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Planning a Cotswolds Trip: Getting There, Getting Around and What First-Timers Get Wrong · UK Travel Planning

• 0:03
  Intro: Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast.
• 0:06
  Intro: Your host is the founder of the UK Travel Planning website, Tracey Collins.
• 0:10
  Intro: In this podcast, Tracey shares destination guides, travel tips and itinerary ideas, as well as interviews with a variety of guests who share their knowledge and experience of UK travel to help you plan your perfect UK vacation.
• 0:26
  Intro: Join us as we explore the UK from cosmopolitan cities to quaint villages, from historic castles to beautiful islands, and from the picturesque countryside to seaside towns.
• 0:41
  Tracy Collins: Hello everybody and welcome to episode 115 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast.
• 0:45
  Tracy Collins: This week I'm really excited to have once again Lisa Benjamin from Go Cotswolds come on to the podcast to talk all things Cotswolds with us Now.
• 0:55
  Tracy Collins: Lisa was in episode 107 and was talking all about her and her husband's company, go Cotswolds, so I would pop back and listen to that episode if you haven't already.
• 1:03
  Tracy Collins: But Lisa has come on this episode and agreed to talk with me about things that you need to know before you plan a trip to the Cotswolds.
• 1:12
  Tracy Collins: Because, believe me, doug and I get asked more often than not things about the Cotswolds or Cotswold, as we get told.
• 1:20
  Tracy Collins: Quite often.
• 1:21
  Tracy Collins: I'm going to the Cotswold, so I thought this would be a fantastic topic for an episode.
• 1:27
  Tracy Collins: So, hi, lisa, good to have you back on the podcast.
• 1:30
  Tracy Collins: Would you like to give everybody kind of a quick synopsis of who you are, what you do and a little bit about your company?
• 1:35
  Tracy Collins: That'd be great.
• 1:37
  Lisa Benjamin: So, yeah, hi, I'm Lisa Benjamin.
• 1:39
  Lisa Benjamin: I'm one of the owners of Go Cotswolds.
• 1:41
  Lisa Benjamin: I run the company with my husband, tom.
• 1:44
  Lisa Benjamin: We've got a small team of local guides.
• 1:46
  Lisa Benjamin: We live in Stratford-on-Avon, just on the edge of the Cotswolds.
• 1:49
  Lisa Benjamin: We have a small team of local guides and we have some minibuses and we drive our visitors all around the.
• 1:55
  Tracy Collins: Cotswolds and you do some fantastic tours, because already quite a few members of our Facebook group have been on tours with you and we've had some lovely comments over the last week or so since the podcast came out, with everybody saying, oh, I went on a tour with Go Cotswolds.
• 2:08
  Tracy Collins: It was fantastic, it was so good.
• 2:10
  Tracy Collins: We only booked on one tour and came back and then we managed to get onto the secret Cotswolds tour and it was brilliant.
• 2:14
  Tracy Collins: So we're not going to spill the beans about what's on the secret Cotswolds tour and hopefully I'll get on that tour as well when I come back.
• 2:21
  Tracy Collins: I know you've invited me to go on that, lisa, so I'm very excited about that.
• 2:25
  Tracy Collins: But I thought, as I know, people will be going okay, cotswolds, I'm going to England, I really want to go to the Cotswolds.
• 2:32
  Tracy Collins: What is it that I need to know when planning a trip to the Cotswolds?
• 2:36
  Tracy Collins: So that is exactly what we're going to tackle, aren't we, lisa?
• 2:39
  Lisa Benjamin: Yes, great.
• 2:40
  Lisa Benjamin: Yeah, there's lots of things that people are perhaps unaware of when they're planning a trip to the Cotswolds and, yeah, hopefully I'll be able to fill you in Perfect.
• 2:48
  Tracy Collins: So we have.
• 2:49
  Tracy Collins: We've been brainstorming all week, so we've come up with 12 points that we think would be very useful for you to know.
• 2:54
  Tracy Collins: So I'm going to be really unfair to Lisa and I'm just going to give.
• 2:59
  Tracy Collins: I'm going to say a few words and let Lisa go and explain why you need to know about these things.
• 3:04
  Tracy Collins: So the first thing that we want to mention is that the Cotswolds is a large area, so how?
• 3:12
  Lisa Benjamin: big is it?
• 3:12
  Lisa Benjamin: Often people think that the Cotswolds is one village or a small collection of villages, but the Cotswolds is actually a whole region and it covers around 800 square miles, or 2 000 square kilometers for the metrics among us.
• 3:25
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, it's, it's, it's massive and it's a big rural area.
• 3:30
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, so it can be difficult to get around.
• 3:32
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, the distances between, uh, north and south is it's?
• 3:36
  Lisa Benjamin: Uh, people don't realize how how far apart some places are.
• 3:39
  Lisa Benjamin: So, yeah, it's a.
• 3:40
  Lisa Benjamin: It's a big area because it's rural.
• 3:43
  Lisa Benjamin: There aren't many major roads.
• 3:44
  Lisa Benjamin: It's slow going, let's say.
• 3:52
  Lisa Benjamin: It certainly is, and it's the third largest protected area in England.
