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2 week family road trip around England with Matt Archer-Beck · UK Travel Planning

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Your host is the founder of the UK Travel Planning website, tracey Collins.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: 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
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Hi and welcome to episode 76 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Are you considering a road trip around England?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Well, this week's guest planned a two-week itinerary for himself and his family around England in the summer.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: In this episode you will hear all about Matt's itinerary, including the highlights of the trip, how he found driving in the UK, favorite experiences for his family and his tips for anyone planning a UK vacation, and much more.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I started by asking Matt to introduce himself, tell us where he comes from and who we went with on this trip to the UK.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Sure, thanks so much, tracey.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my name is Matt Art Rebek.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: I live in northern Virginia, in the suburbs of Washington DC, and with me on my trip was my wife and our three kids, who are ages 14, 10 and 7.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, I bet they had a wonderful time in the UK.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Was it their first visit?
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: It was their first visit and, for the well for the youngest, it was her first time outside the United States as well, and we haven't done a lot of international travel.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: But yeah, so this was exciting our first trip to Europe.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's fantastic.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: So would you like to give us a brief overview of the trip, Matthew?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: So how long you were there for and where you went?
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, so we were there in July for two weeks.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: We flew into London to Stansted Airport.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: We were in London about four days and then we went.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: We rented a car.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: After we were in London I went to the Dorset Coast for a couple of nights.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: We then kind of drove through the Cotswolds to Stratford upon Avon.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: We were there a night.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: We went up to the Lake District for a few nights and then we went to Hadrian's Wall and then kind of came back south and went to Chatsworth House and then we ended up in Cambridge for a couple of nights before we left.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: So it was kind of a whirlwind trip.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: But I love.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: The destinations that you chose were fantastic.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: So I lived in Derbyshire, near Chatsworth House, for quite a few years and I'm from Northumberland, so it just made my heart sing when I'd read that you'd gone to see Hadrian's Wall.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: It was amazing.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: So how did you choose the destinations that you decided to?
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: visit.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah well, I think, well, maybe not obviously, but we definitely wanted to see London, and so we thought we would either do that at the beginning or the end of our trip.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: We ended up doing it at the beginning of our trip and then, I think, after that we're kind of.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: There were kind of some big decisions to make.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: I think the first decision when we decided that we were going to be about there, we only really had two weeks based on our schedules and the kid schedules, and so we thought, well, it might be fun to go to Scotland, but I don't know if we can fit all that in, and so we decided that we wouldn't do Scotland or Wales, we would just focus on England.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: And then I guess the next kind of decision was well, do we want to do other cities besides London?
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: I know a lot of people say York or Bath, and that was initially.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I was investigating that, but I think we wanted to kind of have some time maybe more in the countryside or kind of enjoying nature a little bit more, and so we thought we would kind of divide a little bit that way.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: And so I think, besides London, the thing that everybody in the family was really excited about was the Lake District.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: We'd heard about that, we liked to go hiking, and so we all were kind of on board with that.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: And then kind of realizing I think I didn't really exactly know how far away it was from London, but it's a good distance and so realizing, well, if we're going to go to London and the Lake District, how can we kind of create an itinerary that includes both of those things?
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: And so I did a lot of research on the internet, the books on the Facebook site and the podcasts to try and find out where some great good destinations were.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: And it's funny for me, one of the things that was kind of in my head was that there's the show Broadchurch.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Oh yes.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you're.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: And I like the show but just the setting with that beautiful cliff, that kind of features in the show, and I had no idea where that was.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: And so I did a little research and I said, oh, okay, well, that's the Dorset Coast.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: And so I said that's a place that was kind of in my mind that I wanted to go to when I went to England.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: So we included that and realized, well, that probably makes sense to go there, maybe first after we were in London to go kind of south and then kind of then make our way up to the Lake District and then.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: So another thing that kind of I wanted to do was maybe catch a play in Stratford-upon-Avon and so realize, well, yeah, that's kind of midway between, like, the Dorset Coast and Lake District.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: So we kind of fit that in that way.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: And then one of the things that the kids wanted to do was to go see a castle.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Castles would be something they wanted to do.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: We knew that we were going to go to the Tower of London, but what other castles?
