Trip Stats#
- Departing location: Düsseldorf
- Total Kilometers: 5.200
- Total days: 30
- Month of the year: June
- Vehicle: Our Volkswagen Caddy Maxi (a self-converted campervan)
- No. of scones enjoyed: 15
- No. of Sunday roasts enjoyed: 3
Route#
This is roughly the route that we took.
Click here to view route on Google Sheets
My favorite things#
Here is a short list (or maybe not) of all my favorite things of our road trip with our mini campervan through the UK.
The Scones#
I love scones! It was the first time in my life that I tried them. Heck I even wrote an entire entry in this blog just about scones: A Tribute to Scones.
Here are the top 3 places that had my favorite scones:
- Tinpickle and Rhum in the Dartmoor National Park in Devon (Google Maps link)
- Huxley’s in Chester (Google Maps link)
- Bettys Café Tea Rooms York in York. A note about Betty’s: Yes, it is very touristy, however, the scone was very delicious. Especially the clotted cream. Also, we did not go to their fancy tea room, we stayed in the general one and that was just fine. (Google Maps link)
The Sunday Roast#
We discovered the Sunday Roast by pure chance with Yvonne. You can read more about our story in Our Discovery of the Sunday Roast.
Here is how I would rate our Sunday roasts:
The Yew Tree Pub - Where we had our first Sunday Roast. We had it with chicken. The chicken and Yorkshire pudding were delicous. (Google Maps link)
Tinpickle and Rhum - we also had a delicious chicken Sunday roast here (Google Maps link)
Sawmills Free House - A cozy pub. We had a yummy traditional beef roast. (Google Maps link)
Favorite Outdoor Activities#
The list is in no particular order. I loved them all.
- Via Ferrata in Keswick, England. We did the extreme version from a provider called Honister.
- Hiked the Catbells fell in the Lake District, England.
- Hiked The Old Man of Storr in Isle of Sky, Scotland
- Walked to a shipwreck from Land’s End, England
- Walked 1% of the Southwest Coast Path
- Drove a jaw-dropping road called the Marine Drive in Llandudno, Wales
- White water rafting in Scotland on the River Garry. We did it with a company called Active Highs. We talked with the locals of where the best place to spot Nessie was 😉. The staff was super friendly, the one downside is that we did not get any pics. We saw other companies taking pictures of their clients.
- Explored the amazing Castle of Conwy. I’ve never seen a castle so big and so well preserved.
- A picture-perfect stop to observe the beauty of the Eilean Donan Castle
- Rented a kayak in Lulworth Cove and explored the coves and beautiful rock formations. The Durdle Door is especially magical.
- Saw the beautiful cliffs by the coast. From the intense orange cliffs in West Bay Beach in Dorset, to the dramatic white rock formations of Old Harry Rocks.
- Hiked down to a one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen called Pedn Vounder Beach.
- Saw the Lydford Gorge, which is located at the end of a beautiful walk through a temperate rainforest.
Favorite Cultural Activities#
What is traveling, without indulging into the culture? Here are my top cultural activities on our 4-week UK road trip.
A visit to Newton’s House#
You can only visit Newton’s house through a tour. The place is called Woolsthorpe Manor (Google Maps link).
They take you through the whole living quarters.
You also get to visit the room where he did his famous light experiment.
And of course, you get to see the apple tree that inspired his thoughts on gravity.
I learned a lot!
A small part of the manor has been made into a small interactive science museum.
There are, what I suspect to be, retired science teachers helping you understand and interact with the different experiments.
I felt quizzed at times, and if I would have gotten a grade, I think I would have failed 🤣.
If you’re in the York area, it’s definitely a spot worth visiting.
Watch a play at the Royal Shakespeare Company#
William Shakespeare was born in a town in the Cotswolds called Stratford-upon-Avon.
A picturesque town filled with honorable mentions to him, like statues, street names, library names, etc. Here I learned that a common way to refer to him is to call him ‘The Bard’.
In this town, lies the Royal Shakespeare Company (Google Maps link).
And of course, we had to go see a play!
We bought our tickets the day before for a play called Hamlet Hail to the Thief. It is a modern interpretation of the classical play.
The really cool thing about it was that it was kind of a musical. They adapted the album from Radiohead called Hail to the Thief to the play.