• 3:53
  Lisa Benjamin: It's huge.
• 3:54
  Lisa Benjamin: Yes, I got that slightly wrong.
• 3:54
  Lisa Benjamin: I got that slightly wrong in my last podcast.
• 3:56
  Lisa Benjamin: I said it was the second largest.
• 3:57
  Lisa Benjamin: Yeah, it's the third largest protected area in England.
• 4:00
  Lisa Benjamin: So, after the Lake District National Park and Yorkshire Dales National Park, the Cotswolds National Landscape is the third largest protected area.
• 4:08
  Lisa Benjamin: So it's massive and it's a very important area as well.
• 4:12
  Tracy Collins: And also important, to just say that it's Cotswolds, not Cotswold, it's the Cotswolds.
• 4:18
  Lisa Benjamin: The Cotswolds.
• 4:19
  Lisa Benjamin: It's a funny one, yeah, c-o-t-s-w-o-l-d-s.
• 4:22
  Lisa Benjamin: There's various spellings I've come across in my time.
• 4:25
  Lisa Benjamin: Uh, yeah, the Cotswolds.
• 4:26
  Lisa Benjamin: It's the Cotswolds area of outstanding natural beauty, as it used to be known.
• 4:30
  Lisa Benjamin: It's kind of rebranded.
• 4:31
  Lisa Benjamin: It's now the Cotswolds national landscape.
• 4:33
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, so yeah, it's the Cotswolds, and the Cotswolds comprises numerous Cotswold villages absolutely, and it's also spread over quite a few counties as well.
• 4:43
  Tracy Collins: I will just mention that as well because, um, we'll often we'll talk about the gloucestershire cotswolds or the oxfordshire cotswolds or whatever, so so that's another way to think that this actually spread over quite a few of english counties.
• 4:56
  Lisa Benjamin: So yeah, it's not just one county, it's not just one small area, it's, it spans five, five or six different counties.
• 5:03
  Lisa Benjamin: So, um, yeah, so yeah, it's a big old place.
• 5:06
  Tracy Collins: Brilliant.
• 5:06
  Tracy Collins: Okay, so that's the first thing.
• 5:08
  Tracy Collins: Second point and I think this one comes up quite a lot as well is driving.
• 5:12
  Tracy Collins: Driving in the Cotswolds is fun.
• 5:17
  Lisa Benjamin: It is fun, I love it.
• 5:18
  Lisa Benjamin: I love driving around the Cotswolds in the great big mini bus, but it's not everyone's cup of tea, um, especially for our visitors who might not be used to driving on the left side of the road or um on sort of narrow country lanes.
• 5:30
  Lisa Benjamin: I know driving in america, driving in australia, is very, very different.
• 5:34
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, here in the uk or here in the cotswolds, we have lots and lots of very narrow single track lanes with high hedgerows.
• 5:42
  Lisa Benjamin: You can't see around the corners and more often than not there's a massive tractor about to come around the corner on these single track lanes and that can freak a lot of people out.
• 5:50
  Lisa Benjamin: If you hire a car or you, you know you're not used to driving in that sort of environment it can be quite scary, um.
• 5:56
  Lisa Benjamin: So yeah, you bear that in mind absolutely.
• 5:58
  Tracy Collins: It's really funny because I actually put a reel on my instagram not long ago which which is just literally a recording of us driving through Cotswolds Lane and it was such a popular reel and loads of people looked and went, whoa, wow, and I didn't on that, I didn't actually show I think I don't know where we were.
• 6:14
  Tracy Collins: We came through one village and we literally had to back up.
• 6:16
  Tracy Collins: We backed up about 200 meters because we just there was nowhere for this other car to pass, so one of us had to move back, so we had to do that.
• 6:23
  Tracy Collins: So, yeah, that is, that is, um something that that I think surprises people if they're not used to it, and I know if you used to drive in the states or used to drive in australia and obviously which we do because we live in australia quite a lot um, you know it's, it's so different it's you cannot really explain it until you get onto those roads and you start driving and go oh, okay, and also animals, you can get the odd kind of, you know, sheep in the middle of the road.
• 6:48
  Lisa Benjamin: Usually, yeah, if you're driving around midtown hampton, you might come across a herd of cows wandering down the middle of the road.
• 6:54
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, and, yeah, literally yesterday I was out in the minibus and I had to back up down a little narrow country lane because there was an enormous tractor with a great big plow on the back of it, um, coming at me with like a 16 year old boy driving it.
• 7:06
  Lisa Benjamin: It's quite funny, uh.
• 7:08
  Lisa Benjamin: But yeah, we're quite used to doing that, but obviously other people might not be.
• 7:12
  Lisa Benjamin: So, horses as well.
• 7:13
  Lisa Benjamin: There's lots and lots of horse riders around the cotswolds.
• 7:15
  Lisa Benjamin: You've got to be super careful.
• 7:16
  Lisa Benjamin: Hikers, people out for run, people out for walks, um, and, because of these high hedgerows that we have, it's very, it makes very, very beautiful, but it's difficult to see.
• 7:26
  Lisa Benjamin: So, um, yeah, it's, it can be tricky yeah, you don't get anywhere fast, do you?
