Best of England "Rest of your day" Question

Email the Rick Steves office, because they can give you a very good estimate of what time organized activities end to help you plan your schedule for the Churchill War rooms, etc. I was trying to figure something out for one of our free afternoons on a tour, (not BOE) and they are very helpful with providing a helpful timeline to plenty of elbow room to schedule an "on my own" activity.
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I didn't even think of emailing them, but that makes perfect sense. Thanks!

I can help!

I was on the Best of England Tour in August 2023. I had the same concern during planning stage, trying to figure out exactly how much time we would have to see and experience as much as we could. For that very reason I kept copious notes during our tour, recording all the major time duration events just in case I ever had the opportunity to share with others.

I’m sure each tours ends up a little bit different, but this was what we experienced:

Day 1
Tour starts 4pm at hotel
• orientation walk on way to dinner, 5:30-6:30
• 6:30pm welcome Roast dinner together - Salamander Pub

Day 2
Leave 8:45am
• Bath walking tour (Royal Victoria Park, Royal Crescent, the Circus, New Royale Theatre, Pulteney Bridge, Bath Abbey exterior)
• Roman Baths (on your own, audioguide) (10:45am- we stayed till 1:30pm)

Day 3
Leave 8:30am
Bus to Glastonbury and Wells
• Glastonbury Abbey & grounds (10am-12:30)
time to explore town and matket
• picnic lunch together incl Scrumpy tasting (12:30-1:30)
continue to
• Wells Cathedral & grounds (2pm-4:30)
time to explore Vicors close, Bishop palace, town
return to Bath ~5pm
• 6pm leave for dinner together - Victoria Pub & Kitchen

Day 4
Leave 8:30am
• (extra) Lacock (9:30-10:30am)
• Avebury stone circles (11:15-1:15), walk surrounds
free time to explore village (St James church) & lunch
continue to Blenheim ~1hr20min
• Blenheim Palace (audioguide) & grounds (2:45-5pm)
arrive Stow ~6pm

Day 5
Leave 8:45am
• Stanway House and grounds (9:30am-12pm)
• quick stop in Stanton to see church
back to Stow for free lunch ~1pm
• meet at 2:30pm for Group walk. Bus to upper slaughter then walk to lower slaughter (2.2 miles, ~1hr).
return to Stow ~4pm
• 6pm dinner together & Local folk music session (till 9pm) - Kings arm

Day 6
Leave 8:30am
• Stokesay Castle (audioguide) (10:40am-12:30pm)
• English cream tea together
stop in Llangollen for late lunch (2:15-3:15)
arrive in Conway ~4:45pm
group Mead toast at harbor 5:30pm
free time to explore before dinner
• 7pm dinner together - Coaching Inn (at hotel)

Day 7
Leave 8:30am
• Welsh sheep farm, guide Garreth (9am-11am)
• Caernarfon Castle, guide Sue (11:30am-1:30pm)
• (extra) Slate mine museum (2pm-3pm)
return to conway ~3:30pm

Day 8
Leave 9:15am
• Bodnant Garden (9:40am-11:30am)
lunch/break stop after 2hrs (45min)
continue to Lake district
arrive Keswick ~4:15pm
• orientation walk on way to dinner 5:45pm
• 6pm Dinner together - Old Keswickian fish & chips

Day 9
• 9:30am Lake District boat cruise (hop on/off, 1 hr)
(optional) get off at Hawes End and walk back to keswick (arrive back ~12pm)
afternoon free
• 4pm Optional Hike to Castlerigg Stone Circle (we got rained out)

Day 10
Leave 8:30am
• quick stop at section of Hadrians wall (it was raining for us)
• (extra) Roman Army museum (10:30-11:25)
• Vindolanda & museum (11:40-1:30)
free time for lunch
arrive York 4:45pm
• 5:15pm York walking tour, guide Alfie
• 6:30pm dinner together - Vicroy of India

Day 11
leave 9am
• York Minster, guide Chris (9:30-11am)
Rest of day free

Day 12
Leave 8:20am
put luggage in taxis, walk to train station (15min)
• train York to London Kings cross station (9:35-11:40)
bus ride to Westminster, Luggage stays on bus
lunch on own near Abbey, Wesley cafe (12:45-2pm)
• Westminster Abbey tour (2pm-3:30pm), guide jeanne
bus from Abbey to hotel for check-in together (~4pm)
• 5pm group Tube Gloucester to Leister square

Day 13
Leave 8:15am
• Tube Gloucester to Tower hill
• Tower of London, Crown Jewels, white Tower, walk walls (9am-11:30am)
• Thames River cruise from Tower to Westminster (11:55am-12:30pm)
Free afternoon
• 7pm Farewell dinner together -Scoff & Banter (at hotel)

Let me know if you have any specific tour questions or if you need ideas for free time.

galliegirlie you're the best—this is PERFECT! I would love free-time ideas, and I may very well hit you up with more specific tour questions…thank you!

PS–I’m also in the greater Los Angeles area–how was the jet lag? We will arrive in London around 3pm on the Sunday before the tour ( which starts Tuesday.) Fingers crossed that’s enough time to adapt!

