards big cities but to me landing at Heathrow and just starting in London makes perfect sense. It’s an easy trip from the airport on public transport or in a cab if you prefer, to a hotel where, as you say, you can just crash or at least freshen up and start to explore the city.

There are no rights or wrongs. I can see why the suggestion is to start in Bath, it’s not an unreasonable journey from the airport, but it wouldn’t work for me. There isn’t even any need to go to Bath if it doesn’t appeal to you!

I used to stay at a B & B in Windsor to get over jet lag after a flight from US to Heathrow, but it is no longer operating. However, I've taken both buses & trains out of Heathrow on arrival day with no problem, although I did get really sleepy before I reached my final destination. I like Bath and have visited several times, but I love Jane Austen and even though it wasn't her favorite place to live I love walking streets she may have walked before. The Roman Baths museum is wonderful. I'm not as fond of the Jane Austen museum in Bath. I try to stay awake that first day until 8pm to adjust to the new time zone. I live in the Twin Cities, MN, so I have a similar flight schedule.

Don’t worry about needing to start in Bath just because RS suggests it. It is your vacation, your trip, and it needs to meet your needs. Personally, I’d head straight to London …….

I was on the Best of England tour that ended in London. I have to say that by the end of the tour I was tired and didn't have the energy to see much more of London than the tour provided. I'm going back just for the London tour. I would start in London and then enjoy the leisurely pace of the rest of the country. Just my thought.

If landing at Heathrow, consider going by bus/coach to Oxford as it is a tad nearer and cheaper to reach than Bath.

cala earlier mentions Cardiff. During summertime, Westjet fly from Toronto to Cardiff 4 days a week and I suspect that prices will be cheaper than flying into Heathrow. The public transport from Cardiff airport to the city centre is not that good so if doing that option, it might be best to take a taxi. (It’s about 12 miles). Whatever you decide, make sure that you end your holiday somewhere near to your departure airport - which might be the reason why Rick suggests not starting in London as most people will probably fly home from a London airport.

Nothing wrong with Bath but it would be a hell of an expensive place to buy a house.

WestJet also flies to Edinburgh from Toronto. Edinburgh is a much smaller city than London, and many of its main attractions are in a relatively small area. The best way to get over jet lag is to be out walking around in the daylight and fresh air, staying up as late as possible to adjust to the time change. As others have mentioned, this is your trip, and you should not blindly follow Rick's advice, particularly when it doesn't suit you.

If you ask Rick Steves what business he is in, he will tell you he is in the tour business. Everything he did and in some cases still does is to promote his tours.

The guidebooks? Originally written to accompany his tours. The TV shows? Originally produced to promote his tours.

Look at his suggested itinerary for a self guided tour of the UK and the itinerary for his England tours. Almost one in the same. Why? Because he is hoping you will get tired of planning on your own and take his tour instead.

There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's brilliant marketing. Just understand that his itinerary may not be the best for you.

If you insist on following it and want to go to Bath first, from what you describe, I would suggest spending your first night near Heathrow and continue on the next day.

Use Rick’s suggestions as a guide. Do your own research, then see if his suggestions fit with what you want to see. Starting in Bath may be a good idea if you aren’t planning on renting a car because there are some good day trips from there to Stonehenge and other places. But, you don’t have to go directly there if you think you might need a day or two to recover from the flight. You don’t have to return to London to fly home, either, you could make your way north to Glasgow or Edinburgh and fly home from there. If you do that, then you would want to spend time in London up front. So, start by doing some reading, make a list of what appeals to you, decide whether or not you want a car, and then work on your route.

Wow thanks guys, lots of good points here. Glad to hear that it's not universally suggested to follow his itenerary. I think starting in London and ending in Edinburgh would be smart for me. Maybe do London, cotswolds, Bath, York and end in Edinburgh.

Maybe instead i could go London for a few days, then spend a few days in the cotswolds ( id like to stay there rather than just a tour bus).
TBH not interested in much from Bath other than the baths. Would like to see the baths as well as Avebury and stonehenge, so could maybe day trip possibly from Bath. Unless theres a better place to leave from to do day trips to those three.