• 7:32
  Tracy Collins: no, and although nominally that the roads have a 60 mile an hour speed limit, there's no way really you can do that, do that sort of speed, so not safely anyway no, and that's actually something interesting because quite often we'll get people saying oh, I'm going to go from I don't know um, uh, stowing the world and I'm going to go down the bath and on google it says it's going to take me x amount of time.
• 7:52
  Tracy Collins: I'm like you know what?
• 7:53
  Tracy Collins: Double it?
• 7:54
  Tracy Collins: Double it because that's what google maps might say.
• 7:56
  Lisa Benjamin: I don't think that's necessarily how quickly you'll do it no google maps bases the sort of um the travel time based on the speed limit of the road.
• 8:05
  Lisa Benjamin: So it's assuming that you can travel an average of 50, 60 miles an hour, but absolutely not.
• 8:11
  Tracy Collins: No, definitely, and also you want to stop off along the way as well.
• 8:13
  Tracy Collins: But just one thing I will put in there as well if you are going to hire a car to get around the Cotswolds which is a good way to get away, I'm not going to hide that if you are into doing a road trip and up for driving in the Cotswolds, honestly it is a beautiful area to drive around.
• 8:28
  Tracy Collins: But if you're going to book accommodation, make sure that you do get parking included with that as well, so you know where you're going to park, because you don't want to be in one of these popular villages and you find that you have nowhere to park your car at night, right, yeah, absolutely.
• 8:42
  Lisa Benjamin: The villages themselves, as well as the roads, are very small in many cases.
• 8:46
  Lisa Benjamin: So your accommodation may not have a driveway, it may not have a parking car park.
• 8:50
  Lisa Benjamin: So yeah, that's something to be aware of.
• 8:52
  Lisa Benjamin: You might need to get very good at doing your parallel parking on the side of the road.
• 8:55
  Lisa Benjamin: Parking in general can be tricky.
• 8:59
  Lisa Benjamin: In the Cotswolds, popular villages do tend to have larger car parks because they're catered a bit more for tourists, but in many of the smaller villages there's nowhere specific to park.
• 9:10
  Lisa Benjamin: You might just have to kind of dump your car on the side of the road, but then you have to be mindful of where you're parking.
• 9:15
  Lisa Benjamin: Are you blocking someone's driveway?
• 9:17
  Lisa Benjamin: Are you in the way of someone else's entrance and exit?
• 9:21
  Tracy Collins: Yeah, people not being able to get past.
• 9:23
  Tracy Collins: I know I was in, uh, bybury in January, so I went to stay in the Cotswolds with um, one of my very closest friends actually.
• 9:30
  Tracy Collins: We decided we'd have a girly weekend away to the Cotswolds and um, I love Bybury.
• 9:35
  Tracy Collins: So I was like, oh, let's go to Bybury weekend.
• 9:36
  Tracy Collins: Probably not the best idea anyway, but this was January, end of January.
• 9:39
  Tracy Collins: We could not get parked.
• 9:40
  Tracy Collins: We had to drive.
• 9:41
  Tracy Collins: We drove through and then we drove back again, and then we drove back again, and then Kim went Tracy, I know it's really beautiful, but we can't get parked.
• 9:48
  Tracy Collins: So so, yeah, so unfortunately we missed out on January, and that's, as I say, january.
• 9:53
  Tracy Collins: That's not even in the peak season and it was yeah, no that's true.
• 9:58
  Lisa Benjamin: Bybrey poor little Bybrey does have a few problems with parking and stuff.
• 10:01
  Lisa Benjamin: At the moment Bybrey has two coach parking bays and because it's such a popular place, lots of coaches come there and the coaches all line up along the road and people can't get in the car park so they all line up on the road.
• 10:14
  Lisa Benjamin: A couple of years ago I think it was just after Covid, you know when everyone was escaping and getting outside for the first time and there was, there were, I think there were actual fistfights between locals and tourists because tourists or visitors were parking on people's driveways and blocking their exits and entrances.
• 10:30
  Lisa Benjamin: And yeah, it caused a real issue.
• 10:32
  Lisa Benjamin: And on a popular sunny summer Sunday or some sunny weekend, yeah, parking is tricky in Bybrey particularly.
• 10:40
  Tracy Collins: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 10:42
  Tracy Collins: Well, as I say, that was end of January and we couldn't get parked.
• 10:44
  Tracy Collins: So I do feel sorry for the people who live in Bybrey, and maybe we should tell people not to go to Bybrey.
• 10:48
  Tracy Collins: Well, I'm not going to say that because I do love Bybrey, but just keep that in mind.
• 10:51
  Tracy Collins: So let's talk about public transport, because that's another popular question we get.
• 10:56
  Tracy Collins: Well, okay, I don't want to drive.
• 10:59
  Tracy Collins: Fair enough, can I get public transport around the council?
• 11:02
  Tracy Collins: So can I get public transport?
• 11:04
  Lisa Benjamin: around the Cotswolds.
• 11:05
  Lisa Benjamin: So can I, you can.
• 11:05
  Lisa Benjamin: You've got to become a master of understanding bus timetables and train timetables.