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: And I realized, oh, warwick Castle is just a very short distance from Stratford-upon-Avon.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: So I thought that would be a good way to kind of combine those interests and so, and then I think beyond that, well, I'm a Downton Abbey fan and I wanted to kind of go to a stately home.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: We didn't actually end up going to Highcler Castle, but I kind of wanted to go to a well-known stately home, so that's.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And so Chatsworth House was one that came to the top of the list.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: We also ended up going to Longleet.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Before we went to the Dorset Coast, kind of on our first day out of London we were in Longleet, yeah.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: And then I guess the final maybe not the final decision, but my daughter, who's a teenager, was interested in maybe either going to Oxford or Cambridge just to kind of see what the, the university towns were like.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: And so it kind of made sense when I looked at the map and everything that, since we were coming and leaving out of Stanstead, that's kind of closer to Cambridge there, so we thought we could end up in Cambridge.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: And so that's kind of how I kind of constructed the itinerary, just kind of knowing that London and the Lake District and kind of trying to fill in the gaps in between.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think you did a fantastic job.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Honestly, your road trip itinerary is excellent.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: It's really really good and it makes the use of the interests that you say, the things that you wanted to see.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: You want to see the countryside and you did a great loop round, which was perfect, you know.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: So you saw all of those great places and a lot of those places are that the Peak District area is actually better to have a car or take a tour.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: The same with the Cotswolds you better to have a car or take a tour if you don't want to do that.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: So you did a lot of really fantastic places that fitted in really well, not only for your interests, but the way that you planned it as well.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: So obviously you're a member of our UK travel plan, the Facebook group, so that was one of the resources.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: So I guess you used our website as well and you just saved the podcast, so you found those really helpful for putting together your plans.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Definitely, and I would you know, there was even a couple of times where I would ask, you know, ask questions in the Facebook group like what do people think about you know, is this too much to do in one day?
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: And, for example, we did Stonehenge and Longleat all in one day, which was a little bit, that was a bit much, but I think it worked out okay for us.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but also the time of year that you were there as well.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: You can take that into consideration because you would have got longer daylight hours, so you can do more in those than that time of year.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: That's advantage always of visiting over the summer is that you do have the ability to do that, so you can kind of stretch out things.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very true.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because we ended up kind of closing the place down at Longleat.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: We stayed until, like you know, 7pm, so that was definitely taking advantage of those later summertime hours.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's a really good use of time.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: So I've got to ask you how did Hadrian's Wall kind of fit in when you were doing the plans?
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Was it just that you, because you decided you were going to come back down that route, or was there something about Hadrian's Wall?
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Were you interested in the kind of that Roman history or?
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: We, yeah, we were interested in Roman history and we, you know, and we thought that we definitely wanted to see some Roman sites while we were there, and I guess because we were all going to be all the way up in the Lake District anyway and it wasn't too much of an additional jump to go over there.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: I guess one of the other things that kind of drew us a little bit over in that direction as well and this is a little bit, you know, syncratic is that you know, our last name is Archer Beck, and totally unrelated to us, there is a stream in Scotland that starts on the English-Scottish border called Archer Beck, and we're like, well, we got to go to Archer Beck if we're going to go to England, and so that that was very close.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: That was, you know, kind of between the Lake District and Hadrian's Wall in a way, and so we did that.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: In the same day we went to Archer Beck and saw the little stream.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, perfect.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: And then, yeah, absolutely.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: And then went to Hadrian's Wall.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Did you get a photo?
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: with the sign.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Was there a sign for the Archer Beck?
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Fortunately it wasn't a sign, but we saw on the map, on Google Maps, that there were two places where the road crossed the stream.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: It was a relatively small stream and it was different than I expected because it was kind of farmland around it which I was kind of expecting.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: But the actual Archer Beck is down, kind of this very deep ravine, and so we were lucky in that we were able to pull off the road and kind of hike down to the stream.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: But it took a little bit of hiking and we got down there.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, my older daughter actually slipped in the mud, which she was, so she was like didn't have great feelings about the experience, but it was kind of fun just to see it.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: It was almost like I mean, this is maybe silly, but it was almost kind of magical Like it was very covered in moss and the trees were it was very darkly covered trees and to get down to the stream and they're like oh, this is our stream.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Oh no, that sounds really lovely.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: That's sort of story, just just so nice.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: It makes it so special, doesn't it, that you could do something like that.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: So when you went to.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: When you went to Hadrian's also did that.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: So whereabouts did you go?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Because obviously there's some good hikes along Hadrian's wall, but did you go to any of the like Vindolando or House Steads we?