Both Bath and Stonehenge are easy to do as day trips from London. Train from Paddington to Bath. Train from Paddington to Salisbury for Stonehenge (and Salisbury cathedral is great).

Doing the above, you could cut out the moving around hotels and just stay in London. From London, if you want to go to York, the train is an easy option (from Kings Cross). Then up to Edinburgh by train from York. (And fly into London and out of Edinburgh, so no backtracking).

Welcome to the forum, Steph!
As a fellow Canadian, I hear your concerns about travelling to Bath from Heathrow or Gatwick. In 2024 I was on the RS Best of England tour. I flew Westjet from Vancouver to London with a 6 hour layover in Calgary. It was a long day and night.
I am a solo traveller, but was going to meet my brother and SIL in Reading, where we would travel together to Bath. How difficult could that be? I was fortunate enough to be able to travel business class (my post Covid gift to myself) so I could rest on the flight. The British speak English, right? When my flight landed, I was so zonked, I had to continuously ask for directions just to get to the train platform. Listening to someone speaking English who is right beside you is a lot different than listening to an overhead announcement at a train station. To my jet lagged ears, it was a completely foreign language. Again, the kindness of strangers got me to Reading where my brother took over guiding me to the train to Bath.

I am 71 years old, still working as a nurse, and quite engaged with my community. In my younger years, I travelled solo through NZ, SE Asia and Europe for 2 years. I only say this to show I’m not new to travel.

I hope you have a great holiday in England. I’m just sharing my experience because it might help guide you through your immediate post flight decisions and routes.

Are you coming from Brandon? If so, have you thought of taking the WestJet to Calgary from Brandon and then to London? That way you save the drive to Winnipeg and airport parking fees. Either way, I agree, an extra 2-hours of travel would be no fun. My in-laws met us in Calgary from Brandon and we all flew to London. They were zonked by the time we got to our hotel and weren't even interested in exploring that first evening.

You can always split London into 2 and spend some time there before and at the end of the trip.

I almost always start in London although I have gone to other places on arrival a couple of times. I usually feel the first day is a wasted day so sometimes taking a train ride can be a good use of time. When you travel on day 1, you travel on a day where you are too tired to do any sightseeing anyway.

If you want to start in a smaller place, you could also consider starting in Oxford. There is a frequent coach https://www.theairline.co.uk/
between Heathrow and Oxford. This would be quicker than traveling to Bath and would only take a bit longer than going into central London.

I'm pretty sure if you showed up at Rick Steves shop in Washington State and spoke to one of their travel consultants (or even Rick himself) and told them that getting to Bath or starting in Bath didn't resonate with you, they'd give advice like Frank's-- spend a rest day before getting to Bath-- or it might by like one of the others folks who replied like Emma-- who said starting in London is fine.

I also pretty sure that the notion that this itinerary is some sort of marketing ploy to make the trip look complicated and hence inspire you to buy a tour rather than Rick Steves just honest opinion (nonetheless just one man's idea) of how to optimize a trip to the UK is kinda a bit out there. I think that level of machiavellian marketing is less likely than the plot of the Christopher Nolan's Odyssey but, hey, that's just one man's opinion! Whatever you choose, have fun! Either way, watch out for cyclops!

I like Rick's suggested itineraries. Many-- dare-I-say most-- folks on this forum think he packs too much in. I think few follow them prescriptively.

But it is your trip! Change it to best suit you!

Happy travels!

David, I never said Rick is trying to make it look complicated. But there is a lot of work involved to decide where to stay, how to get around, what to see, etc. There are many people who would rather let someone else do the work. And that's when a tour comes in.

For an experienced traveler, It might be second nature. But to someone new to traveling, letting someone else take care of everything can be comforting.

Frank, if I misread your post and it took it as a friendly jab at Rick's business model, my apologies. (I don't think I quite understood why Christopher Nolan took the liberties with his film The Odyssey either! Don't get me started on Inception....)

Anyway, your advice for Steph was good!