• 11:11
  Lisa Benjamin: There is public transport in the Cotswolds but it is fairly limited.
• 11:16
  Lisa Benjamin: If you have come from London or you're used to city public transport, things are very, very different.
• 11:23
  Lisa Benjamin: Out here in the Cotswolds transport, Things are very, very different.
• 11:27
  Lisa Benjamin: Out here in the Cotswolds.
• 11:28
  Lisa Benjamin: In London you've got buses that go 24-7, tubes, you know.
• 11:30
  Lisa Benjamin: Trains go everywhere.
• 11:31
  Lisa Benjamin: Most cities have trams or bus systems.
• 11:33
  Lisa Benjamin: In the Cotswolds there are a handful of buses that go anywhere, useful.
• 11:39
  Lisa Benjamin: I always recommend people to stay.
• 11:42
  Lisa Benjamin: If people ask me where should I stay in the Cotswolds, Morton-in-Marsh is a really great place to stay because it is one of the best towns for public transport, and when I say best, I mean on Cotswolds standards.
• 11:55
  Tracy Collins: I mean it has a train station.
• 11:57
  Lisa Benjamin: Yeah, exactly yeah, morton-in-marsh is one of the very few Cotswolds towns with a train station.
• 12:01
  Lisa Benjamin: There are only five or six train stations in the entire 800 square miles of the Cotswolds.
• 12:09
  Lisa Benjamin: And Morton and Marsh has a link to London and Oxford, which is handy.
• 12:12
  Lisa Benjamin: It also has a couple of buses.
• 12:15
  Lisa Benjamin: There's one, the 801 bus, is quite useful.
• 12:18
  Lisa Benjamin: That can take you from Morton and Marsh to places like Chipping Norton.
• 12:22
  Lisa Benjamin: And where else does it go?
• 12:24
  Lisa Benjamin: It goes to Stonewall and Boughton-on-the-Water nice places that people want to visit.
• 12:28
  Lisa Benjamin: It also has a bus that goes to Stratford-upon-Avon and Chipping Camden, so people can visit those places as well.
• 12:36
  Lisa Benjamin: If you want to stay anywhere else in the Cotswolds then you're going to struggle, to be perfectly honest, other than perhaps the larger cities like Cirencester or say, larger cities, they're still very small towns.
• 12:48
  Lisa Benjamin: But, um, the larger towns like Cirencester or Cheltenham, the villages have very, very little public transport.
• 12:54
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, some villages have like one bus a week, which is ridiculous.
• 12:59
  Lisa Benjamin: That's crazy.
• 13:00
  Lisa Benjamin: We one bus on a Thursday in the morning so you can go to the big town and do your shopping, and then one bus in the afternoon to come back again, and that's literally it.
• 13:08
  Lisa Benjamin: Some towns have one bus a day and those tend to be geared around school times so that children can get to their secondary school, which might be in another town or village.
• 13:17
  Lisa Benjamin: And some villages don't have a bus service at all.
• 13:21
  Lisa Benjamin: So if you want to visit somewhere like Snow's Hill, for example, which is very, very beautiful, there's no bus that goes there.
• 13:28
  Lisa Benjamin: It's it's.
• 13:28
  Lisa Benjamin: You cannot get there by public transport, so you either have to drive or take a toll.
• 13:34
  Tracy Collins: What happens if I decided I want to take a taxi?
• 13:36
  Tracy Collins: Could I take a taxi?
• 13:37
  Tracy Collins: Is that taxi?
• 13:37
  Tracy Collins: Is that uber?
• 13:39
  Lisa Benjamin: no, this is one of the questions that we get asked a lot.
• 13:45
  Lisa Benjamin: Oh, it's okay, I'm gonna stay in, I'm just gonna get an uber.
• 13:48
  Lisa Benjamin: No, you're not sorry, um taxis.
• 13:52
  Lisa Benjamin: There are taxi companies in the Cotswolds, but out here, um, a lot of the taxi companies are run by sole traders.
• 13:58
  Lisa Benjamin: So you've just got one one man in his car, um, and he runs a little taxi service, um, so if he's fully booked at the time, you call him up and you say, hey, I want to go somewhere.
• 14:07
  Lisa Benjamin: Then you have to move to the next taxi operator on the list and if they're fully booked, you need to move to the next one on the list and the next and the next and the next.
• 14:14
  Lisa Benjamin: I've honestly heard about people arriving at Morton and Marsh Station.
• 14:18
  Lisa Benjamin: A popular sort of route that people need to do is to get from Morton and Marsh station to Chipping Camden to start the Cotswold Way hike, and I've heard so many stories of people arriving at Morton and Marsh expecting that there will be a taxi just waiting in the cab rank and they've literally waited for hours before they could get a taxi.
• 14:38
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, so that's why I always recommend the bus service as well, because there is a bus service it's.
• 14:43
  Lisa Benjamin: It's fairly infrequent, but if you can time it right, then there is a bus between Moreton and Marsh and Chipping Camden, and it only costs two pounds as well at the moment there's um, yeah, there's um like a government subsidy thing happening at the minute.
