Hey guys,

as you may know, I'm planning a mini hitchhiking trip from Scotland down to London. The trip will be from the 26th/27th of March to the 5th/6th of April (approx. 11 days). My primary reason for doing this trip is to see the sights and touristy things in the nether regions of the UK. Being the skint student that I am, I'm trying to do this cheaply by mostly hitchhiking for travel, and using couchsurfing.com for accommodation. I'll call it an adventure :biggrin:

I'm doing this with a 25 year old guy and a 22 year old girl (both students at my uni), so I think the safety aspect is okay.

I was discussing possible routes with my 'team' today and we have come up with an initial plan.

I was wondering if you could give me any feedback on it and maybe suggest places to see?

http://i43.tinypic.com/2cejfcw.jpg

The bold locations are where we will be spending the night.

I know I'm completely giving South West England and some other places a miss, but we can't do everything in 11 days, and I want to be back home by the 6th of April.

Any ideas/feedback will be muchos appreciated! Thanks! x

Any reason you chose those particular places?

Lol. Well Cambridge is damn sexy. :) :P Ahaha
And I think when I was talking to storm before, although she's just come online on msn so I'm sure she'll explain better :), but I thought it was because it wasn't toooo far to hitch hike and also because there were places they could stay the night?

Well, the places we've chosen to stay it's primarily because there are couchsurfers there, so that sorts out accommodation and also some sightseeing because cs'ers tend to also show you around their city.

In terms of sightseeing, we chose the places because...

Glasgow - we'll, we're not planning to spend a long time here. It's just easier to get out of Scotland and into England from here because it has a direct highway to Carlisle. Edinburgh would be an option, but there didn't seem to be a highway straight from Edinburgh.

Carlisle - Carlisle castle + may be able to see some of the northern lakes in the Lake District

Heysham - Old stone graves at Heysham Head coastline + Morecambe Bay. Heysham Port is where we get the ferry to Isle of Man.

Isle of Man - ???

Dublin - Dublin Castle + ?

Holyhead - It's where the ferry drops us off.

Bangor (Wales) - Snowdonia National Park + castles + beaches

Ffestiniog - Snowdonia scenery

Aberystwyth - Snowdonia scenery

Birmingham - ???

Cambridge - ??? Not decided yet. Supposed to be picturesque and quaint.

London - Madame Tussaud's + go on the London Eye(?) + ?

The London Eye is good :)
Just stay away from East London. It sucks rocks here :P
It's so trashy *sigh*

/me can't believe the Olympics are gonna be held here :|
And you'll love all parts of Wales. That country is just absolutely beautiful. I have a feeling it'll be the highlight of your trip XD

I really hope the hitch hiking experience works out for you and that it's something memorable for you to look back on in the future :) Good luck with it. x

It sounds like a proper adventure, especially as quite a large part of it involves hitchhiking. Sounds like it will be good fun, and I hope you enjoy it :)

http://i373.photobucket.com/albums/oo177/db1986/FINISHED.gif

Walk it and then you will have combined the experience with your exercise thread.

Lol...


I did once think about doing a (sponsored) walk from Edinburgh to London. But it's a logistical nightmare to organize with time, accomodation, food, showering, etc. If someone organized it, and the logistics were fine, I would probably do it. I'm usually up for anything in the name of adventure (so long as it's safe and not embarassing)

Wow, tasha, that looks amazing! Thank you!

Mmmm chocolateeee. Shame we'll be missing the Easter fun which starts on the 4th, though.

Have you been?

LMAO!!! XD hahah

You should stop if you see three people hanging around the side of the road... might be us xD

I think I'll practice in Aberdeen lol although apparently, there's an escaped convict running around ermmm... :eek:

Ahhh, I'm in Manchester now. So far, so good. :D Hitchhiking is so damn hard xD We got a ride into Dumfries, and the driver was like, come visit me if you don't make it into Carlisle! Gave up after 30 mins rying to get a ride into Carlisle and took the bus instead xD And all our hosts have been really nice so far =)

oooh storm!!
TY for keeping us updated on your trip - very exciting!!
Keep well and safe, and enjoy
x

Oooh that's well exciting!! Glad everything's okay and you're making good progress!