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we started out after Archer Beck.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: We went to the Roman Army Museum for a couple of hours and then we walked or not walked, then we drove to I think it's Steel Riggs.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, the car park there.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the car park there and then kind of walked along.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: We didn't walk all the way to the terrible story of the tree that had been.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It's devastating.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was after we were there but I just couldn't believe that, yeah, it's devastating yeah we didn't make it all the way to the, to the sycamore tree, but we walked a little bit along the wall there and then we drove to to Houston's and they were actually that day.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: It actually worked out again, kind of worked out really well.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: It wasn't initially in our plans, but the day that we had planned to be there was actually like a special day at Houston's where they had people there who were dressed up as Roman soldiers and doing a presentation, and so it was great that we were able to go on that day and have a group of people who were doing a presentation about what life was like for the soldiers who lived there.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's fantastic, that was really fantastic.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: How good for the kids to see that as well, kind of see that reenactment of what it was like, Right right, it's one of my favorite.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, reenactors, yeah, yeah, yeah the reenactors.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I love going because obviously that's the part of the UK that I'm actually from.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: So my dad was actually born just outside Wall's End, which I guess you can tell from the name of it the end of the wall.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: So I kind of grew up always kind of Hadrian's Wall was always, always there.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: It always will be.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Obviously we've just recently lost the tree at Sycamore Gap, which is just devastating, but the area is fantastic.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: There's some wonderful places to visit and it's a bit of a hidden gem and I don't really like that term.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: But a lot of people kind of skip Northumberland.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: They might go to York and then they go to Edinburgh, or they might go from the Lake District and then back up to Scotland and miss out Northumberland.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: So it was really good to know that you had decided to include that into your itinerary.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: So what were the highlights for yourself, for your wife and the kids?
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: One of the highlights was definitely our second day in London.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: I think was the day that stood out for me.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was a very packed day but we saw a lot of great things.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: So we started out in the morning.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: We actually walked from where we were staying kind of in the Bloomsbury area to Westminster area, and then we did something.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: I think that worked out really well for our family.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: We kind of split up.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: So my older daughter and I went to Westminster Abbey, and my wife and our two younger kids went to the Churchill War Rooms.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: We figured we probably all couldn't do both of those things and there's more interest on one side and the other to do it, and so we thought, well, that's okay, it's okay if we don't all do everything together, and so we split up.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I've been to London once, but I actually didn't go to Westminster Abbey the first time I went there, and so that was very impressive.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: It was a great time with my daughter, who really wanted to see it, and so we walked through, maybe a little bit faster than an adult would, but we spent a good couple of hours there, and then we met back up with my wife and our younger kids and then we walked through St James Park and saw a little bit of the changing of the guard.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think if anybody's kids are like mine, they hate waiting around.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: And so I read about if you want to have good views of the actual stuff on the court, then you need to show up really early.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, I don't think that's really for us.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: And so it worked out really well for us that we were able to get to the mall by about 1125.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: And then we could see a group of mounted soldiers coming in or down the mall towards the palace and then some marching soldiers after leaving the palace, and so we got to see a little bit of a taste of it.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: And I thought that was good for the kids and so we didn't have to wait around for several hours to do it.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: So that worked out really well.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: And then later that day we went to the British Museum, which I think was a highlight for us as well.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: We had kind of prepared for the British Museum by listening to the podcast the History of a World in 100 Objects, and so we knew about, we knew kind of the objects we wanted to see, and I actually gave the assignment to my younger kids like you decide what we're going to do and kind of chart out a path for us, and so that was fun for them to have kind of some ownership over what we were going to do with the British Museum and they knew some of the objects that they wanted to see based on the podcast.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: So that worked out well as well.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: That's perfect.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: That's really perfect, and I usually say if people are going to visit the British Museum, they're best to go with an idea of what you want to see, because they're so much there to see.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: That that's perfect.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: And including the kids in it as well, so they get to choose what they want.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: That's brilliant.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: That's a really cool way of doing it.