• 14:55
  Lisa Benjamin: So any public bus service it's two pounds per person one way anywhere you want to go, so it's super cheap and pretty reliable.
• 15:03
  Lisa Benjamin: So I always recommend that as an option.
• 15:06
  Lisa Benjamin: By contrast, the a taxi from Morton and Mastership in Camden, which is a journey of 15 minutes, costs about 35 pounds, so it's very expensive that is expensive wow so if you're going to stay somewhere that has very limited public transport and you don't have a car, then you're going to be spending a lot of money on taxis and probably getting quite frustrated with the lack of availability of taxis as well yeah, lack of it and also just not being able to get around to see.
• 15:34
  Tracy Collins: The best of the cotswolds are they.
• 15:36
  Tracy Collins: If you're going to have to wait around for a bus for a week, you're not going to get very far, or even even one a day or three a day.
• 15:41
  Tracy Collins: You're going to have to think very clearly about, logistically, how you're going to get around and you probably won't necessarily get around to see all of the places that you might want to get to see.
• 15:52
  Tracy Collins: Now I know you've just mentioned Stowe, mentioned Chipping, morton and Marsh, bybury, borton and the Water.
• 15:58
  Tracy Collins: So let's, let's talk about because I know whenever I talk about the Cotswolds, the, the first places that people will usually mention to me are going to be Stowe-on-the-Wold, bybury, the Slaughters, boughton-on-the-water, broadway, and I love all those places, I'm going to admit it.
• 16:14
  Tracy Collins: So what area of the Cotswolds are those?
• 16:16
  Tracy Collins: Because they're in one particular area.
• 16:17
  Tracy Collins: Those aren't spread all over.
• 16:19
  Tracy Collins: So I think it's worth probably talking about that.
• 16:23
  Tracy Collins: There is more to the Cotswolds, for a start off, than Bolton-on-the-Water, because that's the first one that comes to mind, but also the fact that these villages are spread out.
• 16:32
  Tracy Collins: But you can, if you think really carefully or go through to a company like yourself actually see some of those popular villages in a kind of logistically kind of way.
• 16:43
  Tracy Collins: That makes sense.
• 16:43
  Tracy Collins: If that makes sense what I, that makes sense what I've just said yeah, I think it does.
• 16:47
  Lisa Benjamin: Yeah, yeah, so broadly speaking, the cotswolds is divided into the north and the south and um the north cotswolds that's where we tend to base our tours.
• 16:56
  Lisa Benjamin: The villages in the north cotswolds, many of them are considered to be those very, very pretty villages, the ones that people um have seen in photographs and they want to come and visit.
• 17:04
  Lisa Benjamin: So places you mentioned Broadway, bybrey.
• 17:07
  Lisa Benjamin: Well, bybrey is kind of the furthest south of the north, if you see what I mean bought on the water, stolen on the world.
• 17:13
  Lisa Benjamin: Those villages, those towns are all in the North Cotswolds and the distances between those villages are actually very, very short.
• 17:21
  Lisa Benjamin: They're only about five, 10 minutes between villages.
• 17:23
  Lisa Benjamin: So the South Cotswolds is kind of a little bit geographically different.
• 17:29
  Lisa Benjamin: It's much sparser, much more open, lots of common land and agricultural land and far fewer villages.
• 17:37
  Lisa Benjamin: They're much more spread out.
• 17:39
  Lisa Benjamin: The other very popular village that everyone wants to visit is Castle Coombe, and Castle Coombe is right down in the very south of the Cotswolds.
• 17:48
  Lisa Benjamin: So if you're planning a trip, if you've got limited time and you want to see as much of the Cotswolds as you possibly can, we always recommend Ditch Castle Combe.
• 17:55
  Lisa Benjamin: I know it's beautiful.
• 17:56
  Lisa Benjamin: I know you've seen pictures of influencers twirling on that bridge over the river, but it's a long, long way away from everywhere else in the Cotswolds.
• 18:06
  Lisa Benjamin: We often get asked about it on our tours and we say, well, we would have to drive.
• 18:11
  Lisa Benjamin: It's basically an hour drive from all the other villages in the north Cotswolds to Castle Coombe and then an hour drive back and there's not much in between.
• 18:19
  Lisa Benjamin: There's not really anywhere to stop on the way other than views of countryside which you know after an hour there and back you're gonna get a bit samey.
• 18:26
  Lisa Benjamin: So we always recommend, if you've only got one day in the Cotswolds or a very limited amount of time, stick to one area and don't try and dart all across the Cotswolds and do lots of different places that are far, far apart from each other.
• 18:39
  Lisa Benjamin: It's just a bit of a waste of time and you'll have a much better experience by seeing a lot more places that are closer together.
• 18:46
  Tracy Collins: Yeah, and I think that's a really good point, because the castle come comes up all the time and it's it is cast comes.
• 18:51
  Tracy Collins: Lovely if you can get parked.
• 18:52
  Tracy Collins: That's another place we struggle like.
• 18:55
  Tracy Collins: I think actually it might have been castle come where we ended up doing a massive reverse.
• 18:59
  Tracy Collins: I have a feeling that's where it was.
