You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
One of my New Year’s resolutions this year is to visit at least one national park in each of the countries within Great Britain. It’s not going to be a dramatic, all-in-one-go adventure – we simply don’t have the budget (or the annual leave!) for that. Instead, we’ll be tackling it bit by bit, making the most of weekends and holidays, to tick each one off.
We’ll be driving to each location – hopefully in the van – before setting off on a carefully chosen trail to explore on foot. And if we manage to sort out a bike rack in time, we might even cycle across one of the parks too!
One day I hope that we might even be able to get abroad in the van! I’ve read some wonderful blogs of cross-country trips in Europe, taken in vans! I’ve been learning Spanish and I’m dying to put it into practice!
If money was no object, it would be exciting to mix the walks and mountain biking with an epic train journey around the UK! But for now, I’m just excited at the prospect of hitting 3 UK national parks in our van.
What vehicle(s) would your cross-country trip entail?
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Lots of the National Parks aren’t serviced particularly well by train. The Lakes for example has lines up the east side from Oxenholme to Penrith, and a long loop from Carlisle around the sea coast to Arnside, but nothing in between. So you have to mix it with buses to get you in to walkable fells. Have to say I’m looking more and more to drive to a place, park up sensibly and in a quiet cul de sac or street where residents park and then walk a long distance path, before public transport takes me back to the car. Its worked well a couple of times on the South West Coastal Path, so might look to do this in Scotland, Yorkshire Dales or Peak District possibly
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Yes interesting point on the train front, not helped by the removal of so many lines years ago no doubt… That said, I do love the idea of parking out the way and then getting a bus back – it beats the parking related crowds and stress of parking, and adds to the adventure!
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The van of course!
Looking forward to which National Parks you choose. For me it would be Peak District, Snowdonia and Cairngorms
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Of course, and what a great choice of transport 😉 I’m funnily enough leaning exactly towards those 3!! I’ve been desperate to do something in Snowden for years, and the Peaks are relatively close too (I’ve bought the OS maps for both of these already in anticipation!)… We’ve briefly visited the Cairngorms (not walking) and it’s so pretty, but Scotland is still very much open as to where we will end up visiting, so there will be one surprise 😁
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Looking forward to read your adventures 😉.
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