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| A-Z Local Street
Finder |
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Use this link to StreetMap.com to pinpoint the exact location of
your hotel or any other place of interest anywhere in the UK. When you enter the name
of a street, or a postcode, StreetMap will put an arrowhead on its map to pinpoint the street
for you. Underneath the map, there is sometimes a button labelled "Large Map".
Click this and the map fills the screen. Next to it, there is sometimes an icon of a camera.
Click this for a novel aerial view of the street. This was the least-known of many A-Z
services when we first added it here - but we rated it the best. A ten out of ten
website. Defo.
To plan a route from street to street, anywhere in the UK, use the links further down
under 'Route Planners'.
For a map of London's tube system, use the link under 'Underground Map'. |
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Three entirely different, content-rich sites, covering anything
and everything tourists or Anglophiles could ever want to know about England and the English.
Everything from where to go, what to see and where to stay, to the dastardly Rules of Cricket.
You name it, it's here! Or, what isn't here is on the rest of this page below! |
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| Accommodation... |
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Whether you are touring the UK by car, train, coach or motorcycle,
staying one or more nights in 'bed and breakfast' accommodation is probably the most convenient,
casual and economical way of seeing the country. There are countless websites listing
B & B places. Use your preferred search engine to look for +"bed and breakfast"
+england or +"b&b" +england (item added 7.8.05). |
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"A limited range of well-located, reasonably-priced accommodation
without anyone fussing around you" (Web-User magazine 20.3.03). Minimalist
accommodation, sometimes dormitory style. Traditionally a young backpackers' sort of thing,
but adventurous undemanding families are often welcomed nowadays. |
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For maximum benefit from this UK hotel portal, drill down till
you reach any link called "Link to brochure", or similar, and click on it for complete
details, including prices, maps, booking info and phone numbers. Nothing special designwise,
but so practical it rates 10/10. |
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Intentionally caters for online credit card booking only, by deliberately omitting
hotel phone numbers. However, if you do want a phone number, you can always ring a Directory
Enquiries service, or search the web, for that information. Despite the phone omission,
this is an exemplary website so, 10/10. |
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Hotels & Guest Houses 3 |
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For even more hotels to choose from, you could delve into the three
'About England' sites at the start of this listing. |
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A link to stayinapub.com. If staying in pubs during a touring
holiday in Britain appeals to you, and it should, if you're not religious, and you want a taste
of commoner reality, then this site is for you (link added 6/03). The site has since got
rather messy and muddling, but you can still get to the all-important pub listings if you persevere
(5/04). |
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| Camping Sites
(UK) |
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A link to uk-sites.com |
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| Caravan Sites
(UK) |
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A link to uk-sites.com |
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| Car Hire |
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Hiring a car when on holiday in a foreign land is a common necessity.
But scams proliferate and you can often end up being charged quite a bit more than you were
initially led to believe it would cost you. The UK is no exception in this respect so,
when hiring, be suspicious of low initial fees and, in all instances, read the small print in
order to identify any traps which could be used to rip you off when you return the vehicle. |
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| Coach
Travel (UK) |
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A link to National Express. Unbelievably cheap fairs compared with rail. |
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| Currency Converter |
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See what any amount of money in any currency is currently worth in any other
currency. A cool tool stylishly presented. (Link added 3.9.05.) |
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| Days
Out |
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Lost for ideas on where to take yourself, the kids, or anybody else? This resource will not fail to come up with some great suggestions you would never have thought
of, all within a variable radius of any UK post code. Marvellous. (Link added 24.12.07.) |
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| Devon & Cornwall |
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Surprisingly, we have not found a website worth linking to about Devon and Cornwall,
despite it being England's most idyllic holiday area. When there, don't miss places like
Exmoor, Tintagel, Bodmin Moor, Newquay, Land's End, Penzance, Torquay, Dartmoor and Trago Mills.