• 19:00
  Tracy Collins: We came through castle come and couldn't and it was crazy busy, crazy in fact it was.
• 19:05
  Tracy Collins: It's the most I've seen anywhere.
• 19:07
  Tracy Collins: I think that went in the Cotswolds, it was just so busy.
• 19:10
  Tracy Collins: And again it's that kind of influencer twirling around on the bridge in a in a hat and a long skirt dress thing.
• 19:15
  Tracy Collins: You know, I mean, I'm way past that, thank goodness, but um, but I think unfortunately it it does draw people, um, but I think that explanation is perfectly so about just how far that is from the beautiful part of the northern Cotswolds, which is where I think my heart's.
• 19:30
  Tracy Collins: There you can't go wrong.
• 19:32
  Tracy Collins: I mean, there's so much to see.
• 19:34
  Tracy Collins: And do I mean just thinking of the gardens for a start off?
• 19:38
  Tracy Collins: I mean, I think that's also worth mentioning.
• 19:40
  Tracy Collins: There's beautiful houses to go and see, there's the gardens to go and see.
• 19:45
  Tracy Collins: You know, it's not just the villages are beautiful, but there's other things to do as well.
• 19:51
  Tracy Collins: Um, I'm just thinking about the cotswolds lavender, I mean, that's other another beautiful thing to experience yeah, there's so much more to the cotswolds than just uh just looking at villages.
• 20:01
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, there's.
• 20:01
  Lisa Benjamin: There's lots of sort of um tourist attractions as well if, uh, you know, especially if you've got kids, there's places like the Cotswolds Farm Park and the Cotswolds um Wildlife Park.
• 20:11
  Lisa Benjamin: There's Birdland and, uh, a model village in.
• 20:14
  Lisa Benjamin: There's lots of attractions.
• 20:16
  Lisa Benjamin: But yeah, there's the stately homes, castles, gardens are stunning.
• 20:20
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, yeah, lots and lots and lots to see.
• 20:23
  Tracy Collins: It's not just uh wandering around looking at people's houses which is, which is still pretty, though I have to say yeah, which is great, I look around and go.
• 20:31
  Tracy Collins: Well, if I ever win a billion, I'll buy that cottage.
• 20:33
  Tracy Collins: That's always my scene when I go around that particular cottage there with the roses around the door.
• 20:37
  Tracy Collins: Yes, I'll have that one.
• 20:53
  Lisa Benjamin: The wisteria if you're there at the right time of the oh, absolutely so.
• 20:55
  Tracy Collins: Um, so tell me about why.
• 20:57
  Tracy Collins: Why a tour is a good option, because obviously we're talking about.
• 21:00
  Tracy Collins: Public transport is difficult, getting a taxi is difficult.
• 21:03
  Tracy Collins: If you're not confident with driving, then again, this is an area of the world that may be restricted to you, and I think that's a good point to say.
• 21:11
  Tracy Collins: Is that it?
• 21:12
  Tracy Collins: But it's not.
• 21:13
  Lisa Benjamin: If you want to go and do a tour, which Lisa's now going to talk about, yeah, and when we started our tour company, like Tom and I my husband and I, who run the company we hate guided tours, which sounds a really odd thing to say because we set up a guided tour company.
• 21:28
  Lisa Benjamin: But our tours are not that kind of tour where you're following a guide with an umbrella in the air following around like lemmings.
• 21:35
  Lisa Benjamin: We like slow travel, we like to experience and explore.
• 21:39
  Lisa Benjamin: We give lots and lots of free time to our guests to explore the different places that we visit during on a particular itinerary, um.
• 21:47
  Lisa Benjamin: So tour is a really great way.
• 21:49
  Lisa Benjamin: I'm going to be biased and say my tour outdoors are a really great way to explore the cotswolds because, um, there is a lot of free time built into the day so you're not stuck with the guide, you're not making awkward small talk with other people, um, you have lots of free time to explore the way you want, to explore each, each of the stops.
• 22:07
  Lisa Benjamin: But also we give you that itinerary so you can visit places that are inaccessible by public transport or difficult to line up those bus timetables, um, or places that you know you can't get to if you don't want to drive.
• 22:21
  Lisa Benjamin: So that is a really good way.
• 22:23
  Lisa Benjamin: In fact, I saw on the uk travel planning facebook group just the other day there was a comment from someone, I think.
• 22:28
  Lisa Benjamin: Uh, someone had written a lovely comment about having been on one of our tours and someone else said oh, I was so happy to read this because I didn't think I could visit the Cotswolds, because I don't plan to drive when I'm in the UK and I wasn't sure if I could get around.
• 22:44
  Lisa Benjamin: So it is difficult to do it solely by public transport.
• 22:48
  Lisa Benjamin: But that's where tours come in useful, because you can visit other places that you might not be able to see otherwise definitely.
• 22:55
  Tracy Collins: And then you know you also, you've got many buses so they can go lots of places that the larger coaches can't get to yes, absolutely yeah.
• 23:03
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, the massive sort of 70 seater coaches that come up from london.
