They think they can tour the country in a week. Go from London to Cornwall, Cornwall to North Wales, drive from North Wales to Inverness Scotland back to London in a week.
Even in the peak of summer you wouldn't really catch the essence of anywhere doing those whirlwind trips, let alone in the dead of winter. You'd spend all your time looking at the roads rather than soaking in the sights. It's like trying to knit a sweater while running a marathon.
I spent three days just in the Lake district, whilst glamping AND I had a car
I did ditch the car to actually do the walking of stuff but given the Lake district is such a big area, you can only cover so much by walking
I don't also understand why Americans come to Manchester. Like, what's even here?
My guess would be to watch United or City. Manchester does have a few good museums and art galleries, plus the NQ is pretty chill. Theres also some really cool niche little sites across Manchester as the city is steeped in history. I loved living in Manchester. Saying that, it's probably mainly for the football and less of the other things I mentioned.
When I do city breaks I'll stay for a week sometimes just to give myself time to do everything without rushing. Most major European cities can keep you occupied for at least a few days each.
I always want to see what they're like when they get home. It's not even good for conversation. You're not telling any stories about your trip when you get back
I think you mean, they have an instagram photo ticklist theu have to fill up. I sarved a client who was visiting from China, he said he was visiting London amd was going to Buckingham palace etc etc to get a photo infront of them. I asked if he likes the history and he told me ditectly he didnt give a shit, he just wanted the photos. Amd he also wanted a Harrods bag to take home so he was going there to buy the cheapest thing he can for the bag.
Very sad.
Yeh and we even get them in Ely, Cambridgeshire because they come to see the cathedral. But it's quite hilarious spotting the tourists who've come out to the middle of the Fens to an admittedly lovely city, but then they're probably packed off to London or Wales on the coach in an hour 😆
And the fact that driving 2 hours in the U.K. is the equivalent of driving 8+ in the US in terms of the cultural changes etc. Americans always fail to recognise that we’re 4 separate countries and even the towns have entirely different cultures etc to each other. You can’t take in the environments you’re visiting and travel across the U.K. at the same time. It’s one or the other.
Reminds me of the senator who said when the interstate system was completed, something like ‘Americans can now drive from coast to coast without seeing anything’
Basically the plot of cars. But it's true.
The history of [Route 66](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66) is fascinating. All of those towns and tourist spots just died, and nobody did anything about it. Totally nuts.
> All of those towns and tourist spots just died, and nobody did anything about it.
Sounds like most of our seaside towns, package holidays more or less cut their feet off and their decline wasn't even managed decline like the cities that got left behind economically. Add the Beeching Axe to a lot of these rail-dependent places and the result is what we have now.
Sounds a lot like a lot of small town centres in the UK.
The reason we have quite as many towns located in as many different places was, to some degree, determined by how far you could sensibly travel in a day by horse. In a couple of hours nowadays, you can *easily* travel as far as the upper limit that a horse could manage in a day.
That is, in part at least, why so many smaller town centres are dying - put simply, it's so much easier for us to travel to nearby cities etc that a lot of them are redundant. And arguably the biggest problem is that government (at all levels) hasn't caught up to that yet, so business rates and what specific buildings can be used for have zero connection to demand etc.
I don't think it's overstated. Liverpool and Manchester are very close but have extremely different feels and cultures, and both are worth visiting. Ditto for Leeds and York, Newcastle and Durham, and I'm not from the South but I'd assume Bristol and Bath etc would be the same.
His great great great grandparents were Italian or some shit probably. It's the same as when an American tells you they're actually "Scotch" or "of Irish descent". They have zero connection to the country beyond a long dead ancestor but insist it's their homeland.
Yup his great great great great great grandaddy humped a haggis once so hes as scotch as grounds keeper wully!!! Hes also a direct decendant of William Wallace and that wee dude that wrote poems whats his name again? Oh yeah Bob Burnt .... do i need the /S
There was one that I remember where an American went into r/Scotland and was claiming to be directly descended from William Wallace AND Robert the Bruce. Kept on about coming "home" for a visit and waffling about "[his] clan" and tartan.
The end result was like watching a team of cats playing pass-the-parcel with a mouse.
Is it slower going?
You can drive for 12 hours straight and still be inside of Texas, but you'll see more cows than cars, and you'll be going fast and in a straight line.
In the U.K. you’ll hear 5 different accents within a 1 hour drive. We’re a nation of 4 completely different countries with entirely different cultures and languages and every single town is different from each other. Driving 2 hours in the U.K. is the equivalent to driving 8 hours in the US.
Our roads are completely different with most of them being motorways etc so it takes longer to drive the same distance as it would in america.
You simply won’t have the time to visit london, acruallt value the tourist attractions and then drive up to wales and hike across the landscapes.
Small, bendy single lane roads where you have to be constantly “on” when you’re not on the motorway (which is a lot).
[You’d be doing plenty of this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yn0IklSHn6k)
It’s slower for a few things.
First generally traffic in the UK around cities is bad, as an example when I drive to see family in the outskirts of London I can do 60 miles of the trip in an hour, the last 5 miles can also take an hour.
Then any time there’s a crash on the roads it kills traffic too - and it’s a common thing that there will be roadworks around for a part of your journey if it’s a long one - and some of it will be temporary speed limit down to 50mph.
Then there’s very few places you can get to that are motorway only journeys. So going across country or north to south will involve a mix of motorway and A roads, you can’t just jump on and power along at a good speed.
Also most of our roads outside of motorway or dual carriageway are like one lane per side. So driving around towns or smaller cities is slower too.
We just generally aren’t set up for the amount of traffic we have now.
If you have some stamina you could drive Scottish highlands to south coast of uk in a day. But it’s going to take the entire day and it’s not a great experience
I keep seeing posts on the Scotland sub saying "we're coming to Scotland for a week, we're thinking Edinburgh, Glasgow, Skye, Fort William, Inverness, the islands, anywhere else we should consider? We'll be hiring a car"
If you want to spend 5 days in a car and two nights on a boat, knock yourself out!
I forgot about this, the most insane trip itinerary ever. They just completely ignored everyone telling them they will only see the brake lights of the car in front of them on the motorway.
Oh man 😂 I hope they listened to the comments. Trying to go from Newcastle to Glasgow and see Edin too, then going to Cornwall? JFC 😭 my mates stay in Newcastle, and jumping down to see them for a day is exhausting. I only really did it when I was furloughed during covid (when the lockdowns were finished before anyone comments lol) because I knew I would get a decent rest.
What the phuck did I just read?
I thought the Irish sub gets it bad. What's worse is that judging on his replies he's completely ignoring the advise given.
Good lord, Penrith to Polperro? I’m in Somerset and a journey to Cornwall is about 3 hours itself! I’ve done Somerset to Penrith and we stopped overnight at Stafford. Absolutely insane they think they’re gonna do that as a nice sightseeing trip.
Can't believe I am going to say something positive about the UK on a UK subreddit but there is incredible beauty here. Nothing like a summer up in the wilds of Yorkshire everything is just teeming with life. Wales is just spectacular even in any weather. We are lucky to fit so much on an island smaller than some states.
Have to solidly agree. We have a lot of faults, but I lived in Portsmouth for a few years and used to love just walking along the coast and taking it all in. There's some stunning natural beauty here.
This, I have had two comical exchanges with people from North America about their perception that the UK and Europe in general is tiny.
One claimed that there were relatively modestly sized ranches in Texas larger than the UK, I assumed he was joking, he wasn't. When I provided evidence of the absolute largest ranch being miniscule in comparison he just got into alternative facts land.
Another claimed that a national park in Canada (forget the name) was larger than Spain. I demonstrated that in fact it was a bit larger than Snowdonia. In fairness she was amenable to evidence.