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and definitely I'm glad we did it that way because they're really, I mean, as you say, there's just so much like if you, if you just went in without kind of a plan or even the thought of what I mean it would, you would, it would just be overwhelming and it kind of was overall anyway, but but at least we kind of had a plan to go where we wanted to go and see the objects we wanted to see.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: And then we, that day kind of finished, we, we, we had a dinner to Indian restaurant and then we went to a play in the West End, went to the mousetrap, which, wait, you know, you know the longest running play, and and it kind of had a special place in my heart.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: I actually was in that play in high school and so I and so, and then my wife is a big at the, I get the Christie fan, and so it worked, and the kids I would.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: The one thing we're really worried about this is our second day after, you know, an overnight flight to London.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: I thought, oh, they're not gonna be able to stay awake, but they actually did.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: They stayed awake for the, for the whole play, and and we were really engaged by, you know, figuring out who who had done it.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: So that day altogether was just kind of a perfect day of doing a lot of interesting things, a very packed day, but it was.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: It was really fun day.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: With any particular highlights of the trip.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: For the kids that they've said oh, we really really loved that, that part of the trip.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think for them.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: One thing we did in in Longleat Was we, we, we kind of one of our little splurges was to get a VIP Safari tour.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: You know they have the, the Safari thing there that you can drive through yourself, but you can also kind of rent a, have a guide take you through in a in a Jeep, and so that was one of the things that that we did a little bit of a splurge on, and that was wonderful.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, we got to see the animals more up close.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: We saw lions and and tigers and we saw giraffe.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: We got to feed giraffe, and so that was that was a really fun experience, I think, especially for them.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: I guess another highlight for for the whole family was the was the hike.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: We did a nice hike in the Lake District where we, where we kind of hiked about six or seven miles along Ulsewater and then took a Steamer back to kind of where we started, and so that was that was a lot of fun.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: And then the last, the last day we were, we were in England.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: I think what for me was was a highlight and I think for the family too.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: We, we, we spent a little bit of time.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: This is when we were staying.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: We were staying in Cambridge, but I actually have some some family history in the Essex area and so we we drove there and there's actually a house that my ancestors lived in and and owned.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: That's a now a national.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: A national trust owns it and so it's called paycocks house.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: It's, I, probably a little bit off the beaten track, but we were able to go there and kind of learn a little bit about our family history there.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: And then that evening we went back into Cambridge and we saw a performance of a Midsummer Night's dream at the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: I was out outdoors at Trinity College and it was just so, yeah, it was a great way to end our trip because it was just kind of ending it on a high note.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: It was, it was wonderful.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, that sounds magic.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: That sounds absolutely much.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I love, I love Cambridge.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I could always.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I could spend days and days and days in Cambridge.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: It's amazing, but that sounds what a fantastic way to end your trip, totally amazing.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: So obviously you drove around.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: How did you find the drive-in?
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I just know?
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: How was that for you?
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Were you okay with it?
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: I Do think I adjusted relatively well to driving on the the opposite side of the road.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: I guess what.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: What was harder for me was the narrowness of many of the of many of the roads that we were on.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: I Started to crave, being on like a large, larger road like if anytime we were getting on a Smaller artery.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh no, the very first day that we were, that we rent the car where we had to drive to the place we were staying in Dorset, some of these little lanes in Dorset were just so, I mean, I'm sure that's the same everywhere, but we're just so narrow.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: I there was a two, you know a two-way thing, and barely one car could fit on this road and I was just so nervous about like cars coming on and like where I would go, and for the most part I didn't have any problems with that.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: There was one place in Dorset where, you know, a car came towards us and and they, they had to back up a little bit.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: But but the narrowness of the Rose was really more than anything else, what, what really got to me?
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they kept, they kept throw people a bit, especially some of the.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: If you go to Scotland's the same, and then places like Devon, cornwall and the Cops worlds as well, you can get some really narrow, little and high hedges so you can't necessarily see who's around the corner.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: So it's always a little bit.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, I have to admit, even though I drove for years in the UK.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: I do get dug to drive now when we go back.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah so what sort of accommodation options did you choose?
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Matt?
