Long Term or Short Term

Thats a bit of a loaded question - Have you been to the UK before, or do you know of a few sights you'll want to see? Here's the thing - there is SO MUCH to see, and transport connections are good enough that even if you spent one week doing nothing but London and the second week doing things outside of London using London as a base - you would be just fine. Many of the UK's great tourist sites are within easy strike of London by train. That said, if many of your destinations are north, you might be better served spending part of your time based in London, then moving north and basing out of someplace there. If its your first time there, basing in London, doing London attractions, and day trips via train from there is very very easy to do.

Thanks Tom :) One of the first things I did was see how the transportation was in the UK, and found that I can get practically anywhere and everywhere by either train or bus. :), and the main reason why I thought of having a 'base', was so that I wasn't carting my suitcase from location to location every couple of days..lol. I'm creating an itinerary of what i want to see and did think of staying in or just outside of London and sightseeing from there, but thought that might be more expensive.
I have been to the UK before but many many years ago and I don't really want a whirlwind trip trying to see so many things at once. My primary spots will be Cardiff, London, Salisbury and Manchester (to see where I was born..lol)

Funny thing is - both Cardiff and Manchester are only two hours (roughly) out of London by train. Cardiff to Manchester is 3-3.5 hrs. Depending on how much time you'd like to spend in Manchester you could do something like this: ~ 1 week in London, with a long day trip to Cardiff. Alternatively, train out and spend a night or two. This gets you through jet lag, and around the fantastic city that London is. If you opt for the long day trip - there is a 21:25 that is direct Cardiff to London that takes 2 hrs 13 minutes. Train to Manchester, stay ~4 nights. See Manchester and environs, with a day trip to York (~1.5 hrs). Train to London, last three nights in London. Means moving hotels just twice (Manchester and back, or optionally to Cardiff).

Thanks again Tom...that's a brilliant idea :)

One final note - Trains to Manchester leave from Euston, Salisbury leaves from Waterloo, and Cardiff is Paddington. Wherever you book your London hotel, stay in town (London). Saves you from going in and out every day until you're ready. Enjoy your trip!

Tom has it mostly right I think. Don't be moving around too much with your bags, do day trips instead. You might look at open-jaw air options, like fly into London and home from Manchester, to save time and train fare, if they don't cost more in $ or convenience. Plan to spend most of your time in and around London (I don't know what I'd do with four days in Manchester).

Dick - agree with you on Manchester, but as Linzi says, part of what she's doing is going to see where she was born. Without much more than that, my presumption is that she's got other things to do in the area. Personally, I'd base out of London as well and do everything as a side/day trip - but thats just me. She could also just reduce the number of days in Manchester, and when she left, train to York, sightsee, then return to London.

A few years ago I wrote an article for AAA Carolina's "Go!" magazine about basing in London and doing day trips. I'll be glad to send it to you. Just private message me with your email. We have always used BritRail passes and enjoyed having the flexibility of choosing our days to travel based on weather, etc. But the passes are not the bargin they used to be. I'd suggest you start playing around on the Uk train sites (here's one http://www.rail.co.uk/) to see about point-to-point fares. You will want to put in a date about 12 weeks ahead of the day you are on the site to get an idea about advance discount fares. That will help you determine if a pass would be worth the money or if you want to commit to specific days and times to travel.

To Tom and Dick,
Am only thinking of a day trip to Manchester so I don't need to plan a longer visit there. Once I've done the proverbial walk down memory lane I will be heading off to visit Salisbury for a longer stop over :)