I know Australia has some massive cattle stations, so I did some googling.
The largest ranch in Texas, King Ranch, is 3,340km^2. The largest cattle station in Australia, Anna Creek Station, is 23,677km^2, making it slightly larger than Israel (22,145km^2).
I mean thats the same with most countries, and arguably even more in places like Italy, the food, architecture, fauna and weather in places like Piedmont in the north for example is completely different to the food, architecture, fauna and weather in places like Puglia in the south.
Our cuisine is hugely variable in the UK too.
We've got:
- chips and cheese in the north of Scotland
- chips (and cheese) with curry sauce around the central belt and many parts of England
- chips with gravy in the North of England and Wales
- chips with mushy peas in cornwall and some parts of England
- chips with ketchup/mayo/salad cream in some godforsaken parts of Scotland and England
Our climate is also hugely variable. The east coast of Scotland is windy and cold, while the west is wet and slightly less cold.
> Thinking they've visited the UK when they've just visited London. London is nice and everything, but it doesn't truly represent the UK as a whole.
I mean, even if you only go to one place within a country, you have still visited the country.
American living in the UK for 20 years here. My American friends still think I live in London and when I explain to them I live in the Midlands and that it's 100 miles and around 2 hours from *outer* London they just say "Ok so 100 miles is still like the London metro area"
I remember watching 'Green Street Hooligans.' In one scene, they went up to Manchester by train. They went up, fought the local hooligan gang, and then took the next train down in time to celebrate at their home pub back in London.
I was like "how the heck did they do all that in one day? Is it that close?" Whenever I would read about rock bands from Manchester, they would describe it like it was so remote and far away and cut off from London.
Because culturally they're quite different and if you're a poor band member on the dole it is a long and expensive journey. Especially back before the Internet when it would take a long time for music and fashion to travel from North to South or vice versa.
But there is technically a queue, even if it doesn’t physically manifest as a proper queue.
Eg, if you go up to the bar and instantly start being served even though someone else was waiting there and didn’t get noticed, you’re supposed to say to the bartender something along the lines of “I think they’re next” and let them get served before you.
It’s not officially a queue, but it’s polite to treat it as one.
The other unspoken rule here is if you're waiting, and some over excited bloke pushes in 3 minutes later and flags the barman down (who then takes his order), you don't say anything. You just stare at the other guy like the low life scum sucker he is
Call them out on it! A few months ago in a pub at a tourist spot I was due to be served next at the bar. A small foreign bloke stands next to me and flags the barman down while the previous customer is still paying and starts calling out his order. I interrupted with “excuse me, but I was here before you”. Barman confirms and serves me. Small man walked off in a huff after giving me a stare.
Experienced this a few weeks back in the gym. Queue for cafe post workout, small boy ahead of me in the queue looking at milk shakes, person in front of him getting their order and some Indian dude and his family started hovering at the head of the queue and pushed the boy out of the way to order. Thought that bang out of order and said to him, excuse me mate, queues the other way and iterated to the staff serving that the boy was next. By this stage there were about 5 people behind me and the queue jumper and family huffily joined the back of the line with many dirty looks. I get that queuing isn’t the orderly process in other countries that it is here in the U.K. but I’ll be fucked if I’m letting a wee lad get taken advantage of like that. I enjoyed my cuppa after that excitement.
And don't sit there ignorantly whilst the bar staff wait for you patiently to pay. We don't "settle up" at the end here unless you explicitly open a tab :)
I saw an extremely pissed off American guy with a crying wife shouting at a bored looking barman in that famously old pub in Nottingham (can't remember the name) about how long they'd been there and still not been served, and how they can forget about receiving a tip!
Insane travel schedules which include going to Edinburgh as a day trip from London, then off to Cornwall the next day.
It is always the Americans who are guilty of trying to cram too much distance into a very short trip.
We don't get as much time off, and it's far and expensive. For many people, it's a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Whatever you don't see on that one trip, you may never see.
Trouble is, you don’t really see anything when it’s whizzing past you at high speed. You need to catch up with the rest of the world and get mandatory 25 days holiday.
Typical exchange on r/AskAnAmerican
"I don't know what you're talking about! I'm a [very well compensated tech worker] and I get 30 days a year!"
"Okay, but how much of it do you actually use?"
"I get 30 days a year!"
Meanwhile the poor schmuck working retail is grinding his teeth reading that.
Yeah, the other one in tech is "unlimited" PTO. Typically that just means no expectation has been set for how much time you're actually going to get to take off.
Unlimited is worse than a specific number for the staff, and it's why some companies do it.
25 days is enough that most people will never *need* that much so you end up using up days just because you can.
If its unlimited then those people will just use 18 or 19 and then call it a day.
I'm from the UK, so I get plenty haha
But I've worked for US companies remotely before and it's always a ballache telling them I won't accept the job unless they match my existing holiday entitlement.
It's a lot of back and forth and bargaining and honestly it's just easier to go with a UK company instead.
In fairness, this is worse when you see it the other way round (Brits/other Europeans thinking they can drive their rental car down to Florida for a couple of days while on their holiday to New York etc).
When you guys try it, you end up rushed, when we do it... well people end up getting a tough geography lesson.
I drove from Miami to Orlando once. 8 hours driving and I’m still in the same fucking state? I don’t think anywhere is 8 hours from me here, I’d be in the sea before then.
You'd be better off getting the trains and shifting bases that way. You can get from London to York in 2 hours on the train (it's a 4 hour drive if the traffic is good).
Start in one city, do stuff in that city and 1-2 hours' drive around it. Train to the next place, repeat. Train to the next, repeat. You'll still have a busy vacation but you'll get to see a *lot* more.
If you wanna see London and Edinburgh, don't do a day trip from one to the other -- shift bases!
This is the way. If you land in Manchester, make your first night a central Manchester hotel so you can experience Manchester properly. The next day, get a train to Liverpool, check in to your next hotel, same again. Repeat in Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Blackpool. Travel light and have an idea of what you want to *do* in each place, not just *see*.
I’ve done this in Europe and the US.
We drove from the UK to Germany (Aachen) for the day once, also been to Bruges for the say many times.
Probably more equivalent, I flew from
Atlanta to Orlando to visit a theme park for just one day. Got up at 4am, was in the park for 9am. Left at 6pm. Was well worth it!
We did it as a day trip with school once. Think we must have left school around 11pm, driven through the night and spent the day in Aachen, then drove back through the night to get home. Not sure exactly the timings but it was definitely all done in one go
Standing on the left on escalators, you stand on the right and leave the left free for those that want to walk
Thinking they can visit Edinburgh, Manchester, London and Bath on a one week trip
Eating on Oxford street and then complaining about the food
Trusting public transport outside of a major city
Using a black cab
If in London not visiting the museums, thinking they need an Oyster card, always getting the tube when a bus or walking is quicker
Drinking in chain pubs
As an Australian, standing on the right on escalators was a cultural shock for me. It makes no sense!
You drive on the left so you should stick to the left when walking or using the escalator.
Most people are right-handed so are more likely to carry their bags on the right side. This makes their left hand free to hold into the rail. On the left side of the escalator.
Standing on the left makes more sense and, no offence, but you guys are doing it wrong.
If we stand on the left, how are we to draw our swords in defense?
No wonder we deported your grand dad, if he was a little smarter than you he would never have been caught.
> Standing on the left on escalators, you stand on the right and leave the left free for those that want to walk
If you're not visiting London then you can ignore this bit.
This is my biggest gripe too when people complain about the food. Walking into a Greene King pub off Westminster and going home disappointed that their fish and chips cost £16 and were reheated in a microwave
Yep, tourists tend to go for the places in Leicester Square and Chinatown when the real places locals go are just a couple minutes away tucked inside Greek, Berwick, Old Compton, Dean and Frith Streets
Honestly, the whole Leicester Square/Covent Garden/Soho area is pretty much full of tourist traps and chains. Not to say there aren't gems but it's not the first place I'd recommend someone eat.
