England Itinerary

Open Jaw..fly into London, to Liverpool, into Scotland. Fly out of either Edinburgh or Glasgow.

I would train between London and Liverpool and then train to either Glasgow or Edinburgh. You could then rent a car to visit outside those cities and return it to the same place to avoid hefty drop-off fees.

I had similar goals for a 2007 trip to the UK and did it this way:
-- Flew into Heathrow and took a train directly from the airport to Bath (suggested in one of Rick's books)
-- Took a small-van tour of the Cotswolds while staying in Bath
-- Took a train to York
-- Took a train to Edinburgh
-- Flew inexpensively from Edinburgh to London and finished my trip there, flying home from Heathrow

Lauren, thanks! Sounds like a good plan to me. Did you travel on Britrail?

When in England in 2006, London, Cheltenham, York, I looked into trains and car rentals. I found trains to be very pricey. We rented from Enterprise at Heathrow and returned there. I don't know about drop fees if you open jaw. I would recommend pricing rail, auto Heathrow to Heathrow, auto Heathrow to Scot airport, and round trip versus open jaw flights. You may find that round trip to Heathrow, car rental and driving north on the west side, returning south on the east side to be the most economical.

Trains will slow you down too much. Transit time from lodging to train to lodging, etc. will rob sightseeing time. Open jaw has drawbacks in small country, with same airport to lodging to airport slowdowns. When you're done in London, rent a car. Head out to Bath, stopping at Stonehenge and Avebury along the way. Leaving Bath, spend day in Cotswolds, and press on to Liverpool. From Liverpool, drive six hours to Ft William (bypass Glasgow if you're short on time). After Ft William, drive along Caledonian Canal to Inverness and then down to Edinburgh (five hours in car with plenty of time for a stops in Ft Augustus and at Loch Ness (important: drive along the north side of Loch Ness for the best scenary and do not bother with Urquhart castle). Next drive to York (you'll be there in time for lunch. See the sights (Shambles and Yorkminster, skipping Jarvic (sp? -- the vicking theme-park-like tourist trap). The next day head for London (about four hours) stopping to spend a few hours in Warwick. This is an easy six or seven days which will give you a good idea of the English countryside and the highlights of Scotland. Alternatively, for a more relaxing trip with plenty of interest, skip Scotland and, after Liverpool, drive the coast of Wales counterclockwise. (Best castles in the world and plenty of interesting villages/towns). Spend the last night in Cardiff, which puts you within three hours of London.

I'm not necessarily sure train will be slower. As a rule long-ish journeys (i.e. London-Liverpool) as quicker by train as trains go faster than cars. Yes you have to factor getting from the train station to your hotel, but if you drive, especially if you are staying anywhere near the city centre, you might find the last 3 or 4 miles of your journey (i.e. from the motorway junction to the hotel) take take a lot longer than you think. The journey time from city to city might be quite short once you are on the motorway but the inner city driving at both ends can add a substantial time premium.

The rule of thumb for the UK is that cars are a liability in cities but are much more convenient than public transport in more rural areas. If you want to see the countryside then a car is the way to go but whether you'd be better with a car all the time or a combination of car and train really depends on exactly what you want to do.

I'd second Ed's recommendation of North Wales for your "countryside" part, it's got scenery, castles, see side, quaint tea shops etc. and it's off the traditional "places near London" American/Rick Steves tourist trail.

Some general advice:
-You can't "travel on Britrail" as it's not a train company - it's a company that sells "all you can eat" rail passes for use on the UK train system. These may or not be good value depending on where and how you want to travel.

-Rail pricing in the UK works on a similar principle to the airlines, advance purchase tickets are cheaper than those bought on the day, flexible tickets cost more than those with limitations. For instance, from London to Liverpool an advance ticket, limited to a certain time and date, can be had for £15. The on the day, "walk up" fare is £115.50. Something to bear in mid when pricing rail passes is do you want (or need) to pay a premium for flexibility?