Ahh I'm glad you're making progress! :) And I'm glad the hosts are good. :) And everythings good etc :) Ahah :)

Stay in touch, can't wait to see you on fridaaaay if you get here. -_- :)

Not long to go til Cambs stormy :biggrin:
I bet it was easier to hitchhike by taking your friend with you :razz:

Haha, it's awesome. We're taking the train to Wales today. Got a pretty cheap ticket. OMG, yesterday night in Manchester was so interesting. xD I can't spill all on here though as who knows who's reading this :P

Not long to go til Cambs stormy :biggrin:
I bet it was easier to hitchhike by taking your friend with you :razz:


Haha, you'd think so! But the only driver who stopped for us stopped coz I look Indian and his wife's Indian lol ;P

Ahahahahahahahahaha That's great :P Lol

Hmmm I cant wait till you get here and can talk about all your little adventures that you've been on :) :D

storm, hit Sorsie on the head when you see her. From me.
Sorsie, hit storm on the head when you see her. From me.

I have a strange way of showing love. XD

Seriously though, I'm really happy that your trip is going well, and I hope you both have a great time when you meet up! :)

Stay safe, stormy.

That's awesome. Although nobody takes hitchhikers any more these days.

Good luck and have fun :)

storm, hit Sorsie on the head when you see her. From me.
Sorsie, hit storm on the head when you see her. From me.

I have a strange way of showing love. XD

Lol... what. :P

That's awesome. Although nobody takes hitchhikers any more these days. ...

Yeah, true. I thought it'd be much easier... Maybe it's becaus we both look foreign and people automatically don't trust people who look different? *shrugs*

We're currently in the middle of Snowdonia - in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest, a good 30 mins by car from the main road and no phone signal... lol xD But it's absolutely gorgeous. =)

Make sure you take lots of pictures to show us :D

Went to Brighton instead of B'ham -- suffice it to say that it is by far the BEST place EVOR XD

Brighton is a teensy bit further than Birmingham isn't it? :razz: Hope you enjoyed it :)

Ahaha. Atleast you're not too far away :P Ahah. Hmm.. What.. Hmm..

Yes. Quite an odd direction to go :P

storm's taking the scenic route to cambridge! :p Sounds like a great adventure so far, hope you get here tomorrow!

Ahaha. Lol. I have talked to storm.. And yeah. I have No idea what is happening with her now. xD ahahaha. Ahh storm.. -patpat- :) Lol.

So yeah.. I'm hoping she will get here tomorrow night. :) She has the capability to get here tomorrow night.. but whether she will or not is another matter. :s

LOL, this thread is so much fun to read!

Go Storm, go!!

Hmm Brighton instead of Brumland... how on Earth did that happen?! Now she plans to get to Cambs she might end up in Coventry! Haha, that'd be a laugh xD

Hope it's all going well Storm, stay safe and have fun.

Brighton sucks :P How is that the best place ever? Wales is :D Dude, you were in Snowdonia.. JEALOUS! :cry:

Hubby took me to Wales just after my miscarriage last year, and 'cause I had an operation, he didn't wanna take me to snowdonia, 'cause it's really hilly and mountainy there and he thought I'd insist on wanting to walk around a lot.. which is right.. lol. But yeah, we hope to go back some day :)

I went to Brighton about 4 times as a kid. The beach is nice and stuffs.. but I prefer sand beaches :) OMG.. the beach in Port Talbot, Wales.. BEST BEACH I've been to!

I really can't wait to hear all the stories when you come back. I'm looking forward to it XD

Hey again!

I'm in Cambridge now and we (the cambridge meet people ;)) are all alive so farrr. Woo!

I'll post about Brighton later coz we're all just going out to meet Sparrow now and get our bikesss woooo! ^_^

ooh nice storm :)
Thanks for keeping us posted!
Wish I could be there ^^
x

Brighttttoonnnnnn... happened coz our hosts in Wales asked where we were going to next and I was like, Birmingham? They were like, why Birmingham? Brighton's much better!