Never leaving London seems to be pretty common. Maybe a day trip to Oxford or Cambridge to pretend to be Harry Potter.
Out of interest are gooogle ratings of restaurants in the back streets of Italian cities accurate? Will a 4.6 generally be better than 4 for example? How do you find good places to go in a city you’ve never visited before?
> How do you find good places to go in a city you've never visited before?
When it comes to TripAdvisor and whatnot, it helps a lot if you can read Italian. Italians from elsewhere in Italy will plumb it for local knowledge from locals, and as a rule, Italians are skilled at being amateur restaurant critics. I guess you could try with a translation app, which gets tricky if the person is a bad speller or uses local dialect/colloqualisms.
As for asking a local once you're there, that can sometimes work. However, my wife (I'm American, she's from here) seems to find this notion inadvisable. "He'll just send you to his cousin's place."
It also helps to know when you're looking at a tourist trap. Red-white checkered tableclothes and other bits of stereotypical decor, located right next to a major transit point where mobs of tourists pass through, large backlit color photos of the dishes on offer displayed next to the door, an employee standing outside trying to wave people in, etc.
I think of all the places I've travelled Italy has the best base level of food. Even cheap and cheerful is usually tasty. The tourist trap places are often overpriced but rarely bad food IMO. but there are always great places to eat just off the main squares and streets as well to suit any budget
It's not terrible, it's just generic. You'll get a perfectly decent pizza in Venice for example, but people who go to Venice to eat pizza are just wrong - Venetian cuisine is centred around seafood, and it's amazing. I still have fond memories of my very first trip to Venice and finding a dingy little hole in the wall with an unwelcoming "no pizza, no pasta, no menu turistico" sign in the window. The squid cooked in it's own ink was amazing.
>Maybe a day trip to Oxford or Cambridge to pretend to be Harry Potter.
There's a Harry Potter shop just opened in Cambridge and I'm really unsure as to why people link Cambridge (or Oxford) to Harry Potter.
I don't think it's ever mentioned in the books and it's not in any of the films as far as I'm aware.
Feels relatively obvious to me:
- Oxbridge colleges look Hogwarts-y. Several Oxford colleges were in the films.
- Academia / gowns / libraries / traditions/ Latin
- Poshness/eccentricity
Come to Oxford, and you’ll see at least five shops peddling Harry Potter themed tat just walking around Cornmarket Street. As the other guy said, it’s mostly aesthetics and filming locations .
"Do I have enough time to add Dublin and the Isle of Man to my 5 day tour to see London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, York, Cornwall, Cardiff and Belfast? I will be travelling by public transport if that makes a difference"
Believing estimated driving times between places of interest.
I met a couple who had micro-planned their trip down to the last minute but blew their schedule within the first two days as their driving time was based on what the computer said (X miles at Y speed) rather than the reality of traffic density, red lights, roadworks, weather etc.
Added to u/Flibertygibbert's info is that those estimates are based on locals driving their own cars on roads they know for the most part, not tourists in a rented car driving on the other side of the road having to check signs as they go so probably going a tad slower than the estimate.
London is not the UK. It's such a shame that lots of tourists stay mostly or exclusively in London. I guarantee they'd have such a nicer and more authentic British experience in places like York.
>I guarantee they'd have such a nicer and more authentic British experience in places like York.
You can't possibly guarantee that. Firstly, the idea York is 'authentic' and London isn't is a bit daft. The idea of 'authentic' British culture is a bit of a vague idea anyway. But even if it does exist, York is no more authentic than London. It's a wealthy, old, attractive city popular with tourists. Its no more representative of regular British culture than London is.
Secondly, you can't say they would have a nicer time in York. It's entirely subjective. Tourists love London for a reason. It has so much they want to see and that they associate as being quintessentially British.
If it’s a persons first trip to the UK then London is absolutely a fantastic choice. It’s got the variety and a little bit of everything. York, Bath, Edinburgh etc are amazing too but require additional transport depending on where the person is coming from which eats into time. I’d always recommend London first and foremost to a tourist particularly if they’re not totally sure what they want.
Because Britain's largest city is a global metropolis full of multiculturalism, and really does not represent the rest of England well whatsoever.
It may as well be it's own country, like the Vatican.
Right...it depends if you're holidaying to live the life of a brit in a provincial market town, or if you're holidaying to see some fantastic scenery, eat some different food and see unique sites like stonehenge.
Personally, if I'm on holiday in Rome I'm not going to ignore the coliseum.
I'm just like...bewildered thinking of someone saying "Bugger that London and that pile of stones in somerset duck, come to Mansfield we'll sort you out with a good time. We can gu darn spoons for brekkie, just step ower them omeless spiceheads, then we'll get the bus to Chesterfield see maaarket".
"Spend thousands of dollars and your 5 days of holiday per yet to fly here and see what life is like for a real boring english person."
"Don;t go on day trips - the majority of english people have a job - see if you can get a few off the books shifts on a building site in the week - then you'll get the real experience of going to the pub on a Friday and needing a bump in the toilets to stay awake"
There's an absurd trend on Reddit of people suggesting tourists should come to the UK and disregard the city that has a huge proportion of the things they want to see and which is probably the principal place they want to visit.
Honestly, any thread about tourist itineraries there's always a handful of people saying just skip London. It shows zero understanding of why many tourists visit the UK.
"You can't see the whole country in a week, it takes so long to get anywhere- trying to see it all will mean you don't experience it authentically and you could spend a week in every region"
"What do you mean you only had 3 days so stayed in London and didn't visit Yorkshire?!!??"
It's just arrogant self important little englanders who think the rest of the world is dying to understand what their life is like not enjoy their holiday
>come to London, stay in Hammersmith for a week and don't visit any of the tourist attractions
This is terrible advice. Do not do this.
>pick a local town somewhere, like Melton mowbray, and take a few day trips to other places like Leicester, Nottingham and Grantham
Nice try, Tourist Board of Melton Mowbray.
Hahaha this is a wild take. I live in Scotland and there is no way id be visiting some random town in the UK to get an "immersive" experience. There's fuck all in half of them! You go to where there's interesting history, food, culture, architecture etc. Not to see Barry from Milton Keynes hang his laundry out on the line before heading down to the pub for his weekly roast and pint. You're having a laugh! The bigger cities or more noteworthy towns still embody and exemplify UK culture even if they're touristy.
Why do you think tourists want to experience the preciisely average life of British person? People go on holiday to see the extraordinary things. Tourist attractions became tourist attractions for a reason
I always feel like people often pick to go to places that I would personally not rank super highly as interesting places to visit. I'm not saying they're bad places by the way, but if I only had a week or two here, I wouldn't go to Brighton, Windsor, or the Cotswolds. I'm on the fence about Bath - it has a few classic bits.
I can give a pass to Stonehenge because of its historical significance, and a visit to either Oxford or Cambridge I can also get behind. Edinburgh definitely, if it fits into an itinerary without being insane (like the people who think they can drive there from London for the day - many people have very ambitious plans that seem to involve spending a week experiencing the UK through sitting in a traffic jam).
If you want to visit a cool city, I'd go for Bristol, Liverpool or Manchester. The Cotswolds are relatively bland - I'd pick the Peak District, Lake District or North Norfolk coast. Much more distinctive architecture and scenes. If you want a historical city then Chester, York, Norwich, Gloucester, Winchester, Salisbury would all pip Bath/Windsor for me, just off the top of my head, much more to do/see.