(cont)

-When pricing car rentals don't over look the cost of "gas:" petrol is currently about £1.09 per litre with diesel a few pence more. This works out to about just under $7 per US gallon.

-Also don't forget parking costs, this can be quite cheap in the country (£2-£3 a day) but expect to pay more like £8+ per day in cities, more for overnight. Hotels in the centre may not have parking, and if they do it might not necessarily be free. As a rule if a hotel doesn't advertise parking it probably has none, if they don't specify "Free parking" then it probably isn't. Free parking is common in the countryside and/or motels.

Some resources:

Rail timetables and prices can be found at National Rail which is run by a cartel of the train operating companies. You can buy tickets from any of the operating companies (they sell tickets for all routes at the same price) or independent sites.

National Express East Coast, recently re-nationalised as East Coast are reputed to be a good company to use with US credit cards.

To convert petrol prices into "American" you can use google. Search for "1.09 GBP per liter in USD per US gallon" etc.

Unless you are doing a Beatles pilgrimage, I wouldn't do Liverpool. There are 100 other places more interesting.

And the one touristy place I would caution people against is Bath. It's way too packed with tourists and Roman baths are not exactly unique in Europe. There must be dozens you could see on another trip somewhere else. Americans just go nuts for this one because it's in a place that speaks their language.

Also, give stonehenge a pass. It's like expecting the Grand Canyon and finding a pothole. But there are wonderful places to go, like the Cotswolds (100 miles west of London), the Lake district (50 miles SW of the Scottish border) and Edinburgh, which has a really cool, medieval feel and is a nice manageable size.

Driving is fine everywhere except London. Driving is necessary in the Cotswolds. If limited to public transport, and time, I would spend about 40% of the time in London, 30% of the time in Edinburgh, and the other 30% in places not too far off that path between the two. But I would rather spend three weeks + and rent a car for two of those weeks. Then you can really see a lot, on your schedule.

Well, good luck trying to get close enough to touch it now. Tourists are kept 100' away. I understand that it's a quasi-religious experience for some, but for most it's underwelming.

Of course everyone has a different point of view, but I loved Bath, Liverpool and Stonehenge. I thought the Roman baths in Bath were fabulous and not just because they speak English there. Also, Bath is more than just the baths. It's a beautiful town with fantastic Georgian architecture. I was on a Beatles pilmgrimage and thought Liverpool was a lot of fun. I don't think I would make the trip if not for the Beatles sites, but it was a much nicer and more interesting city than I was expecting. As for Stonehenge, I would not say it was a religious experience, but I did think it was spectacular. I did not get to touch the stones, but I was thrilled just to see it.

I will say that Edinburgh is my favorite city in the world, so I would definitely try to fit that into your itinerary. I also loved the Cotswalds. I have not been to the Lake District, but it is on my list.

But Cindy, you asked about transportation. If you are going to London, Liverpool and Scotland, you will have long trips to get from place to place. I think the train is much more relaxing. Unless you have a lot of time, you might want to stick with an itinerary that is easy by train.

Visitors are kept 100 feet away from the circle at Stonehenge only during the normal operating hours. If you go to the English Heritage web site and click on "stone circle access," you will find the link which gives information on walking INTO the circle before or after the normal tourist times. You can definitely touch the stones as much as you like---you just have to make the reservations many months in advance. (While I find Stonehenge amazing for its archeology and am intrigued by the mystery of who built it, I have never had any "quasi-religious" experiences there. Is there some sort of scientific poll that shows most of its visitors find this World Heritage site underwhelming?)

Thanks everyone for your opinion. Liverpool is a "must" for me. The Beatles were a BIG part of my life growing up, and I want to see where they grew up and got their start. I might want to skip Bath, but not Stonehenge. I didn't know they had private tours - thanks for that info. Our main reason for seeing Edinburg - it's my husbands's roots. His grandparents were born here. So we really want to see the surrounding area. Everyone seems to really like Scotland, so I am both curious and anxious to see it for myself.