And so. We went to Brighton. :p

The trip to Brighton itself was mental though. The guy was driving down to Oxford at 8 pm, so he offered to give us a lift -- this is all fine, except we didn't have a place to stay in Brighton coz the decision to go there was spontaneous. My travel partner really wanted to go. I was dead scared coz we'd be travelling at night, and I had no idea how to get to London from Oxford, and then to Brighton from London after midnight... :s and what if we arrived in Brighton at some ungodly hour in the morning and had nowhere to stay?! :s I msged a bunch of CS'ers asking if we could stay and if we could, then to please text me back coz we'd be on the road so we wouldn't be able to check e-mail.

We left Wales at 8 pm, stopped for a break at 12 midnight; I still wanted to just spend the night in Oxford coz I didn't want to get to London and be stuck in the middle of a G20 riot or something... got back in the car and at 2 am I notice I have a text from a CS'er saying if we arrived in Brighton at 4 am and still needed a place to stay his door was open :o so I called the poor guy up (he was asleep) to confirm, and to say we would probably be there at 6 am because there was a train going to Brighton at 4 am (apparently - according to my travel buddy). We arrived in Oxford at 2:30 am and found we'd just missed the bus to London by a minute, so that meant we'd missed the 4 am train as well, we thought. So I texted him back to say we'd probably arrive in Brighton at 8:30 am and he was like, 'that's much better' lol. So we bummed around Oxford for an hour waiting for the 3 am bus, then got to London by 4 am, and there was a train to Brighton leaving in a few mins so we got on that and reached Brighton by 5 am. [phew] It then took us 1 hour to find the house coz everyone we asked didn't know where it was (seriously! everyone was like, hmmm, I recognise the name but I couldn't tell you where it is, sorry). So I called the guy up at 5:45 am and I was like, 'OK, we're in Brighton and we're lost. Help?' So he gave us new directions and we got to his place at 6 am. Damn, was I glad to have finally arrived. o.o I thought we'd be wandering the streets of Brighton all night long. It was incredibly nice of him to take us in so late =)) (I hadn't even seen his profile so I was just hoping my travel buddy had read his profile properly and hadn't picked a murderer o.O... but it was all cool though, coz he was a student living with other students and their house was just a.w.e.s.o.m.e. They were mostly media and art students so the whole house was covered with art from floor or ceiling. It was eye-popping).

We didn't stay in Brighton too long though. Woke up to the smell of breakfast being cooked at 10 am and joined the other flatmates for brekkie (was was a really good brekkie actually - fresh pancakes, eggy bread, juice, coffee - could've been at a hotel :p). Found one of the people were going to London at afternoon at 2 pm and they offered us a ride, so we're like, oh noez, we haven't seen Brighton yet, so we got ready and went down to the beach, Brighton Pier, went on this sort of verticle ferris wheel thing, walked back amongst the markets/stalls and got back by 2 pm and left xD. Think that really is the definition of flying visit, coz we were only in Brighton for 8 hours lol. We wanted to go and see the nightlife in Brighton but everyone was unfortunately going away on Easter break that day, so we decided not to.

Ahhh, so that was Brighton. I loved the markety sort of feel, the small streets, the beach, the air, the people, the style, the art... it was just, overall, really different and really good. It was kind of like a small version of Bangkok. Maybe a bit on the small side, but still, very lively and character like nowhere else. :) I'd recommend it.

All the other places (Carlisle, Mancs, Snowdonia, Cambs, London) had something to them as well. Every place was really special and although it's a shame we don't have pics from Carlisle and Mancs (coz my partner's camera somehow deleted all those pics) I have really good memories from all the places and like parts of all of them.

Disclaimer: if the travelling bit from Wales to Brighton makes no sense... well, you now know how I felt when we were 'in transit'. :razz:

Edit: I'll post about the other places later =)

Aww, sounds like it was tiring storm! Glad you enjoyed it :)