Happy travels

We are doing (most of) RS England/Edinburgh itinerary, only in reverse! Like you Steph, after a full day and an 11 hour flight, we just want to get to our hotel and crash. We are staying in London 3 nights, then taking the train to York(3 nights). We pickup a car the last day and drive to Northumberland(2 nights), Edinburgh(3 nights), The Lake District(3 nights), Northern Wales(1 night), The Cotswolds(3 nights) and finally Bath (last 2 nights). We plan to drive to LHR car return the day we leave( mid-afternoon). Going in reverse seemed better for us. Bath will allow us to get massages and hot baths( after 20 days travel) prior to flight home. Hope this helps.

You've received a lot of useful advice. I think we all agree that it's your trip and following Rick Steves' suggestions is not necessarily the best itinerary. The first thing to do is to figure out where you want to visit. Next, taking into account how much time you have available, start to narrow down your possible destinations and play with different itineraries. While you could fly in and out of Heathrow, you may find other cities and airports are a better fit for your itinerary. While looking at possible flights, play with the multi-city option in addition to round trip options. Also look at the National Rail website for information about travel within Great Britain.

Your specific concern about arriving in Heathrow after many hours of travel is something we've all considered. Heathrow is a huge airport and travel into London by any method is going to require time and effort. In addition, if you have an early morning weekday arrival, you will be dealing with locals commuting to school and work. Plus, your hotel may not allow early check-in. If you decide to travel by rail to another city, such as Bath, you need to first get into London, then travel to the correct train station to catch a train to your next destination.

I suggest you save London for the end of your trip. If you decide to go round trip (arrive and depart) from London, then I like the idea that on arrival, use the convenient bus terminal that is right in the airport and use that transportation to go to your first destination. The driver will stow your luggage under the coach and you can just sit back and relax (or sleep). Another person suggested using theairline.co.uk to travel from Heathrow to Oxford. I've done that and it's simple and easy. Oxford is a relatively small town and a great place to recover from jetlag.

If you decide to travel by rail to another city, such as Bath, you need to first get into London, then travel to the correct train station to catch a train to your next destination.

Not true. It depends on where you are going. There are many places where actrip first into London isn't necessary. Such as Bath.

Welcome, Steph! How exciting to be planning your big trip! How long is your trip? That may impact how much time you allow for decompression after flight. What time of year?

I haven't looked at Rick's suggested itinerary for many years, but Nov will be our 5th trip to the UK since I retired in June 2023. For these recent trips, we've been as far south as Salisbury and as far north as Glencoe in Scotland. It is nice to have a suggested itinerary for a starting point and for reference since Rick has information and recommendations tied to the locations. As others have noted, be courageous to chose locations that really speak to your interests and preferred activities, whether they are Rick's favorites, or not. I have really appreciated the great collective of travel wisdom on this Forum. There may be some alternative destinations or activities to be discovered if you want to share your particular interests, in addition to your primary query here.

What time does is the arrival time of your anticipated flight path? Allen gave a good consideration of beginning your transatlantic in Calgary. We have had Heathrow arrival times from late morning to about 5:30 pm. On latest arrival, we got to our hotel, found a restaurant, and enjoyed an evening walk before crashing for the night. For our ~3 pm arrival, we hustled to our hotel to drop luggage, refresh and change clothes and headed to the Abba Experience half an hour away. It was the only evening we could get the dance booth so we "Took a Chance.." and also purchased the small ticket insurance in case we couldn't make it. Of course, the anticipation, and then the music kept us awake! With a morning arrival (hotel around noon?) we took a long walk, visited a museum we stumbled upon (the Wallace Collection) and had dinner. For us, it has been important to keep moving right up until bedtime (usually a fairly early one). We haven't experienced much in the way of jetlag from recent trips.

The aircraft you are on also can make a difference to jet lag/weariness. The 787 Dreamliner & Airbus 350 are the best. I think one other Airbus is pretty good, too. For our Nov trip, we have opted to take Delta for the 2 seats by the window vs the Alaska A Dreamliner with 3. It's a tradeoff. It will be interesting to see if we feel worse than the 787/350 aircrafts.

On a trip many years ago, we arrived at Heathrow, headed to London for an immediate train to York. I remember being very tired upon arrival in York after the train ride---probably slept (having 3 kids didn't help:) Another time we rented a car at the airport, but we went to a nearby town for the night before driving all the way to Durham. My husband had had, in the past, 3 weeks of driving right wheel; otherwise, I don't think we would have undertaken such a distance within a short time from flight.

