England Holidays
Driving Tours and Road Trips

Driving tours are very popular with us Brits and many foreign visitors on their England holidays. You can cover large areas, see different things and still keep the rain off when it comes!

But driving from attraction to attraction can have its drawbacks, because you might not notice some of the sights in between.

That's where we can help you!

All the driving tours on this site are based on tours we've done ourselves. And while they do guide you from one attraction to the next, they'll also take in interesting bits of local folklore, especially nice views and other sites that might make your tour more enjoyable.

And to be particularly helpful we'll also recommend our favourite lunch stops, tea stops, cake stops and other refreshments. On the longer tours we'll even suggest interesting places to stay the night!




The Northumberland Castle Tour

Start your England holidays with one of our earliest and still most wonderful driving tours. The Northumberland Castles Tour lets you explore the history and splendour of the Northumberland coast, before introducing you to the cradle of Christianity in England (and an excellent source of mead) on Lindisfarne Island. That's definitely one I can do every time of the year!

Read about this wonderful tour...






Downton Abbey Film Locations

If you loved the Downton Abbey television series and films, then this is a great driving tour that visits many of the filming locations including Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey) and the Cotswold town of Bampton that was used as Downton village. Along the way there are so many beautiful towns and villages and visits to the ancient stone circles of Stonehenge and Avebury.

Read more here...






The King Alfred Tour

This one I owe to one of Essentially England's many overseas readers, who asked me about places especially associated with the Saxon king. We ended up devising a tour from Alfred's birthplace in Wantage (Oxfordshire) to Athelney in Somerset, where he hid from the Danes and planned insurrection, to his capital in Winchester, with any number of suprises in between.






A Tour of England's Ancient Past

I love to do this one when I have friends or family from Germany staying with us. This tour includes some of England's best known ancient monuments. There's Stonehenge, beloved of photographers the world over. There's Avebury, a place where you can get up close and personal with huge standing stones. There are Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow, plus burial mounds and processional walkways to last through a wonderful weekend tour.






The Norman Invasion Tour

The Norman invasion of 1066 changed the face of England like few other events. This driving tour will let you follow in the footsteps of William the Conqueror and his army. Explore Pevensey, where the Normans landed and built their first castle, move on to Battle, where England's fate was changed forever on October 14, 1066. Explore the great Norman castles at Dover and Rochester - and end your tour with the grandest castle of them all: the Tower of London.






A Cotswold Meander

The Cotswolds are a lovely place to live and boast some real chocolate-box villages. The ideal backdrop for your England holidays. Here's a short driving tour taking in a few of the most beautiful ones: Bibury, Upper and Lower Slaughter, Chipping Camden, Broadway....







England holidays lend themselves wonderfully to driving tours and road trips. We have beautiful countryside, lovely villages and market towns and 6000 years worth of history to explore. Who could ask more?

Return to the England holidays page for more ideas and inspirations.