OP for the past decade I’v done an overnight flight to London. LAX-LHR. Usually through immigration and at my hotel accommodation by 2pm. Maybe 3. Depends on which London neighborhood I’ve chosen to stay.

After checking in I’ll head outside at start walking about the neighborhood. I look for a market, red postbox and a Boots.

For ages I’ve done 2 things on each trip. Send myself a postcard and enjoy a pint of Guinness. So on that neighborhood meander I’ll check out the closest pub.

If by the Thames I’ll stroll on the river path letting my senses adapt.

As I usually travel in November it is dark by 4pm. I’ll have dinner, shop at the market for bottled water and Walkers Shortbread. I’ll return to my accommodation, unpack and take a lengthy and relaxing shower. In bed 9pm.

An early riser I’ll be dressed and out the door before dawn. Love watching the city come to life.

Jet lag conquered. Exploration begins.

Jet lag has never really been an issue for us. But similar to what Claudia described, I always try to stay busy on arrival day including a lot of outside walking, then we have dinner at a normal local time and put ourselves to bed around 9pm. This seems to automatically switch us to local time zone without issues.

For our England trip, we had a nonstop LAX-LHR that landed at 10am on a Thursday morn (our tour started on sun). We used Celtic Horizons private transfer service to pick us up from the airport and went straight to Windsor Castle to tour for a couple hours (I had pre-booked entry tickets) , then continued on to Bath arriving around 4:30pm. We checked in at our hotel (Brooks guesthouse, tour hotel), then went out to explore Bath for a 6pm free walking tour of the core area. We had grabbed a couple Cornish pasties before the start of the walking tour, and we got some gelato after the walking tour, then walked back to the hotel and had no problem falling right to sleep.

I had specifically planned a couple busy pre-tour days to explore the surrounding region.

On Friday we had booked an all day private driver with Celtic Horizons to explore the Southern Cotswolds (Castle Combe, Lacock, Malmesbury, Bibury, Cirencester). On Saturday we took the train to Salisbury, took the bus to/from Stonehenge, then explored Salisbury and did a Tower tour of the cathedral (loved it!), had a nice dinner in town and took the train back to Bath. On Sunday, we went to the Royal Crescent No 1 museum and explored Bath some more before meeting up with the Tour at 4pm.

Claudia & galliegirlie, I really appreciate all your input--thank you so much!

I’m also in the greater Los Angeles area–how was the jet lag? We will arrive in London around 3pm on the Sunday before the tour ( which starts Tuesday.)

One rule of thumb is you can adjust an hour time difference per day. Back when people took ships to Europe it worked out perfectly since the voyage time matched the time difference and you stepped off the boat ready to go.

Some people handle jetlag better than others, I'm guessing this is your first Europe trip so you won't know until you go. One thing I'd suggest is getting a prescription for Ambien Extended Release before your trip. We find that using them the first two nights or so helps significantly. And lots of coffee ;-) Another thing we try and do is shift our schedules by 3 hours the week before we travel. Get up an hour early and go to bed an hour early to start, then two days later add on another hour, etc.

This is a great tour, you'll have fun! We liked York so much we've since been back on our own.

Thanks John–I definitely plan to do the “schedule shifting” beforehand–that’s worked well for NY-LA trips–I’m hoping it holds up for the larger time difference. Glad to hear you loved York–what are your suggestions for any must-see things for our free time there?

A lot of the fun of York is just wandering around and letting it soak in. On to specifics, there is a sizeable train museum but it has somewhat limited hours and days it is open. We enjoyed the York Castle Museum recreated Victorian Street and the Period Rooms, could have skipped the Sixties Gallery and Prison. Get a coffee and roll at Brew and Brownie bakeshop; they also have a cafe a few doors down. The Yorkshire Museum has some interesting exhibits. York is surrounded by the medieval walls so walking on them for a stretch is fun. We've heard good things about getting tea at Betty's Tea Rooms but didn't do it ourselves. A number of people on the tour go to the Evensong Services at York Minster. If your free afternoon in York is on a Monday then York Minster has a scaffolding tour at 1pm; I wish we had a chance to do it. I think you need to buy tickets ahead of time.

I hesitate to mention this because it would take a few hours of your day, but if you're a fan of the TV show "All Creatures Great and Small" then Thirsk (where he actually worked) is about 25 miles away. The building that was his practice and home has been turned into a nice James Herriot museum. It takes about an hour by bus each way; at the Thirsk Marketplace stop you're only about 100 yards from the museum.

Appreciate the suggestions, thank you. (I have not seen All Creatures Great and Small, but it's going on my "To-watch list" right now!)

This is an awesome post! My sister and I are going in June/July. We were just talking about how hard it is to plan for free time when you don't know where you are staying and how long the free time is. We are spending the night in London and then taking the train to Bath the day before. We'll see Stonehenge on the morning of the tour. We are also staying a few days after the tour ends in London Any recommendations for the rest of the tour? (Fyi 4th rs tour. My sister's 1st)

@robertapf in both Bath and Keswick they have theaters so you might want to look up what's playing when you'll be in town. The sheep farm tour and demo with Garreth was fun. One thing I wish I had thought of at the time was to show him the YouTube video "When you lied on your resume about having previous sheepdog experience". Maybe you can show it to him, I bet he'd get a kick out of it!