Do you plan to use train for all of your journey or to rent a car at first location outside London?

We need to drive 3-4 hours to Seattle or Portland, or take a 45-60 min flight, to get a transatlantic flight with airlines (like BA, Alaska, and many others) Actually, now Delta and United do flights to non WA locations and then cross the Atlantic, so we have more options from our city. Our Nov flight will take us out of Seattle, but home via Salt Lake City (which extends the trip a little).
For us, a flight out of our city makes more sense in the winter so we don't need to worry about getting stuck in mountain pass closures on the way to Seattle, or frozen highways in the Columbia River gorge. Our Nov flight will get us into London mid-morning, so we have many more hours to stay awake once we touch down.

Cheryl (originally from Vancouver:)

Thank you all again, i appreciate the real life experiences. The more i plan/learn the more info i have to consider that affects things. I have been thinking of May in order to have nice weather but less crowds.
I did some more looking into cotswolds and the more i read i think i wont get the peaceful village i would want and more of just throngs of tourists gawking and ruining it. I had wanted some rural time, and to stay at a coaching inn with a good pub for a Sunday roast. And go for a good walk and pretend to be a hobbit on a journey, lol, just kidding, sorta. But Cotswolds might not be the area for this.

Nice to hear the examples of landing times and what worked to manage change of time zone after super long travel day. Good tips.
Definitely will consider the advantages of leaving out of Bdn and then Calgary. It would let us have a good sleep before traveling.
Thanks all.

Rick's advice dates back decades now--to before the Heathrow Express and updates to the Underground connections from the airport. I like a night or two in London, then head out, then perhaps more of London toward the end of the trip. Love Rick, but the whole start in Bath thing is to be taken with a grain of salt. If you do go to Bath, it's also very loved--a weekday means less busy/less crowded.

The ordinary bus around via Watford Junction railway station has it's uses.

So do the rail/air buses to Watford Junction and to Woking/Guildford (the latter to Woking for Salisbury/Bath/Southampton/Portsmouth especially). The hourly Newbury buses express 730/731 from Terminal 5 to Basingstoke station is also a very useful link.

In the event that you did fly into Cardiff from Toronto, you may like to consider going by *taxi the 10 miles from Cardiff Airport to Cowbridge = a small country town in the Vale of Glamorgan. The Bear Hotel is a former coaching inn offering accomodation. *It can be done by public transport but takes longer.https://townandcountrycollective.co.uk/the-bear-home/

Cowbridge is served by half hourly buses (First X2) on the Porthcawl to Cardiff route. These buses stop at St.Nicholas and you can walk down a country lane for 1 mile to Dyffryn Gardens (NT). Note that Dyffryn Gardens are at their best in July. (Porthcawl has nice beaches 1 mile west of the town).

You would need to check when Westjet operate the services to Cardiff and whether they start in May? It is a 4 days a week service at present.

More on this area west of Cardiff here:>https://visitthevale.com/towns/cowbridge-the-rural-vale

From Cardiff, you have trains going to different parts of Britain. Eg. For north Cotswolds - train from Cardiff to Cheltenham (takes 1 hour 15 minutes) & then bus into town for bus to Cotswolds north; Bath - direct trains hourly & takes just over hour; London - 125mph trains do the journey in 1 hour 50 minutes; frequent trains also head north to Ludlow, Shrewsbury & northern England & north Wales. Trains also go to the south-west (Devon & Cornwall). Trains also to south-west Wales (Pembrokeshire).

Highlights in the Cardiff immediate area include Cardiff Castle, St.Fagans Castle & Museum, Caerphilly Castle and Castell Coch. The National Museum of Wales on the north side of the city centre is worth seeing.

Hi Steph, I didn’t see this suggested above. If it was, apologies. I love reading trip reports on this forum. They have really helped me to plan my trips. They can give you lots of ideas and realistic advice. They can help you figure out what questions you didn’t know you needed to ask. Also, they can be great fun to read. I think I’ve read every UK trip report in the last 4 years. Hope this helps.

Don’t start in Bath, that’s ridiculous. Start your trip in London.