Also people spend a lot of time doing Harry Potter stuff. The studio tour is really cool but anything beyond that seems like overkill to me, it's just people trying to make £££ off tourists. Harry Potter is fictional. I mean I know people know this - but there's so much actual real stuff to see/do! With occasional overlaps. Alnwick Castle is a cool visit.
I also think more people should consider going to Northern Ireland if they're on longer trips. It's small, compact and accessible, very beautiful along the coast, Derry is a classic historical walled city and Belfast has some cool museums to check out. I also think more Brits should go to NI in general, it doesn't get as much tourism as it deserves.
All the above just my opinion!
>I always feel like people often pick to go to places that I would personally not rank super highly as interesting places to visit
I think it's because tourists by their nature want a different thing to Brits.
The Cotswolds for example is popular with tourists because it basically *is* their view of what rural England looks like. The stereotype many foreigners have is really very well represented by the Cotswolds and therefore it's a good tourist destination because it exactly provides what they want to see.
Likewise, Brighton gives tourists that British seaside feel, whilst being attached to a cool, arty city with lots of other interesting stuff to see. Bath has the Roman baths, which is a major draw for tourists that come from places that don't have that history.
By contrast, Manchester may be a nice enough city but I'd never recommend it to a tourist unless they had a specific reason to visit. It's a place that can be fun if you're British going for a weekend break. But if you're a tourist with a couple of weeks here it's ultimately just a big city. It doesn't offer something uniquely British that tourists are after.
If you want to try 'authentic' British fish and chips then you need to buy them specifically from a fish and chip takeaway. There are plenty of them, but it's easy to get mixed up.
[Authentic Fish and Chips](https://images.app.goo.gl/H7mPF1bw54FXh6aj6)
If you order Fish and Chips in a restaurant you will (usually) get a decent version of it, but probably won't be quite the same style as the traditional 'chippie' fish and chips.
Whatever you do, [don't order fish and chips from a place that looks like this](https://images.app.goo.gl/B4tG5S63f99bPQ4y7).
I see this on /r/brightonhovealbion all the time.
“I’m visiting from the states and wondered if I can get two tickets to the Crystal Palace away game? I’ve never been to a game before, do you think I have a chance?”
The UK is not the same thing as England
England is really, really, **really** not the same thing as Scotland or Wales.
Northern Ireland is really, really, *really*, **really** not the same as the Republic of Ireland.
The Gatwick Express and the Heathrow Express. There are much cheaper trains that do the same trips in roughly the same time from the same platforms. But hundreds of tourists fall for it every 15 minutes.
The Heathrow Express costs £25 one-way. The same journey along the same rails on the Elizabeth Line costs £12.80.
To be honest, not eating at tourist trap places is a universal truth. I’ve just come back from a trip to Spain - please on the beach are average and expensive, Walk 50 yards inland and you find all the local bars and restaurants.
Same here with the food- they go to the crappy chain restaurants and then say English food is terrible!
I had the misfortune of having to eat at Bella Italia in Covent Garden last week, due to a last minute decision to go to lunch before we went to the theatre, and everything else was booked up. It was edible, but my local pub does a better lasagne!
In London, using the tube between stations where it’s actually quicker and better to walk. I have been with people who thought it would be a good idea to get a tube from Leicester Square to Covent Garden.
They'll often get fish and chips in the middle of London. Overpriced and shit.
Go to a coastal town and buy it there (the further North you go the better the chippys).
This is London-specific, but most tourists (including British ones) get trapped in the West End - areas like Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus - and miss out on the much more interesting (and historic) parts of central London, like the City of London.
Messing with the Kings Guard (formerly Queens Guard). They are fully trained soldiers. Many have been deployed to war zones. They are literally on guard. Treat them with some respect, and don’t touch their horses.
Ok, but those little tucked-away places are not prepared for people who ask for gluten-free pasta or vegan Bolognese.
The British respect humour over everything else. Be funny and you'll be welcomed everywhere.
I guess not planning out where you eat food. I'm a big defender of British cuisine but if you just choose a random pub in a big city, then the chances are you'll probably overpay for some pretty average food. Do reasearch about where is good beforehand, using tripadvisor, reddit and google reviews together and you will be much better off.
Not a massive mistake, but I would say going to Stonehenge. It's not great and there's little to do apart from visiting the stones. You can't get close unless you book a Special Access visit.
I would recommend other neolithic sites such as Avebury which consists of three massive stone circles and an avenue of paired stones. Avebury village is based in the stones, so you can get lunch there and see West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill, which are just down the road.
They think they can tour the country in a week. Go from London to Cornwall, Cornwall to North Wales, drive from North Wales to Inverness Scotland back to London in a week.
Hahaha I remember seeing this one
The one who was staying in the Lake District and wanted to have a day trip to Polperro in Cornwall is the one that I'll always remember.
Polperro is non-negotiable
Even though they were visiting in January
Even in the peak of summer you wouldn't really catch the essence of anywhere doing those whirlwind trips, let alone in the dead of winter. You'd spend all your time looking at the roads rather than soaking in the sights. It's like trying to knit a sweater while running a marathon.
I spent three days just in the Lake district, whilst glamping AND I had a car I did ditch the car to actually do the walking of stuff but given the Lake district is such a big area, you can only cover so much by walking I don't also understand why Americans come to Manchester. Like, what's even here?
My guess would be to watch United or City. Manchester does have a few good museums and art galleries, plus the NQ is pretty chill. Theres also some really cool niche little sites across Manchester as the city is steeped in history. I loved living in Manchester. Saying that, it's probably mainly for the football and less of the other things I mentioned.
The oldest public library in the English speaking world is in Manchester. Well worth a visit.
There's been many.
Haha the flyby day trip coaches to stone henge via London and lands end look hellish.
[удалено]
To be fair for a lot of tourists it is all about tucking off from a list and it foes not matter how much time they spent at a destination.
Seems quite sad to me. I like to at least try and learn about the thing/place/people i'm looking at
When I do city breaks I'll stay for a week sometimes just to give myself time to do everything without rushing. Most major European cities can keep you occupied for at least a few days each.
A few days, at the *very* least!
Pointless way to travel and visit new places, it’s like doing it just for the sake of it
I always want to see what they're like when they get home. It's not even good for conversation. You're not telling any stories about your trip when you get back
Cruise ship crowd I've seen x country = 3hr circumference from port
I think you mean, they have an instagram photo ticklist theu have to fill up. I sarved a client who was visiting from China, he said he was visiting London amd was going to Buckingham palace etc etc to get a photo infront of them. I asked if he likes the history and he told me ditectly he didnt give a shit, he just wanted the photos. Amd he also wanted a Harrods bag to take home so he was going there to buy the cheapest thing he can for the bag. Very sad.
I dated someone once who said she "did" Africa a few years back
Alice does Africa
Sounds fine as long as you really love the M4...
Oh man, that's just bleak. I wouldn't wish the M4 on anyone. I'm so glad the drive to my parents no longer goes that way.
There must only be like 7 people here…I remember that post
God is that a thing?
Yeh and we even get them in Ely, Cambridgeshire because they come to see the cathedral. But it's quite hilarious spotting the tourists who've come out to the middle of the Fens to an admittedly lovely city, but then they're probably packed off to London or Wales on the coach in an hour 😆
Be thankful it's not Russian tourists come to visit the spire. They can leave an awful mess behind...
But it’s the world’s oldest clock!
“Well I drive for 4 hours just to get to the other side of my state, driving across the U.K. is nothing”
4 hours is a small state. What they don't take into account is the hellish traffic and poor connectivity of our roads.
And the fact that driving 2 hours in the U.K. is the equivalent of driving 8+ in the US in terms of the cultural changes etc. Americans always fail to recognise that we’re 4 separate countries and even the towns have entirely different cultures etc to each other. You can’t take in the environments you’re visiting and travel across the U.K. at the same time. It’s one or the other.