• 23:06
  Lisa Benjamin: They are restricted to, uh, driving on the major roads I put that in inverted commas because there aren't any motorways in the Cotswolds, but you know the sort of the bigger, wider roads uh that are can accommodate bigger traffic, um, and they're also restricted to the places that have designated coach parking spaces too.
• 23:25
  Lisa Benjamin: So you're only going to be able to go to the very touristy, popular places which are going to be very busy at some points of the year, um, and full of other coach parties as well.
• 23:36
  Lisa Benjamin: So, taking a minibus tour, we can park, we have the advantage of being able to use coach parking spaces.
• 23:42
  Lisa Benjamin: That's a nice little perk of having a minibus psv license, um, but we are our minibuses, believe it or not.
• 23:48
  Lisa Benjamin: Although they are much longer than a car, they're only the same width as a car.
• 23:52
  Lisa Benjamin: So we can park anywhere on the side of the road or across to normal size car parking spaces, and we're absolutely fine.
• 24:00
  Lisa Benjamin: So we can go anywhere a car can go, which is great.
• 24:04
  Lisa Benjamin: And you're a bit higher up, your seats are higher up, so you can see over the hedgerows, and that's really great too yeah, exactly.
• 24:11
  Tracy Collins: The thing is as well is that you know if it's.
• 24:13
  Tracy Collins: If you're going with your partner, you can both enjoy it, rather than one one person driving, another person navigating or, in my case, shouting at the other person, or stop stop, I want to take a video or stop, stop or or watch as a cow, or watch this.
• 24:26
  Tracy Collins: You know that's, that's usual.
• 24:27
  Tracy Collins: It's funny because we just planned a trip for September and we're going to be driving around Scotland and we're going to Sky and Doug said to me who's driving and I went well, that'd be you.
• 24:37
  Intro: I've been navigating as usual.
• 24:38
  Tracy Collins: So he's just like oh yeah.
• 24:40
  Lisa Benjamin: Because I've got that awkward conversation about who's driving, and if nobody has to drive, you can also stop in the pub and have a nice drink at lunchtime.
• 24:47
  Lisa Benjamin: It's, that's absolutely fine, exactly, exactly.
• 24:50
  Tracy Collins: So I'm just thinking, um, just in case, uh, if, if you're listening to this and thinking, oh, I'm not sure what, what, what tours do co-cottswolds offer?
• 24:57
  Lisa Benjamin: so I'm going to ask lisa to do a quick synopsis of the tours that you have sure, yeah, um, so we have our cottswolds in a day tour, which I say very tongue-in-cheek because you can't see all the Cotswolds in a day.
• 25:07
  Lisa Benjamin: I've just told you it's 800 square miles, but we focus our tours on the beautiful northern Cotswolds part and showcase six different stops which we think kind of encompasses the Cotswolds in a day.
• 25:20
  Lisa Benjamin: So that's our kind of best-selling tour.
• 25:23
  Lisa Benjamin: We've also launched this year a secret Cotswolds tour which we decided to launch to kind of complement the Cotswolds in a day, so you can see, check off all the highlights on one day and then on maybe on day two or if you've already been to some of those highlight places, you can take our secret Cotswolds tour which gets you a little bit more off the beaten track.
• 25:43
  Lisa Benjamin: We go to a couple of better known places Broadway and Burford because we still need to find places to have coffee and lunch.
• 25:50
  Lisa Benjamin: But we go to some other very, very small villages that are a bit quieter, very, very beautiful places that you won't necessarily see girls twirling on bridges.
• 26:02
  Tracy Collins: You also got a new Stonehenge one.
• 26:03
  Tracy Collins: Isn't that right?
• 26:05
  Lisa Benjamin: Yes, we launched Bath and Stonehenge tour earlier this year as well, and that was purely in response to customers asking us do you go to bath, do you go to bath?
• 26:13
  Lisa Benjamin: Bath is a long way from where we're based, so this tour is, uh involves a bit more of a drive, um, but it's again a very scenic, beautiful drive and we can take you down to bath and stonehenge um, and then the other one we have, which is in the summer, is a walks and villages tour, um, which again, uh gets you a bit off, literally off the beaten track.
• 26:33
  Lisa Benjamin: You can experience some of the countryside, footpaths and beautiful countryside walks that the Cotswolds has to offer, with the safety of a guide who knows where they're going perfect, perfect, and and I haven't actually been numbering these as I've been going through, but I know I have in front of me number 11.
• 26:50
  Tracy Collins: Take the train out of London.
• 26:52
  Tracy Collins: So that's one tip when planning a trip to the Cotswolds.
• 26:55
  Tracy Collins: So why should somebody take the train out of London, lisa?
• 26:58
  Lisa Benjamin: Yeah, I mean it's slightly biased, because obviously we want people to come and take our tours and not the ones that depart from London.
• 27:05
  Lisa Benjamin: But honestly, we think that taking the train train, if you're going to visit the Cotswolds, don't get.
• 27:10
  Lisa Benjamin: Don't fall into the trap necessarily of taking those big coach tours from London and they might seem convenient because they have a pickup point close to where you're staying, but a significant proportion of your time on that tour is going to be spent getting out of London and then getting back into London.
• 27:27
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, so that really reduces the amount of time that you have to spend in the Cotswolds.
