It’s day one back in the States after 12 days traveling in the UK!

For years, my parents have been talking about going overseas to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. We kids decided to crash and take over the itinerary.

Because this was the first time across the pond for my parents and my youngest brother, we optimized for central locations and classic sightseeing, prioritizing a few locations relevant to our family history.

We started our trip in London, took a train up to Newcastle and made our way through Northumberland to Bamburgh.

Next we spent three days in Edinburgh with a day trip through the Scottish Highlands to Inverness, Loch Ness and Glencoe. (My parents opted for the Outlander themed tour to see Midhope Castle and other filming locations from the show.)

From Edinburgh we flew to Belfast and rented a car for a road trip. We drove up through County Antrim to Bushmills and Portrush, down the west coast through Barnesmore Gap to Galway and used that as a jumping off point for a shuttle to the Cliffs of Moher.

To wrap things up, we drove across the country for one night in Dublin before flying home to Atlanta.

_{AI-generated map, hopefully not too inaccurate.}

On the ground, we covered 1,500 miles, stepped through 6+ castles, saw thousands of sheep and drank countless pints of Guinness.

We embraced cups of tea and survived scalding hot Americanos. We ate potatoes with our potatoes. We had haddock fried, smoked and doused in cream. We had spiced Indian dishes and delicate tomato tarts, gigantic scoops of chocolate mousse, sausage rolls of unidentifiable ingredients and beans for breakfast.

Overall, this was a spectacular trip with a good mix of landmarks and landscapes, and a lot of good luck. Miraculously, we missed the heatwave and the tube strikes. We saw no civil unrest and faced mostly fair weather. In Galway a bout of rain forced us into a pub where we found hospitality and live traditional music. At every juncture we met friendly people who forgave our clumsy manners and made the trip a joy.

Will cherish the memories for years to come! But today I’m happy to be back home in our cozy corner of the world with a soggy dog straight out of the bath and a cup of simply brewed coffee, the barred owl hooting in the dark blue of the morning, chipmunks scurrying across our mossy cement.

Trip photos

_{Henry VII’s Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey}

_{Medieval expressions crack me up}

_{A new Banksy at Waterloo Place}

_{SIX at the Vaudeville Theatre}

_{The Strawberry in Newcastle}

_{View from Newcastle Castle}

_{Tommy and Jennifer at Bamburgh}

_{Countryside at Charlton Hall}

_{Tommy at St Margaret’s Chapel}

_{Inside St Margaret’s}

_{Gardens in Edinburgh}

_{Ross Fountain in West Princes Street Garden}

_{Dean Village}

_{Hairy coo!}

_{The Scottish Highlands}

_{Alan at Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness}

_Glencoe

_{Warriston Close}

_{Dinner at eleanore in Leith Walk}

_{Landed safely in Belfast}

_{Portrush Harbour}

_{Mussenden Temple}

_{Alan at Downhill Demesne}

_{Glencar Waterfall}

_{The cliffs!}

_{It was windy!}

_{Alan at Tig Cóilí in Latin Quarter Galway}

_{A little soggy but happy at the pub}

_{Clonmacnoise Monastic Site}

_{The Old Library at Trinity College, naked without books}

_{Music and pints at The Temple Bar Pub}

Thank you

Huge thank you to Deborah Ruch for guidance on travel and accommodations.

Shout out to Sara, our Rover sitter, who took care of Piper and sent us plenty of pupdates so we always had peace of mind.

Thank you to our friends Kerry and Paul who came out to meet us for lunch in London!

Extra huge thank you to Alan for being such a generous travel buddy. This was a trip of a lifetime and I appreciate all of your hard work that made it possible for us.

Attractions

• Westminster Abbey - Book online for a shorter wait at entrance
• Kensington Palace
• Churchill War Rooms
• London Theatre
• The National Gallery, London
• Tate Modern
• Newcastle Castle
• Bamburgh Castle
• National Gallery of Scotland
• Scottish Highlands Day Trip
• Bushmills Distillery Tour
• Mussenden Temple
• Cliffs of Moher from Galway - Shuttle with 2 hours for independent tour
• Clonmacnoise Monastic Site
• Book of Kells at Trinity College

Restaurants & pubs

• Buckingham Arms - Friendly service in Westminster
• Maggie Jones’s
• Kricket
• Cora Pearl
• Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese - “Mind your head”
• The Strawberry Pub
• Kiln
• Tiny Tiny - Excellent food and true brewed coffee
• The Middle Inn
• Dishoom
• eleanore
• Babushka
• Biddy’s O’Barnes
• The Dough Bros - Worth waiting in line
• Tig Cóilí
• Morans Oyster Cottage
• The Vintage Kitchen
• The Temple Bar