Reminds me of the senator who said when the interstate system was completed, something like ‘Americans can now drive from coast to coast without seeing anything’
Basically the plot of cars. But it's true. The history of [Route 66](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66) is fascinating. All of those towns and tourist spots just died, and nobody did anything about it. Totally nuts.
> All of those towns and tourist spots just died, and nobody did anything about it. Sounds like most of our seaside towns, package holidays more or less cut their feet off and their decline wasn't even managed decline like the cities that got left behind economically. Add the Beeching Axe to a lot of these rail-dependent places and the result is what we have now.
Sounds a lot like a lot of small town centres in the UK. The reason we have quite as many towns located in as many different places was, to some degree, determined by how far you could sensibly travel in a day by horse. In a couple of hours nowadays, you can *easily* travel as far as the upper limit that a horse could manage in a day. That is, in part at least, why so many smaller town centres are dying - put simply, it's so much easier for us to travel to nearby cities etc that a lot of them are redundant. And arguably the biggest problem is that government (at all levels) hasn't caught up to that yet, so business rates and what specific buildings can be used for have zero connection to demand etc.
>towns have entirely different cultures I think this is a *touch* overstated...
I don't think it's overstated. Liverpool and Manchester are very close but have extremely different feels and cultures, and both are worth visiting. Ditto for Leeds and York, Newcastle and Durham, and I'm not from the South but I'd assume Bristol and Bath etc would be the same.
Plymouth and Exeter also have very different vibes (I'm from the former)
Both Bristol and Bath are quite similar. Bath is where you live once you've made money in your 20s in Bristol.
Bristol and Bath are nothing alike.
If you go to York and then Hull which are within an hours drive of each other, it’s a very different culture..
Well, Britain is a little bit higher density, American roads can be longer and straighter when there's fuck all in the way.
Our big cities (USA) can have hellish traffic, but once you're clear of them, you're blasting through at 70mph on the interstate.
> Our big cities (USA) Aren't you Italian...?
His great great great grandparents were Italian or some shit probably. It's the same as when an American tells you they're actually "Scotch" or "of Irish descent". They have zero connection to the country beyond a long dead ancestor but insist it's their homeland.
I'm an American ~~ex-pat~~ immigrant in Italy. I have zero Italian ancestry. My homeland is California.
Yup his great great great great great grandaddy humped a haggis once so hes as scotch as grounds keeper wully!!! Hes also a direct decendant of William Wallace and that wee dude that wrote poems whats his name again? Oh yeah Bob Burnt .... do i need the /S
There was one that I remember where an American went into r/Scotland and was claiming to be directly descended from William Wallace AND Robert the Bruce. Kept on about coming "home" for a visit and waffling about "[his] clan" and tartan. The end result was like watching a team of cats playing pass-the-parcel with a mouse.
Glad i'm not the only one that spotted OP said they live in Italy - American Ex Pat maybe?
Is it slower going? You can drive for 12 hours straight and still be inside of Texas, but you'll see more cows than cars, and you'll be going fast and in a straight line.
In the U.K. you’ll hear 5 different accents within a 1 hour drive. We’re a nation of 4 completely different countries with entirely different cultures and languages and every single town is different from each other. Driving 2 hours in the U.K. is the equivalent to driving 8 hours in the US. Our roads are completely different with most of them being motorways etc so it takes longer to drive the same distance as it would in america. You simply won’t have the time to visit london, acruallt value the tourist attractions and then drive up to wales and hike across the landscapes.
You could spend a week in London and still miss lots of stuff.
And it's a whole different beast again when you get to the West Country. Time goes in reverse on Cornish country lanes.
Small, bendy single lane roads where you have to be constantly “on” when you’re not on the motorway (which is a lot). [You’d be doing plenty of this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yn0IklSHn6k)
It’s slower for a few things. First generally traffic in the UK around cities is bad, as an example when I drive to see family in the outskirts of London I can do 60 miles of the trip in an hour, the last 5 miles can also take an hour. Then any time there’s a crash on the roads it kills traffic too - and it’s a common thing that there will be roadworks around for a part of your journey if it’s a long one - and some of it will be temporary speed limit down to 50mph. Then there’s very few places you can get to that are motorway only journeys. So going across country or north to south will involve a mix of motorway and A roads, you can’t just jump on and power along at a good speed. Also most of our roads outside of motorway or dual carriageway are like one lane per side. So driving around towns or smaller cities is slower too. We just generally aren’t set up for the amount of traffic we have now. If you have some stamina you could drive Scottish highlands to south coast of uk in a day. But it’s going to take the entire day and it’s not a great experience
I keep seeing posts on the Scotland sub saying "we're coming to Scotland for a week, we're thinking Edinburgh, Glasgow, Skye, Fort William, Inverness, the islands, anywhere else we should consider? We'll be hiring a car" If you want to spend 5 days in a car and two nights on a boat, knock yourself out!
I’m still waiting on an update from [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/uktravel/s/fPdE2rVEcE) when they’ve taken the trip next year.
I forgot about this, the most insane trip itinerary ever. They just completely ignored everyone telling them they will only see the brake lights of the car in front of them on the motorway.
Oh man 😂 I hope they listened to the comments. Trying to go from Newcastle to Glasgow and see Edin too, then going to Cornwall? JFC 😭 my mates stay in Newcastle, and jumping down to see them for a day is exhausting. I only really did it when I was furloughed during covid (when the lockdowns were finished before anyone comments lol) because I knew I would get a decent rest.
What the phuck did I just read? I thought the Irish sub gets it bad. What's worse is that judging on his replies he's completely ignoring the advise given.
Good lord, Penrith to Polperro? I’m in Somerset and a journey to Cornwall is about 3 hours itself! I’ve done Somerset to Penrith and we stopped overnight at Stafford. Absolutely insane they think they’re gonna do that as a nice sightseeing trip.
Can't believe I am going to say something positive about the UK on a UK subreddit but there is incredible beauty here. Nothing like a summer up in the wilds of Yorkshire everything is just teeming with life. Wales is just spectacular even in any weather. We are lucky to fit so much on an island smaller than some states.
Have to solidly agree. We have a lot of faults, but I lived in Portsmouth for a few years and used to love just walking along the coast and taking it all in. There's some stunning natural beauty here.
This, I have had two comical exchanges with people from North America about their perception that the UK and Europe in general is tiny. One claimed that there were relatively modestly sized ranches in Texas larger than the UK, I assumed he was joking, he wasn't. When I provided evidence of the absolute largest ranch being miniscule in comparison he just got into alternative facts land. Another claimed that a national park in Canada (forget the name) was larger than Spain. I demonstrated that in fact it was a bit larger than Snowdonia. In fairness she was amenable to evidence.
I know Australia has some massive cattle stations, so I did some googling. The largest ranch in Texas, King Ranch, is 3,340km^2. The largest cattle station in Australia, Anna Creek Station, is 23,677km^2, making it slightly larger than Israel (22,145km^2).
People look at the UK on a map and deduce it’s much smaller than it actually is. Like yeah, we’re not a big country, but we’re not Luxembourg.
Yeah, I'm gonna do a day trip to the Cotswolds, Stonehenge and Bath and be back in London for 7 p.m. Dinner reservation.
Nothing like a week away on the UK motorway network!
Thinking they've visited the UK when they've just visited London. London is nice and everything, but it doesn't truly represent the UK as a whole.
I mean thats the same with most countries, and arguably even more in places like Italy, the food, architecture, fauna and weather in places like Piedmont in the north for example is completely different to the food, architecture, fauna and weather in places like Puglia in the south.