Concentrate on north Devon and north Cornwall if you like rugged cliffs, rocky coves and wild
surfing. Or south Devon and Cornwall if rolling countryside, sandy bays and calmer seas
are more your forté. |
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| Ferry bookings |
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| Flights (within or from the UK)... |
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"For flying around the UK, you can't beat EasyJet.
And Ryanair for going to Ireland" (Kim Bailey, NH racehorse trainer, 26.10.01).
These are no-frills budget airlines. Do not be late for your booking-in time.
If you are, you will be stung with extra costs to be put on a
later flight - it could be several times more than you have already paid! If your return flight is cancelled for any reason,
and you are stranded there, how to get back home, or where to stay till they have an alternative flight,
is strictly your problem at your expense, not theirs. Do not assume high standards of
service, security or cleanliness - what do you want for knock-down, rock-bottom prices?!
A new EU rule entitles people to claim nominal compensation of 200 to 600 euros
if they could not board a flight due to overbooking, cancellation, or flight delays (2/05). |
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| France |
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The south of France is the nearest place to England that can guarantee
summer holidays with nice beaches, a warm calm sea, and unbroken sunshine. |
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| Greece |
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You do not want to waste your time looking at any websites about
a dream place like Greece. Whether you want to party 24/7, relax on the sun-kissed islands,
or explore the highly-scenic history-rich mainland - just catch a plane and go! You will
never forget a summertime visit to Greece. |
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Journey
Planner for London
Also see 'Route Finder' (to plan a complete journey from street to street anywhere in the UK) |
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How to get from A to B in London by public transport (rail, tube, bus, boat,
or a mix of those when appropriate), including departure times and fares. Quite difficult
to get to grips with if you're not actually a Londoner. But, if you can master the site,
it becomes an invaluable aid for any tourist, or native, on those occasions when you need to
make an unfamiliar journey by public transport. |
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| Lake District |
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England's foremost place of striking natural beauty. Located in the far
NW corner of England, between Blackpool and Gretna Green. The village of Keswick is a
great base for a few days' touring. Most local pubs there offer B&B accommodation.
Maximum recommendation! In fact, Keswick, since it was first tipped here years ago, has
become one of the UK's top tourist destinations outside of London. |
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| London |
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What you WON'T see in the glossy travel brochures! |
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| Maps |
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See under 'A-Z', 'Route Finders' and 'Underground'. |
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| Phone
Book |
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Like a Directory Enquiries service but free (added 5/08).
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| Phone
codes |
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If you know a UK phone number and want to know the geographical
location, or vice-versa, this little search tool will tell you instantly.
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| Phone
humans |
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How to skip through major companies' automated messages and go
straight to an operator.
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| Phone regular
numbers |
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Find the regular numbers of major companies and save money. |
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| Post
codes |
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If you know a UK post code and want to know the geographical location,
or vice-versa, this little search tool will tell you instantly. |
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| Pub Accommodation |
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See in the Accommodation section above, under "Stay in a Pub". |
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| Rail Journeys |
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See under "'Train Times" below. |
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| Route
Planner 1 |
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Originally just a town-to-town route-planner, the RAC's map-site
was upgraded Feb 2004 into a full street-to-street route-finder and was promoted to the top
spot here as then being the best online UK route-planner. It ingeniously worked in the
same way as Adobe Photoshop in that, to pan round the main map, you dragged a rectangular frame
in a small thumbnail overview - when the frame is over the required area, clicking on the frame
made the main map zoom in. Alternatively, you could click an "A to B Overview"
button under the map to obtain the correct main map, then drag out a zoom-in rectangle directly
on the main map. It was a great 10/10 service (Feb 2004). Two years later, the site
had been remade and the route page was drab, poorly laid out and, worst of all, our own street
was missing from its database so, presumably, were many others. Now only worth 6/10
till they get it sorted (11/06). |
| Route
Planner 2 |
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Do not be discouraged by the cluttered look of Microsoft MapPoint's
initial overview map. As soon as you zoom in (by left-clicking on the map), or enlarge
the map using a "Map Size" button, all becomes crystal clear. Under the map
you will also find detailed driving directions where - a neat touch this - you can pull up thumbnail
maps of all the junction-changes along the route. When first added here, it was immediately
rated 10/10 and No. 1 (8/02). Subsequently moved from top spot to second place when
noticing the RAC service was more up-to-date for temporary diversions caused by road works.
