South of England plus London 7 days

This is a perfect combo. There are probably others in your SOE tour that are doing the same thing, since the 1st tour ends in Bath you can take a quick train to Downtown London, so you are likely to have old friends. I personally have traveled alone in London...it is very tourist friendly with more interesting and entertaining activities than you will have time to see...so it is nice to have the best ones preselected for you. You will have time to do your own thing, too. Read some of Edward Rutherfurd's historic novels for an easy way to get background info for most of the places you plan to visit. Bon Voyage!

Thank you Kathleen . Your words inspire me. I’ve a call into RS to you derstand hiw it works. Flights. Hotels etc. 👍🏼

Go for it! Excellent pairing of tours. Have done back to back tours and it's not too long to be on tours at all. You'll have plenty of free time in London even on the tour, and it's great to have someone else handle the logistics of getting the hotel arranged and setting up the times for seeing the attractions. Doubt very seriously you'll regret doing both tours.

Actually the South of England tour ends in Bath BUT it's no problem to get the train from Bath back in to London.

I also vote for the back to back tour. The tours will have different rhythms as you are in one location the whole time for the London tour and you are on the move for the South of England tour. The City tours are an excellent introduction to navigating on your own which I appreciate. You may have lived where there is public transport but I have not so appreciate the "lessons" in using the tube and bus, lol!!

I'm glad you'll have a day in between!

BTW, you'll organize your flights yourself. Try to arrive a couple of days early. Maybe one night in London, then out to Canterbury the day before the tour starts. Do you have limited time to be gone?

Have a wonderful time!

Also keep in mind your London tour is really only 5 days. This gives you two days on your own where you can see things not on the tour. There is a plus to having someone else plan your days, especially if you have anxiety about it.

London is an easy city to get around. It can easily be done on your own but it you don't feel comfortable doing that, take the RS tour.

The train from Bath to London is around two hours with no changes. You could have breakfast in Bath, take a late morning train to London, and have plenty of time to get to your hotel and check in before your get together at 3 PM.

I agree that if you have the time, arrive in London at least a couple of days before your first tour to get over any jet lag.

Getting to Canterbury is also very easy.

My advice is to splurge for the single supplement! It is really nice to have a space of your own at the end of the day. I don't think you will have "tour fatigue" because these are two different types of experiences and you will have a change of groups part way through. I also think London is fairly easy to visit independently, but there is such a value to the Rick Steves guides. You will learn quite a bit and have some experiences that you would not have had otherwise. There is always free time each day that you can use to follow up on any of your special interests. You will not run out of things to do in or nearby London! I notice Hampton Court Palace and Greenwich would both be great free time activities.

You will be able to offset the costs of the single supplements and part of the second tour by having just one transatlantic round trip air fare to pay for.

PS I am taking the South of England tour in April, so I'll be just before you :)

Read some of Edward Rutherfurd's historic novels for an easy way to
get background info for most of the places you plan to visit.

I second this. I just finished Reading 'Sarum' for the 2nd time and may also reread 'London'.

This would be a great combination of tours. You'd have plenty of time to get from Bath to London, an easy train ride. I'd suggest doing that the day the first tour ends, then spending the night in the same London hotel the tour will be using (which the RS people should tell you when you sign up). That will give you a little break between the tours without requiring you to change hotels. I think the single supplement is well worth it. And your London tour-mates will consider you a seasoned pro at UK travel, even if you don't feel like one! ;-)

I like to maximize the time I can spend in Europe between those miserable transatlantic flights. If time and budget allow, you might consider spending some extra days in London after the second tour ends, to see things it doesn't cover and maybe take some short day trips like Windsor, Hampton Court, Oxford, or whatever. By then you really will be a seasoned traveler!

Relevant to Dick's comment-if you have plenty of time, you could take the day flight to Heathrow from Kennedy. We did it for the first time in May and loved it-so much less jet lag because you don't start the next day tired from lack of sleep on the flight the night before.