MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY
England and Wales Trip
About our trip to England and Wales
England and Wales were not initially on our top 5 destinations in 2019. However, a couple we met while in Salzburg, Austria, lived in Wales and we wanted to visit them and make a whole trip of it. After a small amount of research into Wales, we were so excited to go. Almost every blog or article stated that it is one of the least tourist-visited countries in Europe and the tourists Wales does get are often from the UK. The pictures of the country, however, are stunning. Rolling green hills dotted with sheep, a craggy coastline, friendly locals, and a TON of castles. This sounded an awful lot like Ireland. Our hope was that Wales ended up what we had hoped for in Ireland. And it lived up to this! We had also never been to England and wanted to include parts of the country into the trip.
When: May 2019
Why: First, to visit our friends. Then, it very quickly turned into wanting to see Wales and parts of southern England and London.
How Long: 2 weeks
Most surprised us: How expensive the trip ended up being! In the end, this trip was our most expensive to-date due to the car rental, cost of food, and maybe a bit of splurging on gin bottles to bring home.
Most disappointed us: There were absolutely no true disappointments in this trip. I, Jess, wanted more from London, however. The food was incredible- the best food we had experienced in all trips to Europe. But there was nothing else that would pull me back. This isn’t truly fair to London, though, because I find myself more and more underwhelmed with large cities. I am learning I am at home in small to medium sized cities. There’s just too much commotion for me in a city like London to be able to relax.
Would we do it again: We loved every stop and activity in this trip. We have already talked about doing another trip to Wales. Particularly northern Wales and walking the Pembrokeshire coastline.
Would we recommend it: We would recommend everywhere we visited on this trip to others. Especially Wales. If you are considering travelling to Ireland to see the country (not for another Ireland-specific reason), we would recommend looking into Wales instead. Ireland is overrun by tourist busses and it can feel quite inauthentic because of the level of tourism the country sees. Wales, however, offers all the same sights but with empty roads and locals who are not exhausted of tourists.