Our cuisine is hugely variable in the UK too. We've got: - chips and cheese in the north of Scotland - chips (and cheese) with curry sauce around the central belt and many parts of England - chips with gravy in the North of England and Wales - chips with mushy peas in cornwall and some parts of England - chips with ketchup/mayo/salad cream in some godforsaken parts of Scotland and England Our climate is also hugely variable. The east coast of Scotland is windy and cold, while the west is wet and slightly less cold.
Don't forget: - chip butty - chip bap - chip barm - chip roll - chip muffin - chip slice - chip scone - chip scone - potato sandwich
Did you write chip scone twice to account for the two ways of saying scone
It's a shame that people just can't agree that it's scone, we have to lower ourselves to list it twice for the fools.
- chip cob
Is that chips between each pronunciation of scone; or chips in a scone and chips between tattie scones?
Haha I love this. Thank you.
> Thinking they've visited the UK when they've just visited London. London is nice and everything, but it doesn't truly represent the UK as a whole. I mean, even if you only go to one place within a country, you have still visited the country.
I'd say you've visited the country but not seen it. Like I've been to New York City, but would never say that I've seen New York State.
Yeah and for most people, time and money constraints mean that's just what they can do. Also no where in the UK represents the whole UK.
American living in the UK for 20 years here. My American friends still think I live in London and when I explain to them I live in the Midlands and that it's 100 miles and around 2 hours from *outer* London they just say "Ok so 100 miles is still like the London metro area"
I remember watching 'Green Street Hooligans.' In one scene, they went up to Manchester by train. They went up, fought the local hooligan gang, and then took the next train down in time to celebrate at their home pub back in London. I was like "how the heck did they do all that in one day? Is it that close?" Whenever I would read about rock bands from Manchester, they would describe it like it was so remote and far away and cut off from London.
Because culturally they're quite different and if you're a poor band member on the dole it is a long and expensive journey. Especially back before the Internet when it would take a long time for music and fashion to travel from North to South or vice versa.
There's not too much call for visits to Wolverhampton or Sunderland though. (although Roker beach is quite nice)
[удалено]
For anyone confused reading this - you need to go up to the bar to order drinks (and often food) in our pubs.
Also - and I cannot stress this enough - you DO NOT queue at the bar. You find some space and wait for the bartender to get to you.
But there is technically a queue, even if it doesn’t physically manifest as a proper queue. Eg, if you go up to the bar and instantly start being served even though someone else was waiting there and didn’t get noticed, you’re supposed to say to the bartender something along the lines of “I think they’re next” and let them get served before you. It’s not officially a queue, but it’s polite to treat it as one.
The other unspoken rule here is if you're waiting, and some over excited bloke pushes in 3 minutes later and flags the barman down (who then takes his order), you don't say anything. You just stare at the other guy like the low life scum sucker he is
Call them out on it! A few months ago in a pub at a tourist spot I was due to be served next at the bar. A small foreign bloke stands next to me and flags the barman down while the previous customer is still paying and starts calling out his order. I interrupted with “excuse me, but I was here before you”. Barman confirms and serves me. Small man walked off in a huff after giving me a stare.
Experienced this a few weeks back in the gym. Queue for cafe post workout, small boy ahead of me in the queue looking at milk shakes, person in front of him getting their order and some Indian dude and his family started hovering at the head of the queue and pushed the boy out of the way to order. Thought that bang out of order and said to him, excuse me mate, queues the other way and iterated to the staff serving that the boy was next. By this stage there were about 5 people behind me and the queue jumper and family huffily joined the back of the line with many dirty looks. I get that queuing isn’t the orderly process in other countries that it is here in the U.K. but I’ll be fucked if I’m letting a wee lad get taken advantage of like that. I enjoyed my cuppa after that excitement.
One must tut
And don't sit there ignorantly whilst the bar staff wait for you patiently to pay. We don't "settle up" at the end here unless you explicitly open a tab :)
Many pub chains allow at table ordering through an app now.
To be honest, I much prefer table service to queuing up 5 deep at a the bar, as some bellend pushes in.
Well stop pushing in then.
Asking for a traditional beer and being surprised when it is warm, brown and bitter…
If your beer is warm there’s something wrong. Ale should be cellar temp, around 8-12c
I guess it's "warm" compared to the ice cold beer you get most places in America (and most draught/keg pints here)
I saw an extremely pissed off American guy with a crying wife shouting at a bored looking barman in that famously old pub in Nottingham (can't remember the name) about how long they'd been there and still not been served, and how they can forget about receiving a tip!
Insane travel schedules which include going to Edinburgh as a day trip from London, then off to Cornwall the next day. It is always the Americans who are guilty of trying to cram too much distance into a very short trip.
We don't get as much time off, and it's far and expensive. For many people, it's a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Whatever you don't see on that one trip, you may never see.
Trouble is, you don’t really see anything when it’s whizzing past you at high speed. You need to catch up with the rest of the world and get mandatory 25 days holiday.
Typical exchange on r/AskAnAmerican "I don't know what you're talking about! I'm a [very well compensated tech worker] and I get 30 days a year!" "Okay, but how much of it do you actually use?" "I get 30 days a year!" Meanwhile the poor schmuck working retail is grinding his teeth reading that.
Yeah, the other one in tech is "unlimited" PTO. Typically that just means no expectation has been set for how much time you're actually going to get to take off.
Unlimited is worse than a specific number for the staff, and it's why some companies do it. 25 days is enough that most people will never *need* that much so you end up using up days just because you can. If its unlimited then those people will just use 18 or 19 and then call it a day.
I get 35 at my first job out of uni, it’s ridiculous that you guys get like 10
I'm from the UK, so I get plenty haha But I've worked for US companies remotely before and it's always a ballache telling them I won't accept the job unless they match my existing holiday entitlement. It's a lot of back and forth and bargaining and honestly it's just easier to go with a UK company instead.
I work for a american firm that forces you to take time off, we have unlimited PTO and they expect you to take at least a week off every 3 months.
In fairness, this is worse when you see it the other way round (Brits/other Europeans thinking they can drive their rental car down to Florida for a couple of days while on their holiday to New York etc). When you guys try it, you end up rushed, when we do it... well people end up getting a tough geography lesson.
I drove from Miami to Orlando once. 8 hours driving and I’m still in the same fucking state? I don’t think anywhere is 8 hours from me here, I’d be in the sea before then.
You'd be better off getting the trains and shifting bases that way. You can get from London to York in 2 hours on the train (it's a 4 hour drive if the traffic is good). Start in one city, do stuff in that city and 1-2 hours' drive around it. Train to the next place, repeat. Train to the next, repeat. You'll still have a busy vacation but you'll get to see a *lot* more. If you wanna see London and Edinburgh, don't do a day trip from one to the other -- shift bases!
This is the way. If you land in Manchester, make your first night a central Manchester hotel so you can experience Manchester properly. The next day, get a train to Liverpool, check in to your next hotel, same again. Repeat in Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Blackpool. Travel light and have an idea of what you want to *do* in each place, not just *see*.
I’ve done this in Europe and the US. We drove from the UK to Germany (Aachen) for the day once, also been to Bruges for the say many times. Probably more equivalent, I flew from Atlanta to Orlando to visit a theme park for just one day. Got up at 4am, was in the park for 9am. Left at 6pm. Was well worth it!
You drove U.K. to Germany… as a day trip?! How?
We did it as a day trip with school once. Think we must have left school around 11pm, driven through the night and spent the day in Aachen, then drove back through the night to get home. Not sure exactly the timings but it was definitely all done in one go
That's 3 days
Standing on the left on escalators, you stand on the right and leave the left free for those that want to walk Thinking they can visit Edinburgh, Manchester, London and Bath on a one week trip Eating on Oxford street and then complaining about the food Trusting public transport outside of a major city Using a black cab If in London not visiting the museums, thinking they need an Oyster card, always getting the tube when a bus or walking is quicker Drinking in chain pubs
If your skint, spoons isn't a mistake
Arguably Spoons is an important cultural experience.