The band played live and it gave such a powerful charge to the whole experience.
And,to be honest, I understood like 85% of the dialogue. The actors spoke a mix of old and modern English. But even so, I had a fantastic experience.
The play finished and I had tears in my eyes.
A magical experience indeed!
Two observations I had:
Compared to my experience on going to the theatre in Germany, people were super underdressed. It felt more like we were heading to the movies than to a play.
After the play ended, the actors and musicians received a standing ovation. The actors bowed three times and left the stage. They were barely off the stage, when the audience started leaving the theatre. I found that crazy, because in Germany, the audience keeps clapping while the actors exit, and they usually come back out at least twice more. And if there are musicians, they often play a final song.
Favorite Places We Visited#
Our road trip was filled with beautiful landscape and stops at magical places.
Here are my favorite ones (in no particular order):
Chester#
We only explored the city center and loved it!
It has a Roman wall, medieval architecture, and a lot of black-and-white timbered buildings.
Not to mention that this is where we had the second best scone of our trip 🙂.
The Cotswolds#
This is a whole area filled with cute towns! What makes the towns so pretty is that they are all built with this honey-colored stone. Some feel like a fairy tale.
We visited quite a few towns. Our favorite ones were:
- Bourton-on-the-Water
- Bibury
- Lower Slaughter
- Stow-on-the-Wold
Bath#
After an ultra hot day exploring and feeling overwhelmed in Oxford, we decided to go to another city.
I had never heard about Bath. And to my surprise it was a city with such a cool vibe!
After the overwhelming visit of Oxford, it was a relief to be walking amongst quieter streets.
Don’t get me wrong, there were still many people, but it somehow felt calmer.
It was like 30+ degrees celsius on that day. I was dreaming of finding a lemonade stand. And to my surprise…there was one!
We enjoyed the beat of really good buskers all over the city, the views, the food, and that delicious lemonade.
The Lake District#
Another breath-taking region. This was by far my favorite stop of our whole trip.
The region has over 200 mountains, which the locals call fells. The tallest one is 978 metres tall.
It is surrounded by 16 lakes. A perfect place to enjoy the outdoors.
We mainly spend our time in a town called Keswick. The ‘w’ is silent, so it’s pronounced Kesick.
While we were there, we learned about Alfred Wainwright. A british author who dedicated over 10 years to meticulously document the walks of every fell.
He wrote the Pictorial Guide of the Lakeland Fells. And the amount of detail in those books is insane!
The books are super popular in this area. So much so, that the locals refer to the fells as the Wainwrights. Many hikers aim to complete all of the 214 Wainwrights. It’s also super curious, because when we talked to the locals, they always asked which Wainwright we planned to walk.
So, we had to do our research. And our answer was: “We will do the Catbells!”.
The Catbells is one of the most famous and loved hikes. It has fantastic panoramic views of the Lake District and its rolling hills and mountains.
It is Wainwright #189.
Cambridge#
When I was a kid, I dreamt of studying business in either Cambridge or Oxford.
Although I never made it there for my uni studies, I made it now through this road trip through the UK.
And wow! I was so pleasantly surprised by the vibes in Cambridge.
I could literally feel the intelligence in the air.
What made Cambridge special for me was that the city center is so compact that you get to see one beautiful highlight after another while walking.
It felt like a magical experience. We also took a punting tour, where our guide shared some amazing and funny stories about the history and the universities as we gently floated down the River Cam, admiring the beautiful architecture.
A few weeks later we also visited Oxford. And between Oxford and Cambridge, I enjoyed our time in Cambridge more! Oxford felt like a way bigger city and since everything is so much more spread out, the magical feeling wasn’t there for me.
We also had a local sweet called Chelsea bun. The place where they sell them is called Fitzbillies. They have been making these buns since 1920!
The closest thing I can describe it to is like a sticky, and delicious cinnamon roll. Very sweet, and probably a massive calorie bomb, but quite alright to try once.
St. Ives#
The whole Southwest coast of England is beautiful. My favorite town was St. Ives.
It had fantastic beaches with turquoise waters. We were there when the tide was low and had a beautiful walk and saw tons of huge crab skeletons. We also saw some seagulls indulging on the open buffet.
St. Ives also has an artisty vibe to it that just draws you in and makes you want to spend the whole day there.
