On one of our earlier journeys in England, we were testing to see how a GPS system worked. This was before smartphones, in the early days of GPS or, as the Brits call it, SatNav. The system was a GPS receiver connected to my PDA running a navigation program. Back in those days you could never tell which way the SatNav was likely to take you, so it was a bit of an adventure.
In …
When you are planning to visit the UK, you don’t have to stick to London all the time. England is not that large (50,301 sq. miles), about the same size as the state of Louisiana (52,378 sq. miles). When looking at a map of England, remember the overall size and take that into consideration. Jake once read an amazing statistic that every citizen of England lives within 70 miles of the sea! Bottom line: England …
If you are a fan of the comedian John Cleese, you may know about his hilarious series on Brit TV entitled “Fawlty Towers.” John played the part of Basil Fawlty, the owner of a small hotel in the seaside town of Torquay. Having lived in England, we were well aware of the number of smaller hotels in the country but were not sure about how those hotels provided service compared to the major hotel chains. …
A love affair is what you might call Marsha’s relationship with English Tea, the delicious elixir brewed, sipped and enjoyed through the ages. It began while we lived in England where she learned not only the proper method for brewing tea but all about the ritual of “Taking Tea.”
With the resurgence in the 1990s of teashops and tearooms all across the United States—as well as in Great Britain for that matter—it became clear that …
After making the decision to take the plunge to visit England what do you need to do before traveling? The very first thing is to get a passport. In the United States, you get that from the Department of State. Applications can be found at any US Post Office which is where one goes to be interviewed after filling out the form and securing a photograph. The required picture can be taken almost anywhere—pharmacies like …
One of the things we love to do in England (and Wales and Scotland) is to shop. We rummage through antique shops, boot sales, vintage shops, just about anywhere items unique to the UK are sold. We have been in bookstores, pottery shops, souvenir shops, cathedral shops, castle shops, manor shops, city shops, village shops, large stores, small stores and street vendor locations. The things you can find in those locations can be unique or …
For most travelers, particularly those who make just one journey to the United Kingdom, the central place to visit is London, and London is a fabulous place to visit, indeed! But London is just one of the sights to see while in U.K. In this section we want to bring to you other ideas for where to go, based on our own travels.
As a brief primer, let’s review the general areas of England. England …