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Well, for the for the most part we we did airbnbs.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: So the basically the first, maybe two-thirds of the trip we were in a airbnbs, so in London and through the Through the Lake District, and then the last part of the trip, after we were a Chatsworth house, we stayed at a kind of a lovely little Inn.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: That was nice and we actually had Dinner there as well, which was nice, and then in Cambridge itself we stayed at the Holiday Inn and that that was kind of the end of our trip.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of a mix, I guess, but mostly mostly Airbnb's and that's useful I mean, obviously, when you travel my kids as well because you've got access to a washing machine, you can get get things washed and and sorted.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Especially we've got three, three kids that you're taking Around is going to be, I guess, trying to pack, for I'm just at the moment I'm packing for a trip and it's like just for myself and I remember because I've only got one daughter, but I just remember trying to pack for her as well and think, oh, I don't have too much luggage.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: So when there's two adults and three kids, I guess when it comes to Putting the packing together and thinking what you're going to take, at least when you've got an Airbnb, you know you can do some washing along the way- Exactly, exactly.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: So we, we planned that, that we, you know, we wouldn't, you know, take clothes for the whole trip, that we would, we would take enough Planning that we could get some, get some laundry done along the way, and so that was.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: That was good, and I'm just having a little bit more space in Airbnb where you have a place to kind of sit, and we didn't end up doing too much like cooking in the Airbnb's when we were there, although like maybe a couple nights we did but but it was nice also to have that option as well, yeah, absolutely have a kitchen yeah, so well, kind of go into food.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So how did you find the food with any kind of standout meals, restaurants, places that you ate, different types of foods that you had?
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we really, we really liked the food a lot.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think a couple of standouts were when we were in London.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Again, kind of a splurge that we, that my wife and I did, we our anniversary happened to fall during our trip and so we, we went on a, we went on a date to a restaurant called a Wong, which is like a two Michelin star restaurant in London, a Chinese restaurant, and it was just amazing, amazing food.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: So that definitely that definitely stood out.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Another restaurant that we really, that the whole family really enjoyed, was in in Keswick, in In the Lake District, a restaurant called fell pack.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: What was had, really good food Kind of a variety of cuisines, but it was, it was really good.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: But we also wanted to, you know, try a lot of traditional British food while we were there.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: So you know, we had fish and chips, we did afternoon tea in the Cotswolds in and still on the wall that Lucy's oh.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we enjoyed that a lot.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: And then I mentioned the, the place that we stayed after.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: We were at Chatsworth house.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: We did this a Sunday roast there's as as well.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: That was that was.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: That was excellent and then I.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Something that I've heard heard from the podcast and and and from you was that we definitely wanted to make sure we took advantage of a meal deal.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: So actually that that, that that last night where we went to see the play in Cambridge, we, we went to Sainsbury and got our meal deals and did it, did kind of a picnic on the on the grounds there, so that was.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: That was really a good experience as well.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the great, great bargain.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely that the great way to where to go, and we do that for every launch.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: We go to Marksons pencil, say, which Tesco, whichever one were beside, and we go and get a meal deal.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: So it's if you're listening and you're not sure what a meal deal is basically you get a sandwich and you can have a practice, or some fruit and a drink for a set price and there's such a good deal on them out.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: This is such a good way to to save money.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: And really, yeah, I really it really is we, we, yeah, we we thought it was great and then, yeah, it's something.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, they don't really have in the in the in the states, so no, don't have it in Australia, right there, wish they did, because they're, they're, they are really, really a good bargain.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: And and Get variety as well, because we usually go and choose different type of sandwich and then we'll swap, so they'll have half or one, and I love the other and you can have that variety.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: So it's really good.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: So I guess it was anything that surprised you about the UK.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I know you said you've been London before, but there's anything that you went.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, this isn't what I was expecting.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: I was surprised in a nice way.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Well, I, what one thing?
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess we already talked about this one thing was that was the narrowness of some of the roads kind of surprised me.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: I Mean, I thought in general ever, I mean the the people that we encountered were super friendly, but that wasn't very too surprising.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I was kind of kind of expecting that.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: But but but friendly people everywhere we went, I thought, but not too many surprises actually, I mean it was, it was kind of it met our expectations in a good way.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's good, that's good, I think.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I think we give lots of preparation to everybody for in the group or read our resources or listen at the Podcast.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: We're kind of like we're giving you all their stuff that you need to know if you're gonna go.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: So is there anything?
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: that's right.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Is there anything that you would plan to do differently next time?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Anything you change or it just all went, sounds like it all went.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Just really really good, so but but yeah it went really well.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I think the the only thing that I would maybe change was maybe Give us a little bit more discretionary time and, like London for example, we were, we were really packed and On the one hand that was kind of needed because we want to see these things, we needed to kind of.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: But I felt like I think the kids were saying this to the felt a little bit Russian.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: So I think maybe you know, putting in like planning a little time to just have to kind of wonder about a little bit more, would it maybe the next time I was something I would do you a little bit more?
