Wisdom with Planning

Tunbridge Wells is an excellent place to start or end your visit as it is very close to Gatwick. You could rent a car at Gatwick and return it there. You may find that for a family of 4 it is less expensive than the train for the whole trip. We are middle age and we drove easily everywhere and your time is your own to schedule. You do not need a car in London. Check the National Trust UK online site for some great touring ideas. They have a Family Touring pass for a couple and 2 kids under 18 for 7 days for 53 lbs or 14 days for 66 lbs, It may save you a lot on admissions. London has a lot of free stuff but you can use the pass for places such as the Tower of London. I would skip York as there is so much to do and see in London and the Southern part of England without taking the drive hundreds of miles out of your way to York; which is worth it for the Minster, but can be better fit in another trip to see the North. Bath, Oxford, the Cotswolds, Salisbury and Stonehenge, Portmouth with the Victory and the Mary Rose, the New Forrest, St Micheals and Landsend and many other great nearby locations can take over a week. Check Rick's South of England Tour for some good ideas. Bon Voyage.

Trains>driving for most of us. The only time my husband tried to drive in England, when he got out to pump gas, his parents and I decided to make him return the car ASAP! You could take a tour, maybe Mad Max, from Bath to Cotswolds and take a train everywhere else. Be sure to allow ample time early in your trip for the British museum-which is wonderful but too much to absorb on a single visit so you may decide you want to return on a 2nd day. In my opinion, the Imperial War Museum is not as engaging as it was prior to its redo. Westminster Abbey is a must for all the tombs-if you like music, go to Evensong there.

So you have six full days (not including the arrival day) before June 3 and four full days (not including the departure day) after June 3. My suggestion would be to rent the car at Gatwick and spend your first night in Tunbridge Wells if your relatives are OK with that. Then drive to Bath, the Cotswolds, Oxford, and anywhere else in the south that interests you (Salisbury/Stonehenge? Portsmouth?), returning to Tunbridge Wells for your June 3 reunion, then drop the car and take a train into London for your last four days -- hardly enough, but an adequate first visit -- and take a train or coach (bus) to Gatwick for departure (maybe an airport hotel if it's a morning flight).

Or, if you want more time in London, switch the order and start with London, rent the car June 4 and take off for Bath, Cotswolds, and Oxford, a rather rushed four days.

Skip York this time. If you really want to go there, do it by train from London and plan to stay overnight. And, with all due respect to Cornwall, I think it's "a bridge too far" for this schedule. With your timeframe and that June 3 event close to London, you don't want to be spending a lot of time driving to far-flung destinations like Cornwall or York.

And I'd suggest moving fast with reservations, especially for London, Bath, and Oxford. You're only a couple of months out really.

You will be spending a lot of time and money on trains if you travel from Tunbridge Wells to London,
It's an hour trip into London and tickets for two adults and two teen would be £67.80. You actually only have 11 days (not including arrival/leaving days), I would suggest going into London for a few days, hen on the 30th go up to York you would leave from London Kings Cross, if bought in advance tickets for the family would be around £129.00. Then come back down on the 2nd and go out to Tunbridge Wells. On June 4th go into London which would go into Charing Cross Station, go to London Paddington Station get the train to Oxford check into a hotel and sight see, then the next morning pick up your rented car and drive down to the Cotswolds. Cotswolds is an fantastic area for hiking. Go on Amazon and get the book Tea Shop Walks in the Cotswolds, it has 28 different walks from 3 miles to 10 miles. You could also walk part of the Cotswold Way National Trail, you could get a book and decide which part you work or lke to hike. A friend and I walked the whole trail in 2014, 192 miles. It starts in Chipping Campden and end in Bath. Bourbon-on-the-Water would make a great base to use while seeing the, it would be an easy drive to Bath take A429 out of Bourton go south stay on A429 until you get to A350 stay south on A350 until you get to A4!go right onto A4 when you get to A46 go left and it will take you into Bath. Or you could go south on A429 to M4 (their interstates) take M4 to A429 go south. If you use the M4 remember their fast lane is the outside lane, slower lanes are the inside lanes. Then on June 6th or 7th drive to Oxford turn your in, then train into London then onto Tunbridge Wells.

I agree with Dick: rent a car at the beginning, spend your first night in Tunbridge Wells and then use the car to tour around the region on day trips. After the family get-together, return the rental car and stay in London for the remaining days. Or, the other way around if you want more time in London.

Bath, York, and even the Cotswolds are rather far. You'd spend the better part of a day driving there, not to mention driving back. If you're really keen to see one of them, choose one. But, there are lots of wonderful places to visit in the south and east of England; Each to his/her own, but I think you'd be happier if you chose a few of those instead.

It's important to realize that it takes longer to drive from point to point in England than it does in most of the US. Your relatives in RTW can probably advise you on realistic driving itineraries.

If you can find Bourbon-on-the-Water ( Robin Z) I would stay there the whole trip and skip the rest of your plans. Sorry Robin - blame it on my weird sense of humor!

Trinitony - LOL, pretty funny.......sounds like a good stop....

Thank you all for taking the time to respond. Your advice and input are invaluable. After reading your entries and revisiting our initial plan, we have decided to leave York for another time. As was mentioned, there is more than enough to see with London, the Cotswolds, Bath, Stonehenge, Oxford, and other areas south of London. Now to piece it all together so I can figure out where we are staying each night. Is there one area (other than Tunbridge Wells) that you would recommend over another to spend a few evenings? I would rather have a home base for a bit and then drive to day trips. This was a last minute opportunity for us, and I am not the best at making plans in the eleventh hour! Thank you all...once again.

Is there one area (other than Tunbridge Wells) that you would recommend over another to spend a few evenings?

If you still are planning to rent a car you might base yourselves in or near the Cotswolds. A couple of years ago we stayed in the Cotswolds for a little less than a week and toured the Cotswolds, Blenheim Palace and Bletchley Park (home of the cracking of the WWII German Enigma Code) on separate days. We atayed in an AirBnB in Cold Aston, but it would have been more efficient if we had stayed somewhere between the Cotswolds and Oxford.

I can recommend a good B&B between the Cotswolds and Oxford: Corncroft Guest House in Witney. We've stayed there twice and loved it. The full English breakfast is amazing. You can easily walk to restaurants and shops. The B&B is in a 200+ year old building the owner restored himself. It's a good base to visit Oxford, Blenheim Palace, and the Cotswolds, and looks like it's about 1.5 hours from Bath. We would have liked more time to walk around Witney too; it's a cute town and has a church, St. Mary's, that was dedicated in the 1200s.

Give yourself a full day (or more) to explore Oxford, and a full day to explore Blenheim Palace. Blenheim has hundreds of acres of grounds to wander and it would be a shame to have to rush/leave if there's more you want to see.

Witney would be a perfect location for exploring the Cotswolds, Blemheim, Bletchley and Oxford.