Hello everyone. I will be spending Aug through Sep on 3 sits in the English countryside. I’ve been to England many times but in and around London.
I would really appreciate any tips on packing, filling gaps between sits, car rental?, moving around the country, best way to afford meals and etc. I will visit family in London but am really looking forward to an extended quiet time because I will be a new retiree and feel the need for a deep, quiet and think.
I’ll be in the Tideswell, Bedford and …ive forgotten the third but a in the general area. BTW “general area” for me is within 100 miles or so.
Hi @Orawro
Difficult questions you posed as there is a lot of difference between Tideswell that looks like a small village that could contain a corner store and a pub and Bedford, which is a reasonably sized town with multiple options for grocery shopping and grabbing food to go. You can get groceries delivered by all the major grocery chains (asda, tesco, morrisons, sainsburys) if you’re within the delivery area. In Bedford and other decent sized towns and cities you can use the app Toogoodtogo. It’s a food wastage app where you can pay for leftover food at the end of the day for usually little money. (Usually you pay 1/4 or 1/5 of normal value).
Car rental may be worth it in a place like Tideswell but check you have a place to part in Bedford as many towns and cities have homes with limited or no on street paid parking.
The UK has an extensive train service between most major towns and cities. Fares are released 3 months before travel dates and increase rapidly the closer to travel date. Walk up fares can be crazy. https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ is the place to plan train journeys.
Buses are also available and can offer a decent service in towns but less regular in villages.
As for accomodation between sits you’ve really got 3 main options - hotels (of varying ratings), airbnb and lastly bed and breakfast (where you stay in the person’s home and get breakfast). The latter can be good as hosts usually happily give out local info to guests.
BTW 100 miles can make a huge difference to area in the UK…and as most Brits are only 70 miles from the coast hopefully you’re not located in the sea!!
August and September weather should be warm in the day but English weather can change multiple times a day. Usual daytime temperatures should be between 60-80s. A rain coat should be brought.
I live near Tideswell and you will definitely need to hire a car for there, very few buses. I would also suggest some good strong walking shoes, it’s very rural. Bedford is much more urban, with better transport links.
@Orawro we have done many rural U.K. sits this past year. They have all been great. Your best source of information is the locals .
In all of our rural sits the homeowners have provided recommendations about local pubs and restaurants that serve good meals and about the local shops and farmers markets for buying food to cook at home.
So start with the Welcome guide and if the homeowners haven’t already included this information you can ask them for suggestions. Most are very happy to recommend their local businesses as rural communities tend to know each other well and support each other ( more than you might find typically in a big town) .
There are always lots of short sits available
in U.K. so you can probably fill the gaps that way . You could also ask the HOs if they know of any friends that have accommodation that they rent out As people may have friends or neighbours that rent out small places to stay that they can recommend.
It’s worth knowing that a lot of village pubs are opening on limited days and limited times - in response to a reduced demand. Check the pub’s website before heading out.
I’m not familiar with the places you mentioned. Maybe of use to you in certain towns: There are still some places where you can rent a room above a pub, which I discovered when sightseeing after doing sits in the U.K.
Such places might not be online, so you might ask locals, if you’re interested. I found the practice charming and quaint as an American. Made me think of Downton Abbey and yesteryear otherwise.
I stayed at one such pub/hotel in Warwick (a sizable town) and saw signs for other such rentals when I walked around — they usually have only a handful of rooms.
When I checked in, there was no front desk — you went to the pub and staff there did that. The room key was an actual old-school key, with a giant wood door tag attached, LOL. I had to remove the tag while I stayed so I could fit the key in my trouser pockets. (For Brits, “pants” mean your underwear.)
The bar staff helped me with my heavy bags (I bought many books in various cities), because there were stairs, no elevator. The woman who waited tables offered to sell me sightseeing tickets as well. Plus, the pub staff gave me info to arrange a ride to the airport. The pub also served a full English, which I always love.
Hi Cuttlefish. Thank you SO much for your detailed response! I don’t want to lug around a ton of luggage and visiting the charity shops is a great idea I would not have thought about. Your advice is definitely going to be part of my plan.
Depends where exactly you are:-
Cheapest Accommodation Between Sits - Travelodge (From £35/night)
Cheap Eating Out - Wetherspoons
Cheap Supermarket with delivery - Asda
Cheap Supermarket without delivery - Lidl, or Aldi
I, like @Chrissie , live near Tideswell, 15 miles in fact.
As it is such a small place I am wondering what brings you there?
I suggest that, when you start travelling round England, you put posts on the Forum to see if anyone wants to meet up with you.
If we are at home, we could meet up.
Hmmm. Thanks very much for the local insight. Very useful. We’ve accepted a sit in Tideswell in June and do not plan to hire a car. Just from a little research on google and a chat with the homeowners, there appear to be one or two groceries and a handful of pubs walkable (for us even a 2-mile walk down to Angler’s Rest with the dog for dinner and a pint or three and 2-miles back is just fine, as the sun will be up late in June). It’s a ten-day sit, so we don’t need to travel far. And the homeowners have offered to drive us from Chesterfield train station and for groceries day one. I also see a few buses per day if we wanted a day-trip to Buxton or Bakewell or Hope. Maybe even for a day hike in the Peak District. Not regular busses like in London, but with planning it should work. Am I wrong? (It’s not too late to hire a car!)
Hi Orawro, my one tip for travel in the UK is to look at National Express coach service. The trains in the UK are in (very sadly) in a terrible state, and can be very expensive, and incredibly unreliable. National Express have a pretty good network across the country to major cities and also stop in towns along the route. The price will usually be a fraction of the train fare. EG. London to Bath - on the train £80, on the NatEx £10!
You may be able to manage, but it would require Very careful planning as there are not many buses. If you go to Bakewell, go on Monday for the market, which is brilliant. From there you can get to Chatsworth House, definitely worth a visit. You wouldn’t need to go far for a walk, as the countryside around Tideswell is very scenic. Buxton is also worth a visit.
All the advice so far has been good. Think about a rental car - when I was doing rural sits, many HOs have been willing to share the rental cost with me.
And take a look at the app what3words.com that assigns a 3 word description to every 3 sq meter place on the earth. Especially helpful for those houses that have names but not number street addresses. You can plug the 3 words into google maps.
And the app atlasobscura.com that will help you find unusual attractions in the area - I found a decommissioned military control bunker, now a museum near Stoke-on-Trent.
Watch for market days and go!
I appreciate all the great advice. The home owners have offered use of their car. I’ll ger auto insurance. As I lived in northern Japan for 5 years, driving on the “other” side of the road won’t be a problem.
Hi Itchyfeet. I’m just curious about the English countryside. I’ll be sitting in Bedford as well. I’m retiring in Feb after decades of moving around the world and I thought it would be nice to sit still for a bit and enjoy waking in the countryside with friendly dogs.
I’d love to meet up once I’m there.
All fab replies.
I would look at the Welcome Guide, ask the Owners in advance all the questions you have, they will be more than happy to help you out.
Food also is Olio, it’s a free app, (they all have in app purchases, however you can use it without paying) mostly it’s supermarkets who have an oversupply of foods, local people go regularly and collect then distribute it from their homes. It might not be so good in your Tideswell sit, however might be for others, depends on if you had a car to use or were hiring a car, anyway it is another option, you sign up, then just change your location, I have been using Too good to go and Olio for a few years now, we have done house sits in built up areas where the challenge has been to see if we can live off Olio and Too good to go food for the sit! just for some fun, we did eat a lot of Bread, lol.
Enjoy our sits and happy travels.
