Thursday, February 6, 2020

Summer - The Best Time to Explore United Kingdom

Tower Bridge, London
Hello 2020....
This is gonna be my first blogpost in 2020, and I want to write about one of the best trip I ever had. I had this trip in summer 2018 but for these whole time I didn't have any "feeling" to write about travel, and I decided to postpone about it. Until know, I got the feeling, and I will write completely about our summer holiday to United Kingdom...


This trip was very memorable for us because of some reasons. First, we didn't plan it seriously (like we did as usual). One night, we just made a joke about go to UK, because Ivan love London so much and I also never been there. Second, I just gave birth to Winston, and if this trip really happened, he's just 9 months old at that moment. We didn't think it's a good idea to take him at the long flight. However, we found a cheap flight ticket for round trip to London, and we took it.

Big Ben - London
At the first time, I didn't know anything about United Kingdom. All I know is just London, and its famous Harry Potter studio (I'm a big fan of Harry Potter). After searched about what to visit in UK, I just knew that there are 4 constituent countries in UK : Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and the most famous - England. At this trip I just visited Scotland and England because we want to explore more in London, so we didn't have enough time to visit Northern Ireland and Wales (it's a good reason so one day we could go back). For this kind of trip, I'd recommend to take multicity flight with the first flight arrive at city in Scotland such as Glasgow or Edinburgh. After that you can going south to England by taking public transportation. It would be much better than take round trip flight to London (like I did). But no matter what, I really enjoy every second in this UK trip. For us, UK trip is the best trip we ever had, even better than our trip to Europe.

University of Glasgow
University of Glasgow Cloisters

Where to stay in UK?
If you're traveling in group, Airbnb is a right choice for you. In UK, Airbnb has a good reputation, and it also legal. So you don't need to worry about the safety while stay at apartment or even at local people's house. However, if you want to stay at the hotel which offers good breakfast daily, you can try Premier Inn Hotel. These 3 stars hotels available in every city in UK, and their location always at the city center. Besides the great breakfasts that they offer daily, I like to stay at this hotel because they have "family room" type (which is rare to be found in UK). With 1 double bed and 1 single bed in this room, it's really perfect for family with kids (like us). The room also spacious, and the price still affordable - around £70 per night (including breakfast).

Edinburgh Castle

How to get around in UK?
Public transportation in UK is really good. It's not confusing, and it also very safe. For this trip, we used every type of public transportation to get around starts from bus, train, Uber, and even we also rent a car for a trip at the Scottish Highland (must things to do). Sounds confusing?? But it's not!! I'll tell you more about it at the next posts.

Loch Lochy - Scottish Highland
Glenfinnan Viaduct

Food in UK
No need to worry about food in UK. During this trip, I didn't find any untasty food. Every food that we had was really delicious, even the local food. The price also still affordable, and even some of them was quite expensive but it's worth it with the taste. If you're Asian and looking for Asian food, don't worry. You will find many delicious Asian food, especially in London. I also will write the details about it because I like every food in UK, and I want to share it.

Duck & Waffle - London

How's the weather?
As I was saying, we went there in summer - from end of June until early July. At first I thought, it's gonna be hot and humid. Once we arrived in London, we felt that it's not that humid. The temperature was about 22 degrees at noon, and it also quite windy. However, as we're going north to Scotland, the temperature decreased into 15 - 19 degrees at noon, and at night it became 10 degrees. It such a nice weather to strolling around the city.

That's all I could summarize about this trip. At the next post I'll write about our travel journey day by day, start with the first city that we visited - Manchester.

Manchester Stadium, London