Land’s End#
Land’s End is the westernmost point of mainland England.
Its a famous spot as it is ’the end of the road’.
Also, it’s the end or the beginning (depends on which way you go) of a famous route that goes from John o’ Groats in Scotland to Land’s End. This route spans the entire length of mainland Britain. This route is over 1.400 kms long. There is a museum in Land’s End that features the people that have finished this route in all kinds of ways. From backwards walking, to unicycle to walking it naked.
In the book The Salt Path, the author describes Lands End as a theme park. Mainly, because there is a lot of infrastructure around it and a small adventure park for kids.
Yvonne and I arrived very early in the morning, when everything was closed. We walked from Land’s End to a shipwreck and the nearby lookout point.
During our walk, we experienced all kinds of weather. From massive wind and rain to sunshine and heat. All in a span of like 2 hours. The walk was magical and it felt so peaceful as it was only us and a few dog walkers.
The Local Food We Had#
Before our trip, we had heard that the food in the UK was not the best.
So I was very curious on how our food journey would go. I must say, however, that we were super surprised by how delicious everything we ate was!
We tried as many things as we could. And out of all of the meals, maybe one was not so tasty.
Here is a short gallery of the food we tried and took pictures of:
Fun food observations:
Shortbread: we tried different types of shortbread, and by far the best one was Walkers. The best by taste and with the purest ingredients. Now of course, it is not a healthy snack, but Walkers only use the four vital ingredients for shortbread (flour, butter, sugar, salt). Other brands added rapeseed oil and other weird stuff.
Millionaire shortbread: this is a must try! It is found in bakeries and it is shortbread covered with chocolate and with caramel in between. A true delight and calorie bomb! 🤣
Pasty: pronounced pastee. I like to compare it to a giant empanada. It is super yummy and super filling. The traditional one is filled with meat and vegetables. It can be found in the area of Cornwall.
Black pudding: I’m not a fan of this kind of food. However, in the spirit of being adventurous, I decided to try it out. I went all in and ordered it for breakfast. To my surprise, it was actually quite tasty. I would not eat it again, though. Mainly because of two reasons. One, throughout the day my tummy made weird noises and had a different feel to it. Secondly, and most importantly, every time I farted it really stank 🤭. Btw, if you’d never heard of black pudding before: it’s a type of blood sausage made from pork blood, fat, and oatmeal.
Fun Observations:#
- The UK loves roundabouts: There are roundabouts everywhere! Small ones that seem like a joke, and huge ones with multiple lanes! Oh, and sometimes, they have connecting roundabouts. So one directly after another.
- Roads are small: The further south you go, the less highway there is. And navigating with a car can become a bit more adventurous. There are roads were you need to give way to the incoming vehicle. So you or the incoming car need to backup to the closest ‘give way’ section. Sometimes, roads don’t have enough of these ‘give way’ sections.
- Tons of dog owners: I was very surprised to see how many people had a dog! Yvonne always said: “everyone and their mother seems to have a dog”. And it’s true. But the coolest thing is that most of the dogs we saw were well trained and everywhere was super dog friendly. Also, we never really saw dog poop! Maybe there was some dog poop, but it never really caught our attention. Not like in Germany, where dog poop is not so uncommon to find.
- Pubs is the place to be: I found it so cool that whenever we went into a pub there was generally some sort of life. Either the family owning the pub was hanging out there or it was filled with people chatting. Pubs also had very delicious food and tons of alcohol-free options to drink. I had the feeling that pubs were like the community center in the UK. It’s were things are happening and where you go to meet people, chat and gossip.
- Language: In the UK you say shades for sunglasses. You ask for the bill, not the check. And people refer to an umbrella as a brolly.
- The amount of sheep… The one consistent thing we saw all across the UK were sheep! I actually had this image in my head that I would see thousands of the famous Scottish hairy cows in the highlands. However, all we kept on seeing were sheep, and sheep and more sheep. Now and then, we would see a cute hairy cow. I would call the UK the land of sheep. But here is a picture of a cute hairy cow…
Our 4-week road trip through the UK was amazing! Yvonne and I have this little tradition. After every trip, I ask her to sum it up in one word.
Her answer this time? “Dogs.” Mine? “Sheep.”
🐶🐑