Thoughts, observations, learnings

• The vibe coded itinerary app sounds like a great idea until somebody has a login issue and your laptop is 4,000 miles away
• Early morning wake-up times are far less miserable when you’re operating at a higher latitude during the summer
• Waterproof raincoats beat umbrellas every time
• Merino wool is a miracle fabric on long trips
• Cities in the UK really know how to do public parks and gardens
• In the UK, you have to be SUPER aggressive to get anyone to bring you a check at a restaurant; don’t be shy, wave your server down or stand up and go find them
• At the pub, order at the bar and take your glasses back
• Irn-Bru “Old and Unimproved” is a sugary delight and brilliant marketing to boot
• The people of Northern Ireland know how to throw an afternoon bachelorette party
• Towel bars in bathrooms only work if your heat is turned on

Complaints

• Accordion doors for balconies are poor design, especially if the track curtains obstruct those doors from opening
• People who litter, WHY?? WHO HURT YOU
• Hot food should be banned from busses, shuttles, planes and, while we’re at it, movie theatres; it’s too smelly
• Seagulls are pesky shit-bomb scavengers

Getting around in the UK

• Walking: LOOK RIGHT and don’t step out in front of busses 😬
• Don’t count on wi-fi or cell service: stick together and designate meeting zones at specific times because your connection can be spotty even at major tourist attractions
• For the tube and bus transit: Make sure your express pay card is set to something other than Amex ahead of time; every passenger needs their own tap to ride
• No Lyft in London: Use the tube or Uber
• Cash: You need less cash than you think but certain taxis and private drivers may only take cash or ACH so confirm upon booking, especially if relying on concierge from your hotel
• For traveling LNER from King’s Cross station: First make sure you’re in the right building (not St Pancras) and don’t trust the departure boards to update with platform numbers; we stared at a sign for twenty minutes waiting for it to update from -to a number and almost missed our train; still not 100% sure if we ended up on the right train at Platform 0 but we reached our destination!
• Airport departures: Compared to major airports in the United States, you probably don’t need to be at the airport as early as you think; TSA and preclearance lines are short; desks and gates open late compared to departure times; if time allows, get food at the first place you see instead of counting on something to be open closer to your gate

On driving in Ireland

Driving on the “wrong” side of the road is the easy part. Being on the right-side of the vehicle is fine. What’s harder is adjusting to narrow streets, deciphering the road signs and learning the local etiquette.

For navigation, use Google Maps with CarPlay. Download maps before you leave in case service is spotty.

Don’t barrel through roundabouts. Use leftmost (outer) lane for exits 1 or 2 to go straight. Use inner lane (second to the left) for exiting ALL the way around to the other side.

Stop all the way at lights. There is no concept of “left on red” like “right on red.” For right turns at divided highways, look for the blue signs with arrows to indicate where you should drive to on the other side of concrete dividers.

In general, you want to be uncomfortably close to any line in the middle of a street to ensure you don’t put the left-side of your car into a stone wall along the road. Trust the rumble strips. Ask your navigator to watch the curb for you.

On roads, when there is a dashed line, stay to the left and allow locals to pass. When there is a solid line, maintain speed and try not to panic about locals piling up behind you. On highways, use the right lane to pass slow vehicles but don’t stay in it—get back to left lane as quickly as it’s safe.

Slow down in towns. Slow down on windy roads. Look out for tractors and cyclists. Watch for pullover spots every few hundred feet. Small cars pull over and yield to trucks and tractors. In the event that two small cars are passing on the road and it’s too narrow, the driver closest to a pullover spot is expected to yield even if that means backing up on the road.

Prepare for ridiculously tight spaces on countryroads, in parking lots and in parking decks. Look out for one-way streets. In crowded towns, people may be parked on both sides of the road and cars may be parked facing either direction, toward you or away. Don’t rely on the direction of parked vehicles for clues about whether you’re driving the right way on a one-way street.

When in doubt, slow down. In general, UK drivers seem to be more patient and less aggressive; it’s unlikely you’ll get rear-ended or driven off the road like is common in the States.

After just a few days driving in Ireland, it’s hard to describe how batshit I-85 in Atlanta looks by comparison. The traffic here is unnecessary nonsense. “There’s no place like home!”