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Looking for tours of Great Britain, England, Scotland and Ireland

My wife and I had our 2020 trip to England, Scotland and Ireland cancelled due to the Pandemic. Now that vaccines are becoming widely available, we are looking to reschedule this trip. Unfortunately for us, that tour company went out of business. Since we have been fans of Rick Steve's for many years, have a number of his books and DVDs and always utilize his travel tips, we thought we would check here. By the way, we also saw Rick's Christmas card to the staff of the Hotel Gruner Baum in Hallstat Austria (what a nice guy).

So, if you have a tour of Great Britain that includes England (London with tours of of downtown such as seeing Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Tower of London, Houses of Parliament, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, etc) and other English sites such as Stonehenge, the Roman baths in Bath, then on to Scotland with tours of Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, a Scotch Distillery, tour of the Highlands and Loch Ness and finally on to Ireland with tours of Dublin, tour of Guiness and Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral and Malahide Castle, we would be very interested. Thank you

Posted by
16486 posts

Hi, jrgamlin, and welcome to the forum -

Have you checked the roster of RS tours for England, Scotland and Ireland? You can see what is available - and approximately when - here:

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/england-scotland
https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/ireland

There isn't a tour which combines all three locations but a fair amount of folks have been known to string together some of the individual tours to sort of customize their itinerary. Arriving a few days before one tour starts and staying a few days after one ends can provide time to see some attractions which may not be covered in the escorted itinerary.

Note that I said "approximately" when these tours will run as it's a question mark when Americans will be fully welcomed back to the UK/Ireland.

Posted by
3184 posts

This is a very doable itinerary to do on your own and all you need is Rick Steves Great Britain and Dublin guidebooks. What’s great about his books is that he gives explicit instructions on how to get from point A to point B at an affordable price by means of public transportation.
In London I would stay in the Victoria Station neighborhood since it’s the cheapest area in town to sleep and hop-on a Hop On – Hop Off bus tour to see London’s main attractions. I would stay on the bus the whole time until I got to Buckingham Castle and hop off there. However, I would only admire it from the outside and not the inside because London’s top museums are better.
From London you can take a nonstop train to Bath (1h 30m). From Bath I would join a tour to Stonehenge since it’s closer to Bath than London.
To get to Edinburgh you’ll need to take a train back to London and change trains to get to Edinburgh (5h). To get to Dublin you can take a nonstop flight from Edinburgh to Dublin for less than $75 and fly home from Dublin (or you can fly into Dublin and out of London).

Posted by
4656 posts

Or consider a mix of don't yourself with shorter tours of day tours. Rabbie's has expanded outside of Scotland and may offer something to fill in gaps but allow more indepth travel...if that is of interest.

Posted by
759 posts

Thank you Kathy and Horsewoofie for taking the time to actually answer the OP’s question; which was about Tours. Many people enjoy tours for the knowledge of the guide, temporary friends (some kept for a lifetime) to share the experience and meals with, etc.

Posted by
33720 posts

Since nobody has mentioned it, and since it sounds like the question is to the company ("So, if you have a tour of ") just to make clear that while these Forums are hosted by the Rick Steves organization, and the Webmaster is an employee of theirs, these Forums are generally answered by an bunch of fellow travellers who love travel and helping others - but we aren't employees or even volunteers for the company.

Many of us do know quite a lot about Rick Steves tours, and travel in Europe (and beyond) in general - but I just want you to know that we aren't the company here.

The links given above will take you to the answers of what is being offered (tentatively at the moment).

Ask away here though because we probably can help you with most of your questions....

Happy travelling...