We are traveling to London next summer with seven family members ranging in age 8 to 73. My wife would like to spend one week in London and another week on some type of tour. She is worried she may never get back to England and wants to make sure she sees as much as possible. I'm thinking the tour might be a problem with a very active 8 year old who will hate to sit still for hours at a time. My thought is to rent an apartment in London for two weeks and take day trips by train, always returning at night. I would be interested in any suggestions by Rick Steve's fans on how to keep everyone happy. If we could afford the Rick Steve's tours, I might consider taking it.
Posted by
Charlotte, NC, USA
3428 posts
A few years ago I wrote an article about basing in London and doing day trips by train. I'll put the webaddress at the end of this post. With the age range you are dealing with you may occassionally need to divide the group. Both "ends" of the spectrum will also need to have time to rest built in. And the youngers ones will want some "play" time in parks, etc. Staying put in London (and maybe one other base) makes lots of sense. Getting an apartment will also provide opportunity to save some money on meals. It also allows some of the adults to attend plays or other entertainment activities if one or another will babysit (videos are great!).
You could base in London for 1 week and 1 other place for the 2nd week. Edinburgh or Inverness, a village in the Lake District, Snowdonia area of Wales, the Cotswolds, York, a coastal village, etc. would provide a change of scene. It all depends on the interests of the group, the apartments you find, and whether or not you want to rent cars occassionally (the Cotswolds are not all that accessible by rail for example).
We've been to the UK lots of times. Got an effeciency apartment once when we took both kids. Worked great! Feel free to private message me if you wish.
Here's the article webaddress (I wrote it for AAA Carolina's "Go!" magazine)
http://www.aaacarolinas.com/Magazine/2008/Jan-Feb/britain.htm
Let me know if it is helpful.
Posted by
Reston, Virginia
403 posts
I'm not sure that a tour of any kind, independent or with a company, can really satisfy such a diverse group. I can't imagine dragging an 8 year old through the National Gallery, for example, whereas the 73 year old might want to spend hours there. How you could resolve that problem I don't know, as in my experience as group sizes increase beyond 2 the problems increase geometrically.
However, I can say that if you limit yourself to day trips out of London, you will miss a great deal of England and, of course, Scotland entirely. Certainly London deserves at least 5 days including arrival day. And you could do some day trips to nearby destinations such as Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, and Greenwich. But you really ought to give Bath an overnight, and if you allocated 2 nights to Bath you could take one of the "Mad Max" tours of the Cotswolds on the second day. You'll have to do Stratford upon Avon....touristy or not, your 8 year old will be studying Shakespeare again and again. York is fun, and a nice stop on the way to Edinburgh. Since it will be summer, you could consider the Lake District for some active outdoors recreation.
Buy a copy of Rick's 2011 Britain guidebook and do some reading and family discussion. Try to balance each day between church/museum/art/historic sight and more active experiences such as walking through the parks of London, boating on Lake Windemere, etc. Good luck!
Posted by
Fredericksburg, VA, USA
409 posts
I'll address your "young 'un." If you end up heading to the Cotswolds or Stratford, your 8 year old would love Warwick Castle for the same reasons I did not like it. It's like "Disney meets castle," which would prove great fun for a youngster.
Also in the Cotswolds, the youngster would love the ducks and stream in Bourton on the Water. (The adults would love it too - it's beautiful.)
Outside of Bath there is an estate that has a drive-through animal park.
I agree that with such a span of ages, you are probably going to have to split up at times.