• 27:32
  Lisa Benjamin: And often these great big coach tours include the Cotswolds as part of a bigger crazy itinerary.
• 27:38
  Lisa Benjamin: Like you might go to Bathstonehenge, oxford Windsor Castle and the Cotswolds in a day and things like that.
• 27:43
  Tracy Collins: Edinburgh.
• 27:44
  Lisa Benjamin: sometimes I think, there is actually a tour out there called England in a day, which I think is hilarious, but it's very.
• 27:52
  Lisa Benjamin: You know, it's impossible to see England in a day.
• 27:54
  Lisa Benjamin: It's even impossible to see the Cotswolds in a day.
• 27:56
  Lisa Benjamin: But yeah, so your travel time is, you're going to have a lot of travel time on those big coach tours, whereas if you take the train out of London, you're going to skip all that London traffic.
• 28:08
  Lisa Benjamin: You're going to be sitting in your train seat looking out the window beautiful countryside.
• 28:13
  Lisa Benjamin: You can have a little drink on the train if you want to.
• 28:15
  Lisa Benjamin: You can just pick your feet up, relax, read your book while you're taking the train out of London and you can arrive in Moreton-in-Marsh in just 90 minutes.
• 28:25
  Lisa Benjamin: So an hour and a half journey, very relaxing journey and, yes, I think it's a nicer way.
• 28:30
  Lisa Benjamin: And then you arrive in the cotswolds and you're ready to start your tour and then you've got more time in the cotswolds to to explore absolutely and stay over.
• 28:38
  Tracy Collins: I'd always recommend staying over as well it's such a long place and number 12 don't try to pack too much into a day, so this is a good reason to stay over.
• 28:47
  Tracy Collins: Don't try to pack too much into a day, so this is a good reason to stay over.
• 28:48
  Tracy Collins: Don't try to pack too much into a day, because less is more.
• 28:51
  Lisa Benjamin: Yeah, and I could just touch on that now, like attempting to see England in a day, I think is crazy.
• 28:56
  Lisa Benjamin: I'm sure there's a time and a place for it.
• 28:58
  Lisa Benjamin: If you're on a one-night stopover on the way to somewhere else, then perhaps that might tick some boxes for you.
• 29:03
  Lisa Benjamin: But yeah, less is more.
• 29:04
  Lisa Benjamin: We but, yeah, less is more.
• 29:05
  Lisa Benjamin: We get a lot of inquiries from people who want to try and cram, I think, too much into their itineraries and all they're going to be doing is driving and box ticking.
• 29:16
  Lisa Benjamin: And I think what makes the Cotswolds so special it's beautiful to look at, but it's also wonderful to experience and explore it.
• 29:24
  Lisa Benjamin: And pop into the local pub and have a drink in the local pub.
• 29:27
  Lisa Benjamin: And you know, pop into the local pub and have a drink in the local pub, get chatting to the barman.
• 29:30
  Lisa Benjamin: Uh, go to the local coffee shop not the starbucks or the costa coffee and talk to the guy who serves you your coffee.
• 29:34
  Lisa Benjamin: And um visit some of the like local, little local attractions that aren't massive, great big, you know touristy things, um, I think that's what really makes the cotswolds very special.
• 29:45
  Lisa Benjamin: So if you're um whizzing in and whizzing out on a, on a big coach tour or just, you know, spending just one day here.
• 29:51
  Lisa Benjamin: You're not really going to get that sense of community and the sense of, um, the friendliness, and you're not going to meet people, and I think that's a real shame.
• 30:01
  Lisa Benjamin: So staying over is definitely a top tip.
• 30:04
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, I would definitely spend time here in the Cotswolds.
• 30:07
  Lisa Benjamin: Um, you just get so much more out of your experience than just whizzing through and taking off sites and, you know, just seeing everything through a camera lens.
• 30:16
  Tracy Collins: Absolutely.
• 30:17
  Tracy Collins: I 100% back you up.
• 30:18
  Tracy Collins: But anyway, it was lovely to chat to you again, lisa, and I'm looking forward to meeting you as well, probably not too long after this podcast episode comes out.
• 30:26
  Tracy Collins: Hopefully we'll get to meet in person rather than across the water on the podcast.
• 30:30
  Tracy Collins: But thanks so much, lisa, for coming on the podcast again.
• 30:36
  Tracy Collins: It's always so good to chat to you and, as I say, I can't wait myself to get back to the goths walls.
• 30:40
  Tracy Collins: Oh, we'll see you soon.
• 30:42
  Tracy Collins: Yeah, thank you.
• 30:43
  Tracy Collins: Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of the uk travel planning podcast.
• 30:48
  Tracy Collins: As always, show notes can be found at uktravelplanningcom.
• 30:52
  Tracy Collins: If you've enjoyed the show, why not leave us feedback via text or a review on your favourite podcast app?
• 30:58
  Tracy Collins: We love to hear from you and you never know.
• 31:01
  Tracy Collins: You may receive a shout out in a future episode.
• 31:04
  Tracy Collins: But, as always, that just leaves me to say until next week.
• 31:08
  Tracy Collins: Happy UK travel planning.