In our Lunar New Year holidays, this year, we decided to travel to London to stay with our friends and explore the country. Over the years, we’ve gotten better at planning our travels I have to say. Also, post the Covid pandemic, we’ve become more proactive and intentional about our holidays. Last year, I made a resolution which I’m happy to report we managed to uphold, that a) every year we’ll travel to at least 1 new place and b) if we do travel to a known place, we will try and do something different. With that resolution, actually since 2022 we’ve traveled to Germany, Greece, the U.A.E. (specifically Dubai and Abu Dhabi), Egypt, and now the UK. And these are only the new places! 😀 When we did travel to Boracay in the Philippines (which is a place we’ve been before) we tried doing a (fun) scuba dive!

So coming back to our trip in the UK this year. The plan was that we had 9 days in total and we were going to be staying with our friends in Reading, near London. Since it was a term break for their son, they were also able to take a few days off and we planned to go on a road trip to see the countryside for a few days.

Our itinerary was as follows:

  • Day 1 – Land early in the morning. Chill for a bit. Spend the rest of the day exploring Oxford.
  • Day 2 – Start early for the roadtrip. Drive to Manchester and do the Old Trafford Stadium Tour and end at Frodsham.
  • Day 3 – Drive past Llandudno, Conwy Castle, through Snowdonia Park and end at Aberystwyth
  • Day 4 – Drive past Swansea, visit Castle Combe village and end at Bristol
  • Day 5 – Drive to Bath, explore the Roman Baths and Bath Abbey and head back home to Reading

Once we were back in Reading, we didn’t have any overnight stay plans but more like day-trips around London sightseeing and catching up with friends, family members along the way.

  • Day 6 – Head to Watford to go for the Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio Tour
  • Day 7 – Head to London to see the National Gallery and walk around the highlights of Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, St James Palace, Westminister Abbey, London Eye and the Tower Bridge
  • Day 8 – Shopping at Oxford Street and back to Reading
  • Day 9 – Join our friends for a community Bengali festival celebration in the morning and then off to Heathrow to catch our flight back to Hong Kong.

Before I go into details, we did pack in a lot. And that’s why I decided that the trip was not just about London but it was actually about the UK (though to be fair we didn’t do everything!). I loved that we managed to get out and explore and see the countryside. I had no idea that’s how the country was. And how much of the country is actually “the countryside”. Being born and living and working in big cities has certainly shaped my world view in the sense that I think everyone lives in big cities all the time. I had no idea that there were such large expanses of the country that lived in villages or towns in houses that were this huge and mansion-like. To me, it felt like I was traveling through a country of golf clubs! It was so green, and mountainous, and full of historical references. Most of our Airbnb homes were homes built in the 17th or 18th century! There were some obvious colonial references which were very stark and unapologetic that did leave a sour taste in our mouth at times. There was much lesser racial or ethnic diversity than I expected (especially compared to what we experienced in Germany). There was a lot more gender diversity than I expected though! Literally 3 out of 4 drivers on the road were women and I don’t think we’ve ever experienced that in any country! So many of the visuals were refreshing and comforting in the sense that I felt I had visualized this while reading Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series, or while watching the Bridgerton series. It felt like we were living the storybooks we’d read about as kids and it was a wonderful feeling especially because when we walked through the studio tour of Harry Potter, it did blend the books and the movies magically.

Before we planned this trip, the most common complaint we heard from our friends about living in London was the weather, but we were very pleasantly surprised because we actually experienced great weather! Especially on a couple of our days during the roadtrip, we had bright sunny days, with blue skies and a smattering of clouds, and on some of the rainy days we had conveniently scheduled indoor trips like the Harry Potter Studio Tour or the National Gallery exploration. We managed to get some time to chill with our friends, eat home food and comforting Indian food for many of our meals, I managed to try the classic Fish n Chips, Steak, Steak Pies and the infamous Butter Chicken too! We tried many local ales as well as some amazing gin & tonic cocktails.

It’s tough to pick out the highlights or the favorites amongst all the things we did and saw, because literally everything was a highlight! Also, because we planned the road trip pretty much last minute where except for Manchester and the Old Trafford stadium everything else was planned one night prior, there was a lot newness and excitement each day. I would highly recommend all the stops that we did, especially Castle Combe, which is a super pretty and cute village and undoubtedly has been awarded the ‘Prettiest Village’ tag for a reason and Bath, where the Roman Baths and Bath Abbey are a must-do in terms of exploration.

And that’s it. I hope you enjoy your trip to the UK if you do go and I hope that you enjoyed reading this blog!