Do not overplan
Make a plan, but do not stick to it slavishly
I will freely admit to being as guilty as anyone of this, but: Please try not to over plan your trip. That's a two-fold plea:
- Plan everything, but don't feel compelled to stick to the plan. I think it's a fine idea to work out all the details of what you plan to do—if nor no other reason than it will help you get a handle of what you are able to get done, and start making the hard choices of what you have time for and what you should leave for the next trip. (Always assume you will return!)
But then do not book absolutely every second in advance (that leaves no room to adjust things as you go to accommodate changing interests, sudden festivals, or unexpected invitations), and please do not attempt to stick to the schedule if it turns out to be overly ambitious and starts making you miserable.
Remember Clark W. Griswold, the Chevy Chase dad in the Vacation movies, always bound and determined to get to WallyWorld or see every sight in Europe come hell or dead aunties? Yeah, don't be that guy. No one in that family was having any fun.
- Don't try to pack too much in. A vacation is not meant to be all about checking sights off a list or dashing from place to place to fit in as much as humanly possible. It's about enjoying yourself.
So do that. Enjoy yourself. Take a break from the sightseeing every once in a while. Leave some time to stop and smell the English roses.
- Viator.com -
This clearinghouse for activities and day tours also offers longer, multi-day trips—and, since it is essentially a middleman site liking you to local outfitters, it is often among the cheapest (Viator only tacks on a modest fee).
From London:
- 3-Day Edinburgh Weekend Break by Rail from London
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3-Day Rail Trip to Edinburgh, Loch Ness and the Highlands from London
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Private 2-Day Cotswolds and Villages Tour by Luxury Car from London
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5-Day Heart of England Tour from London: North Wales, Stratford-upon-Avon, Buxton and York
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5-Day Best of Britain Tour: Edinburgh, Stonehenge, York, Bath, and Cardiff from London
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5-Day Best of England Small-Group Tour: Oxford, the Cotswolds and Bath
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4-Day England and North Wales Tour: Stratford-upon-Avon, Snowdonia and Cambridge
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4-Day Independent London to Dublin by Virgin Train and Irish Ferries
- 3-Day Paris and Versailles Tour from London
- Sceptrevacations.com - Long the price champ on self-drive vacations in the British Isles (they provide airfare, rental car, and vouchers for hotels and/or B&Bs, all at a discount; your trip is your own), Sceptre now also offers rail journeys, chauffeur trips, and escorted tours ("Journeys"). Though it covers much of Europe now, Sceptre started with Ireland and Scotland, and still offers a wider range of British Isles itineraries than most, including plenty in England and Wales.
- City-discovery.com - Chief rival to Viator (though with a less spiffy interface and often sub-par text descriptions), representing many of the same tours (at the same prices). However, it also seems to cover more destinations, especially secondary ones. When it comes down to it, City-Discovery and Viator have maybe 70% the same inventory, but then 30% will be completely different (some Viator has City-Discovery does not, other vice-versa) so it pays to check through the offerings from both.Partner
- Viator.com -
This clearinghouse for activities and day tours also offers longer, multi-day trips—and, since it is essentially a middleman site liking you to local outfitters, it is often among the cheapest (Viator only tacks on a modest fee).
From Edinburgh:
- 5-Day Best of Scotland Experience from Edinburgh
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2-Day Loch Ness and Inverness Small Group Tour from Edinburgh
- 3-Day Isle of Skye Small-Group Tour from Edinburgh
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3-Day Isle of Skye and Scottish Highlands Tour from Edinburgh Including 'Hogwarts Express' Ride
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3-Day Cairngorms National Park Tour from Edinburgh: Royal Deeside, Speyside Whisky and St Andrews
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3-Day Isle of Skye and Scottish Highlands Tour from Edinburgh Including Eilean Donan Castle
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4-Day Tour of the West Highlands and Isle of Skye from Edinburgh
- 5-Day Orkney Islands Tour from Edinburgh Including the Scottish Highlands
- 5-Day Iona, Mull and the Isle of Skye Small Group Tour from Edinburgh
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5-Day Highland Explorer and Isle of Skye Small Group Tour from Edinburgh
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5-Day Isle of Skye, Loch Ness and the Jacobite Steam Train from Edinburgh
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5-Day Tour from Edinburgh: York, Yorkshire Dales, Lake District and Hadrian's Wall
- Viator.com - Best one-stop shopping site for all sorts of activities, walking tours, bus tours, escorted day trips, and other excursions. It is actually a clearinghouse for many local tour companies and outfitters, and since it gets a bulk-rate deal on pricing (and takes only a token fee for itself), you can actually sometimes book an activity through Viator for less than it would cost to buy the same exact tour from the tour company itself. (I once booked a Dublin pub crawl via Viator and later discovered that I saved about $1.50; also, the tour turned out to be sold-out, and they were turning away the folks in front of me in line, but since I had a pre-booked voucher I got in.)Partner
- Londonwalks.com - Since the 1970s, the gold standard in city walking tours and museum tours—and cheap, to boot. Just meet your guide at the appointed time and place (usually a Tube stop), pay your £10 (students or over 65s are £8; under 15 free), and prepare for a good two hours of amazing cultural insight and historic anecdotes. If you plan on taking three or more walks, buy a "Frequent London Walker" card for £2 from your first guide, then each subsequent walk costs £8. They also run popular excursions outside London for £18. Note that the fee just covers the guided tour; you pay for any admissions (or, for excursions, travel expenses) yourself.
- Contexttravel.com - This bespoke walking tour company doesn't even call its 200 tour leaders "guides." It calls them "docents"—perhaps because most guides are academics and specialists in their fields: history professors, archeologists, PhDs, art historians, artists, etc. Groups are miniscule (often six people maximum), and most docents can be booked for private guiding sessions as well. They aren't always the cheapest tours, but they are invariably the best. People rave about Context.Partner
- City-discovery.com - Chief rival to Viator (though with a less spiffy interface and often sub-par text descriptions), representing many of the same tours (at the same prices). However, it also seems to cover more destinations, especially secondary ones. When it comes down to it, City-Discovery and Viator have maybe 70% the same inventory, but then 30% will be completely different (some Viator has City-Discovery does not, other vice-versa) so it pays to check through the offerings from both.Partner
