What you need to know about travelling in the UK.

KNOW WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF THE TRIP

The first thing you really need to know is that you cannot possibly hope to do it in a weekor even a month. The first thing you need to know, is what you want to see. At the risk of sounding like a Tourist Board official, you really will be spoilt for choiceso narrow your choices before you get here.

Not only does the UK have a history that includes artefacted habitation back to the last ice age, but also one that includes involvement in just about every major conflict since.

There are legends and myths from Arthur's Round Table and the Grail stories, including visits by Joseph of Arimethea, through to the Leprechauns of Ireland (the Northern Province for the time being still a part of the UK) and the Selkie that lurk the waters of Scotland. Druids still welcome the solstices in the stone circles of which Stonehenge is only the most famous.

There are castles and priories, still in use and in romantic ruin according to your taste.

There are museums on every subject, military, social or political that you could care to mentionfrom the famous Natural History, Victoria & Albert, British Museums (and their cohorts) in the capital to the vast open air museum at Beamish in County Durham (which charts the northern life of the mines and the co-operatives in an interactive experience to delight and educate even those of us brought up amongst its remnants). Every County will have its regimental museum and every town of any age a depiction of the life of the locale. Obviously quality and value for money will vary, but the smaller outfits can often provide some astonishing insights. I remember particular fascination in the Trinity House museum in Penzance getting up close and personal with old lighthouse lensesand being embarrassed in Newark and recognising equipment my mother was still using.

History in Britain doesn't have to be sought out in dusty rooms however. It's right there on the streets. In places like York, Chester, Norwich, Durham.or even in the more industrial towns of the north Darlington, Leeds, look around youlook at the buildings and the monumentsthe market halls, the railway stations

But history is only the start of it. And maybe not your thing.

Perhaps you'd rather get back to nature. We have woods and heaths and coastline. We have parks and mountains. Rivers and lakes. We cannot do you active volcanoes or glaciers or dessertand

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