But still a 10/10 service (2/04).
Microsoft have since also aquired Multimap as yet another major advertising outlet (Jan 2008). |
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| Royal Family |
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Believe it or not, the Royal Family have actually got their own
website - bless you maam! But what's the betting they don't reveal how you can text
or e-mail the handsome young princes! |
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| Scotland |
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Edinburgh - Britain's most memorable city. On
a par with Vienna, Rome or Athens, but in a totally different way.
West Highlands - magical scenery, but do avoid the biting-midge season if camping
or hiking. |
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| Spain |
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After Greece, Spain's entire south coast and offshore islands are
the next-best place in Europe for beautiful summer holidays in guaranteed sunshine, particularly
if you are twentyish - and if orgying on sun, sea, sand and unsafe sex is uppermost on
your mind. |
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Train
times 1
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The inadequacies of National Rail's website finally got sorted
at the end of 2005 and it now sports an efficient 'Quick Journey Planner' smack bang at the
top of their Home page. The results it produces include a further option to find the fastest
or the cheapest trip (this link added here 22.6.06). |
Train
times 2
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This was our original timetable link, here since 16.7.04.
It uses the same database as is now available from the link just above. In the event that
the timetable page indicates you have to change trains en route, you can click the Details button
for more information. |
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| Tube Map |
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See 'Underground Map' |
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| Underground
Map |
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A big scrollable map of the London Underground. If you want
to see exactly where a station is on a corresponding street map, click on the station's name,
then on the 'Big street map' tab. |
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| Weather 1 (Met Office Forecasts) |
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The first link is to the UK Met Office. This can be a slow-loading
page at the best of times, due to the high number of visitors and images. If you get a
"404 Not Found" error message or similar, try pressing your Refresh (or Reload) button
to give them a second chance.
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| Weather 2
(10-day Forecast) |
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Forecasts of English weather ten days in advance? They cannot be serious!
But this link still gets top marks for trying, for its nice presentation, and for the uncanny
accuracy of its 8th-day, 9th-day, and 10th-day predictions on the one and only occasion we put
it to the test in April 2004 (link added here 8.5.04). |
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| Weather 3 (TV Forecasts) |
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Another handy resource for weather forecasts, if you are already in the UK,
is the telly. Try ITV Teletext page 152 for a London area forecast, or BBC 1 Ceefax
pages 401 (national forecast) and 406 (5-day long-range regional forecast). |
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| Weather 4 (Tips) |
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English people talk about the weather more than anything else -
including money, football or sex. If you want to strike up a conversation with a complete
stranger, always kick off with the weather - it almost never fails. But don't be offended
if it does. The natives always assume approaching strangers will be beggars. Plus
the English are notoriously insular. And Londoners are always in a rush.
The warmest time for a holiday in the UK is during June, July or August. The hottest (stickiest)
two weeks, traditionally, are the last week in July and the first week in August - and,
consequently, the most expensive for flights, hotels, theatres etc. In the past, you could
almost guarantee one or other of those two weeks would be the best week of the summer.
But the expected, brief, extreme heat and uncomfortable humidity never materialised in either
2005, 6 or 7. Sorry! |
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Outside of the few brief summer months, the weather will usually be cool, wet,
windy or grey, one or the other, or several, you just have to take pot luck. However,
a great time is still assured any time of the year as there is always so much to do and see,
especially in the capital. Including - very useful if it's raining - plenty of friendly
and inexpensive i-caffs where you can while away the time, in the dry, e-mailing
or skyping the folks back home about our lovely weather!!! |
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| Wi-Fi Hotspots |
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Find local bars or cafes anywhere in London or the UK with wireless
broadband connections for roaming laptops (added 13.8.07). |
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