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I think that's always the thing with London.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Everybody always tries, and I do exactly the same.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I mean it's always try to do so much, there's so much to see and you're going to want to pack it all in and do it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: So I think it's it's, and I think that's one of the most common kind of mistakes people make.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Going to London is trying to just cram in as much as you can, and then you also don't realize how tiring it is.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I find London you just tiring, getting around, walking, there's just lots of people.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: It's just a bit busier experience, isn't it?
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Where's you got the lake district and it's a bit more relaxing.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, that's true, and I think I mean I definitely kind of knew that coming in and so I wanted to plan.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: you know, I think initially I had even planned more than I tried to pair it down, and I think I would have even kind of Paired it down just a little bit more but it sounds, honestly sounds like you've had a fabulous trip, really fabulous tip, and you said some wonderful photos and the Facebook group as well, which and I remember just because it's just as I say, it's just such a court, and me because you'd been to Northumberland and Hadrian's wall and that always just makes me go.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: That's, that's wonderful that you included that, and so I was in the podcast with this one question that.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: So what is the one tip that you'd give to anyone planning a trip to the UK for the first time?
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the tip that I would give this is kind of the very broad tip, but I'm definitely a believer in the saying I don't know if you've heard this if you, if you failed a plan, you plan to fail, this idea that you really that planning really does make a difference.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: I know, you know, a year before we went to to the UK we did kind of a big trip in the United States, a big road trip, and I plan that really well because a prior trip I hadn't planned as much.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: And so I think I realize the planning really makes a big difference.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I mean just, for example, like for food, if you, even if you just kind of do some research about the food options before you go, you're not just stuck it on, you know, on the evening and say, oh, what we want to eat, and then you kind of end up eating something maybe that's not the greatest.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Just a little bit of planning and research into, like, what are the options.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: And then if you, if it's something you really want to do, then you make a reservation right and so that that that's, that's definitely.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: And then I think also Along the same lines for the, for the London sites, you know, booking, booking in advance and even doing the time to entry bookings, really for us it say it saves a lot of time, right, because you, you don't have to wait in lines.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think you know we did a lot of different things in London but I think the amount and this was in in late July, so kind of a busy time and I think the total amount of time that we were waiting in lines was maybe half an hour or something like that, because we had the time to entry tickets and so we were able to get in pretty quickly.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, just as a quick example, with the, you know, we did, we decided to do the Tower of London on a Saturday morning and we got, we got right in the first slot on Saturday morning.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: We did, we saw, we wanted to see, but I was a little bit worried about about making it too close, but I went ahead and made an appointment to do the London Bridge experience as well as well.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Tower.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Bridge, tower Bridge, sorry, tower Bridge.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, I, yes, yes.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: I Tower Bridge experience, yeah and so and it actually ended up working perfectly, because I think maybe we could have stayed a little bit longer at the Tower of London, but the amount of time it saved us to.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: When we went to the Tower Bridge there was a big line and but because we had a prebooked tickets, we just went right in and it saved us a ton of time.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: So I guess again, I guess my tip is you know, figure out what you want to do and then the big things that are really important to you, you know, book them in advance, get the time to entry tickets.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: It gives you maybe a little bit less flexibility, but the amount of time that it saves you because you're not waiting in lines is huge.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and he wants to wait in lines when you're on holiday.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: I don't, that's too many things to say Absolutely.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Oh well, I have to say thanks so much, matt, for agreeing to come on the podcast this episode and share your itinerary and tips from your visit to the UK.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: It's been fantastic to talk to you.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been great talking with you and thanks so much for for the podcast and the Facebook group.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: It was incredibly helpful for us to plan the trip, so thanks so much.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Thanks, matt Once again.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, matt, for coming on to this episode of the podcast and sharing your itinerary and experiences of your trip to the UK this last summer.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: You can find links to places that Matt talked about in this episode in the show notes at UKTravelPlanetcom.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Forward slash episode 76.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: And I'd like to extend an invitation for you all to join our friendly Facebook community.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: You will find loads and loads of resources and advice and friendly people there willing to help you plan your trip.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Until next week, all I can say is happy UK travel planning.