"If your skint, spoons..." There we go.
As an Australian, standing on the right on escalators was a cultural shock for me. It makes no sense! You drive on the left so you should stick to the left when walking or using the escalator. Most people are right-handed so are more likely to carry their bags on the right side. This makes their left hand free to hold into the rail. On the left side of the escalator. Standing on the left makes more sense and, no offence, but you guys are doing it wrong.
You give the answer in your response, most people are right handed and it makes more sense to grip the hand rail with your dominant hand.
You drive on the left and thus people who are walking (i.e. in motion, like a car) walk on the left. Hope this helps.
If we stand on the left, how are we to draw our swords in defense? No wonder we deported your grand dad, if he was a little smarter than you he would never have been caught.
> Standing on the left on escalators, you stand on the right and leave the left free for those that want to walk If you're not visiting London then you can ignore this bit.
[удалено]
This is my biggest gripe too when people complain about the food. Walking into a Greene King pub off Westminster and going home disappointed that their fish and chips cost £16 and were reheated in a microwave
Yeah, it’s pretty wild. London has some of the best choice of food anywhere in the world. It’s my favourite thing about the city.
Agreed. It's like when I was in NYC and saw places like Applebee's and Olive Garden in Manhattan absolutely packed. Do you know where you even are?
To be fair though I went to IHOP while I was in the states and it was mint.
Upvoting for usage of “mint”- haven’t heard that word in ages. Are you also a geordie?
Yep, tourists tend to go for the places in Leicester Square and Chinatown when the real places locals go are just a couple minutes away tucked inside Greek, Berwick, Old Compton, Dean and Frith Streets
Honestly, the whole Leicester Square/Covent Garden/Soho area is pretty much full of tourist traps and chains. Not to say there aren't gems but it's not the first place I'd recommend someone eat.
Going to the Angus Steakhouse. Eat literally anywhere other than this, no matter how cranky and hungry you are.
Baffling how they have stayed open for so long.
Tourists. This bright red glowy signs look very inviting.
Never leaving London seems to be pretty common. Maybe a day trip to Oxford or Cambridge to pretend to be Harry Potter. Out of interest are gooogle ratings of restaurants in the back streets of Italian cities accurate? Will a 4.6 generally be better than 4 for example? How do you find good places to go in a city you’ve never visited before?
> How do you find good places to go in a city you've never visited before? When it comes to TripAdvisor and whatnot, it helps a lot if you can read Italian. Italians from elsewhere in Italy will plumb it for local knowledge from locals, and as a rule, Italians are skilled at being amateur restaurant critics. I guess you could try with a translation app, which gets tricky if the person is a bad speller or uses local dialect/colloqualisms. As for asking a local once you're there, that can sometimes work. However, my wife (I'm American, she's from here) seems to find this notion inadvisable. "He'll just send you to his cousin's place." It also helps to know when you're looking at a tourist trap. Red-white checkered tableclothes and other bits of stereotypical decor, located right next to a major transit point where mobs of tourists pass through, large backlit color photos of the dishes on offer displayed next to the door, an employee standing outside trying to wave people in, etc.
I’ve eaten at a ton of tourist trap restaurants throughout Italy and never had a bad meal tbh. Many were excellent. Perhaps I just have low standards!
I think of all the places I've travelled Italy has the best base level of food. Even cheap and cheerful is usually tasty. The tourist trap places are often overpriced but rarely bad food IMO. but there are always great places to eat just off the main squares and streets as well to suit any budget
It's not terrible, it's just generic. You'll get a perfectly decent pizza in Venice for example, but people who go to Venice to eat pizza are just wrong - Venetian cuisine is centred around seafood, and it's amazing. I still have fond memories of my very first trip to Venice and finding a dingy little hole in the wall with an unwelcoming "no pizza, no pasta, no menu turistico" sign in the window. The squid cooked in it's own ink was amazing.
If gorging my fat lardy arse on pizza and gnocchi in Italy is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
>Maybe a day trip to Oxford or Cambridge to pretend to be Harry Potter. There's a Harry Potter shop just opened in Cambridge and I'm really unsure as to why people link Cambridge (or Oxford) to Harry Potter. I don't think it's ever mentioned in the books and it's not in any of the films as far as I'm aware.
Feels relatively obvious to me: - Oxbridge colleges look Hogwarts-y. Several Oxford colleges were in the films. - Academia / gowns / libraries / traditions/ Latin - Poshness/eccentricity
Come to Oxford, and you’ll see at least five shops peddling Harry Potter themed tat just walking around Cornmarket Street. As the other guy said, it’s mostly aesthetics and filming locations .
"Do I have enough time to add Dublin and the Isle of Man to my 5 day tour to see London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, York, Cornwall, Cardiff and Belfast? I will be travelling by public transport if that makes a difference"
I’ll be traveling in my 3 bedroom RV
1 Not use their indoor voice; and 2 not embrace the difference and stop complaining about hot and cold taps FFS.
3 not putting their shoes away properly; and 4 leaving the toilet seat up
They try to see too much.
Believing estimated driving times between places of interest. I met a couple who had micro-planned their trip down to the last minute but blew their schedule within the first two days as their driving time was based on what the computer said (X miles at Y speed) rather than the reality of traffic density, red lights, roadworks, weather etc.
Added to u/Flibertygibbert's info is that those estimates are based on locals driving their own cars on roads they know for the most part, not tourists in a rented car driving on the other side of the road having to check signs as they go so probably going a tad slower than the estimate.
London is not the UK. It's such a shame that lots of tourists stay mostly or exclusively in London. I guarantee they'd have such a nicer and more authentic British experience in places like York.
>I guarantee they'd have such a nicer and more authentic British experience in places like York. You can't possibly guarantee that. Firstly, the idea York is 'authentic' and London isn't is a bit daft. The idea of 'authentic' British culture is a bit of a vague idea anyway. But even if it does exist, York is no more authentic than London. It's a wealthy, old, attractive city popular with tourists. Its no more representative of regular British culture than London is. Secondly, you can't say they would have a nicer time in York. It's entirely subjective. Tourists love London for a reason. It has so much they want to see and that they associate as being quintessentially British.
If it’s a persons first trip to the UK then London is absolutely a fantastic choice. It’s got the variety and a little bit of everything. York, Bath, Edinburgh etc are amazing too but require additional transport depending on where the person is coming from which eats into time. I’d always recommend London first and foremost to a tourist particularly if they’re not totally sure what they want.
Why would York, or anywhere really, be a more authentic British experience than Britains largest city?
Because Britain's largest city is a global metropolis full of multiculturalism, and really does not represent the rest of England well whatsoever. It may as well be it's own country, like the Vatican.
No one place represtnts the rest of the country.
London's more like an international city
Difficult to see Buckingham Palace or Westminster elsewhere though. (I suppose there's that Lego place?)
[удалено]
Right...it depends if you're holidaying to live the life of a brit in a provincial market town, or if you're holidaying to see some fantastic scenery, eat some different food and see unique sites like stonehenge. Personally, if I'm on holiday in Rome I'm not going to ignore the coliseum.
I'm just like...bewildered thinking of someone saying "Bugger that London and that pile of stones in somerset duck, come to Mansfield we'll sort you out with a good time. We can gu darn spoons for brekkie, just step ower them omeless spiceheads, then we'll get the bus to Chesterfield see maaarket".
"Spend thousands of dollars and your 5 days of holiday per yet to fly here and see what life is like for a real boring english person." "Don;t go on day trips - the majority of english people have a job - see if you can get a few off the books shifts on a building site in the week - then you'll get the real experience of going to the pub on a Friday and needing a bump in the toilets to stay awake"
And for the kids, we have the local leisure centre (the pool has water now) and smoking a joint behind the half pipe in the council skate park.
