7 days in England

You will be spending alot of time just getting from one place to another. Keep in mind that first day and the next you will be quite exhausted and possibly jetlagged. I recommend spending the first night and next day just staying local in London and getting your bearings. Remember that you will be at least 6 hours behind so that first night, you may get little to no sleep before you plan on setting off. Especially if its lets say, you arrive in London 11 pm and youre trying to go to sleep, but your brain thinks its 5 pm your time. Add to that the excitement of the trip and that sometimes leads to difficulties sleeping. I always take Advil PM for that first night!
My first trip to London was just a week in the city of London itself and I still havent seen everything!

I agree with Tami. This link click here to estimate your travel times will help you determine the travel time between your destinations, so that you can know before you go how much time you're actually going to have to see and do the things you went there to do, after deducting the non-compressible travel time between your actual sight-seeing time that you'll have during a day. A rule of thumb that some of us use is: any day you change sleeping locations will cost you roughly 4 hours to half a day, not including the driving or train time on that day.

Yeah, this is too much traveling, even if you didn't have a 3 year old. A string of one night stays can be pretty stressful because you're always packing and unpacking and trying to find your hotel.

I think it's okay to go to Bath the first day -- it's an easy quick train ride. But I would suggest staying two nights there and then maybe two nights in the Cotswolds. Or you could spend three nights in Bath and take day trips to Glastonbury, Wells, and Avebury. I think Snowdonia is too far for such a short trip.

On the plus side you've picked some nice places to stay. I just think you would have more time to sightsee if you weren't doing so much traveling from place to place.

With a 3 year old, you will need to plan well so that none of you are too stressed. Have you thought about basing yourselves in London and doing day trips. Most all of your destination except for the Snowdonia area (too far) and the Cotswolds (not served by trains) can be done as day trips by train. I think you child would love the British trains. Windsor, Stratford-Upon-Avon, and Canterbury would also be a good options as a day trip (along with other places I could add). By staying in London, you avoid losing so much time to packing, finding your hotel, settling down, etc. There is a lot you can do in London also- Kew Gardens, Hemley's toy store, etc.

Thanks a lot for your inputs. Based on them, we are considering changing our itinerary to the following:

Day 1 - London (hop on / hop off tour)
Day 2 - Train to Oxford, see Oxford and rent a car in the evening to drive to Chipping Campden for overnight stay
Day 3 - Drive through Cotswolds to Bath for overnight stay
Day 4 - Bath and drop off the car in Bath, take train back to London
Day 5, 6, 7 - London

We will be staying at a friend's place in London, which allows us to carry a small bag for our two night stay out of London making unpacking slightly less tedious. Also, we can rent the car only once and keep it with us throughout our stay out of London. We get one additional day in London. The train connections from London to Oxford and Bath to London are relatively straightforward.

Thank you again for all your help.

Just an FYI - If you drive into central London, they do have a Congestion Charge (I think its about 8 pounds). Here is a site that gives you info on that, you can prepay. There are signs along the streets telling you where it begins and where it ends.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/congestioncharging/

Sarang, I think this new itinerary is much better. You will have enough time to see Oxford, but you will get just a taste of the Cotswolds and have half a day at Bath. An easier and less stressful trip would be to stay in London the whole time and do day trips to Bath and Oxford. However, perhaps you don't want to burden your friends for an entire week.

I am assuming you have your heart set on seeing the Cotswolds, and if that is the case, then this itinerary is fine. I did a similar drive through a few years ago and was glad I did, though now I am dying to go back for a longer visit. I also once spent half a day in Bath and was glad I did, and eventually got back for a longer visit. A half day in Bath will let you see the highlights, but I'll bet you will wish you had more time.

I'd encourage you to add a trip to Windsor by train during your time in London. It is only about 30 min. and leaves from Paddington station (daughter will love that). The castle is one of my favorites and the town is lovely. You can also take a short cruise down the Thames from near the Eaton Bridge. You can spend a whole day or just a couple of hours. Trains run about every 20-30 min. between Windosr and Slough (where you change to return to London).