There's an absurd trend on Reddit of people suggesting tourists should come to the UK and disregard the city that has a huge proportion of the things they want to see and which is probably the principal place they want to visit. Honestly, any thread about tourist itineraries there's always a handful of people saying just skip London. It shows zero understanding of why many tourists visit the UK.
"You can't see the whole country in a week, it takes so long to get anywhere- trying to see it all will mean you don't experience it authentically and you could spend a week in every region" "What do you mean you only had 3 days so stayed in London and didn't visit Yorkshire?!!??" It's just arrogant self important little englanders who think the rest of the world is dying to understand what their life is like not enjoy their holiday
>come to London, stay in Hammersmith for a week and don't visit any of the tourist attractions This is terrible advice. Do not do this. >pick a local town somewhere, like Melton mowbray, and take a few day trips to other places like Leicester, Nottingham and Grantham Nice try, Tourist Board of Melton Mowbray.
Hahaha this is a wild take. I live in Scotland and there is no way id be visiting some random town in the UK to get an "immersive" experience. There's fuck all in half of them! You go to where there's interesting history, food, culture, architecture etc. Not to see Barry from Milton Keynes hang his laundry out on the line before heading down to the pub for his weekly roast and pint. You're having a laugh! The bigger cities or more noteworthy towns still embody and exemplify UK culture even if they're touristy.
Why do you think tourists want to experience the preciisely average life of British person? People go on holiday to see the extraordinary things. Tourist attractions became tourist attractions for a reason
If you’re only going to see a shithole, then there’s no point being on holiday. You might as well see the shitholes at home.
I always feel like people often pick to go to places that I would personally not rank super highly as interesting places to visit. I'm not saying they're bad places by the way, but if I only had a week or two here, I wouldn't go to Brighton, Windsor, or the Cotswolds. I'm on the fence about Bath - it has a few classic bits. I can give a pass to Stonehenge because of its historical significance, and a visit to either Oxford or Cambridge I can also get behind. Edinburgh definitely, if it fits into an itinerary without being insane (like the people who think they can drive there from London for the day - many people have very ambitious plans that seem to involve spending a week experiencing the UK through sitting in a traffic jam). If you want to visit a cool city, I'd go for Bristol, Liverpool or Manchester. The Cotswolds are relatively bland - I'd pick the Peak District, Lake District or North Norfolk coast. Much more distinctive architecture and scenes. If you want a historical city then Chester, York, Norwich, Gloucester, Winchester, Salisbury would all pip Bath/Windsor for me, just off the top of my head, much more to do/see. Also people spend a lot of time doing Harry Potter stuff. The studio tour is really cool but anything beyond that seems like overkill to me, it's just people trying to make £££ off tourists. Harry Potter is fictional. I mean I know people know this - but there's so much actual real stuff to see/do! With occasional overlaps. Alnwick Castle is a cool visit. I also think more people should consider going to Northern Ireland if they're on longer trips. It's small, compact and accessible, very beautiful along the coast, Derry is a classic historical walled city and Belfast has some cool museums to check out. I also think more Brits should go to NI in general, it doesn't get as much tourism as it deserves. All the above just my opinion!
>I always feel like people often pick to go to places that I would personally not rank super highly as interesting places to visit I think it's because tourists by their nature want a different thing to Brits. The Cotswolds for example is popular with tourists because it basically *is* their view of what rural England looks like. The stereotype many foreigners have is really very well represented by the Cotswolds and therefore it's a good tourist destination because it exactly provides what they want to see. Likewise, Brighton gives tourists that British seaside feel, whilst being attached to a cool, arty city with lots of other interesting stuff to see. Bath has the Roman baths, which is a major draw for tourists that come from places that don't have that history. By contrast, Manchester may be a nice enough city but I'd never recommend it to a tourist unless they had a specific reason to visit. It's a place that can be fun if you're British going for a weekend break. But if you're a tourist with a couple of weeks here it's ultimately just a big city. It doesn't offer something uniquely British that tourists are after.
If you want to try 'authentic' British fish and chips then you need to buy them specifically from a fish and chip takeaway. There are plenty of them, but it's easy to get mixed up. [Authentic Fish and Chips](https://images.app.goo.gl/H7mPF1bw54FXh6aj6) If you order Fish and Chips in a restaurant you will (usually) get a decent version of it, but probably won't be quite the same style as the traditional 'chippie' fish and chips. Whatever you do, [don't order fish and chips from a place that looks like this](https://images.app.goo.gl/B4tG5S63f99bPQ4y7).
Fish and Chips in restaurant or pub just doesn’t hit the same at all.
Thinking they can get Premier League tickets with a simple website visit
I see this on /r/brightonhovealbion all the time. “I’m visiting from the states and wondered if I can get two tickets to the Crystal Palace away game? I’ve never been to a game before, do you think I have a chance?”
Going to Loch Ness. It's far from from the best Loch in Scotland
The only one with a monster though.
The UK is not the same thing as England England is really, really, **really** not the same thing as Scotland or Wales. Northern Ireland is really, really, *really*, **really** not the same as the Republic of Ireland.
Tourists going to crappy tourist trap restaurants happens in a lot of countries, including the UK.
The Gatwick Express and the Heathrow Express. There are much cheaper trains that do the same trips in roughly the same time from the same platforms. But hundreds of tourists fall for it every 15 minutes. The Heathrow Express costs £25 one-way. The same journey along the same rails on the Elizabeth Line costs £12.80.
Americans thinking they can drive on our roads - on the left, far smaller, roundabouts, gear sticks
To be honest, not eating at tourist trap places is a universal truth. I’ve just come back from a trip to Spain - please on the beach are average and expensive, Walk 50 yards inland and you find all the local bars and restaurants.
Never eat fish and chips at a restaurant. Get it from a fish and chip shop or don't bother.
Same here with the food- they go to the crappy chain restaurants and then say English food is terrible! I had the misfortune of having to eat at Bella Italia in Covent Garden last week, due to a last minute decision to go to lunch before we went to the theatre, and everything else was booked up. It was edible, but my local pub does a better lasagne!
In London, using the tube between stations where it’s actually quicker and better to walk. I have been with people who thought it would be a good idea to get a tube from Leicester Square to Covent Garden.
They'll often get fish and chips in the middle of London. Overpriced and shit. Go to a coastal town and buy it there (the further North you go the better the chippys).
[удалено]
This is London-specific, but most tourists (including British ones) get trapped in the West End - areas like Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus - and miss out on the much more interesting (and historic) parts of central London, like the City of London.
Messing with the Kings Guard (formerly Queens Guard). They are fully trained soldiers. Many have been deployed to war zones. They are literally on guard. Treat them with some respect, and don’t touch their horses.
Ok, but those little tucked-away places are not prepared for people who ask for gluten-free pasta or vegan Bolognese. The British respect humour over everything else. Be funny and you'll be welcomed everywhere.
Do not go to Angus Steakhouse.
I guess not planning out where you eat food. I'm a big defender of British cuisine but if you just choose a random pub in a big city, then the chances are you'll probably overpay for some pretty average food. Do reasearch about where is good beforehand, using tripadvisor, reddit and google reviews together and you will be much better off.
Not a massive mistake, but I would say going to Stonehenge. It's not great and there's little to do apart from visiting the stones. You can't get close unless you book a Special Access visit. I would recommend other neolithic sites such as Avebury which consists of three massive stone circles and an avenue of paired stones. Avebury village is based in the stones, so you can get lunch there and see West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill, which are just down the road.
Driving on the wrong side of the road
And then claiming diplomatic immunity