Today's mail brought the latest issue of Terry Gore's SAGA Newsletter, with Doug's excellent article with the title above. As I read it, I could recall learning many of the same lessons that Doug did--many with some degree of pain involved in the learning process!

I just wanted to add one suggestion regarding "How to get to the Battlefields", and one on "Where to Eat and Sleep".

It's very helpful to marry (or at least form a temporary partnership for the trip with) a woman who can navigate while you drive. I'm lucky: mine went to school for geology, and was a game warden's daughter, so she can read a map almost as well as I can. As we drive around the UK by car, we carry three sets of maps. One is a detailed road atlas, like Doug suggests: we use the AA atlas, which you can pick up at any bookshop and lots of other places. In addition, we carry Ordnance Survey maps of the locations we're visiting, both the Landranger (1:50,000) and Pathfinder (1:25,000) scales. These can be ordered over the Web from the OS and lots of other sources, or just wait 'til you get to London, and go to Stanford's on Long Acre: best map store in the world, IMO.

So what we do, as we approach the area we want to see, is use the road atlas to get near to it on the major and minor roads, then shift to the appropriate Landranger sheet to identify landmarks, identify the correct turns in a village, and so on. Then for some sites, it's useful to have the more detailed Pathfinder sheet as well, not only to find the right walking route (especially if you have to use public footpaths), but even to find the right country lane in the car, sometimes. In addition, these detailed maps will provide a lot more information about potentially interesting sites in the area, and for battlefields, will help you visualize the "lay of the land". Plus, once you get home, you'll have a proper contour map to help you lay out the terrain for a wargame!

When it comes to figuring out where to stay, Doug is right on target in recommending bed and breakfast (B&B) establishments. But these vary tremendously in quality. An uncomfortable B&B with poor food can turn your better half into a darned grumpy navigator, especially if she isn't keen on sharing bathrooms with strangers. So I rely on a couple of B&B guides which focus on nice establishments with good food:

• Gundrey's "Staying off the Beaten Track in England and Wales" (updated every couple of years) - available in bookstores or online in the US. This has never failed to find us exceptional places to stay, at no more cost than a chain hotel, and to make some great friends of several of the owners. The detailed descriptions of the B&Bs will make your mouth water.
• Welles, Darbey, and Mortimer, "The Best Bed and Breakfast" (also updated frequently) - also available in US bookstores and online booksellers. This has loads of color photos of the nicer places, but it doesn't cover all the real "gems" that the Gundrey's recommend. Also includes Scotland.
• If you don't want to track down those two, the AAA's "Britain Bed & Breakfast" is very comprehensive, and covers many more B&Bs, including the lower-end ones as well as the posh places. If you needed to carry a single guide, this could be the one. It includes many of our favorite places from the Gundreys, and it covers Scotland, too. Just watch the ratings!

Once you have an idea where you'd like to stay, if you're the kind of person who likes to plan things out, it's a good idea to reserve as far ahead as possible. Finding a comfortable B&B for several days in an area of interest (such as along Hadrian's Wall) makes it easy to use your time in that area more flexibly, knowing where you'll be each night. When we started vacationing in the UK, we had to send out a slew of letters, but nowadays, it seems that most B&Bs have e-mail and Web sites, which really makes things very convenient.

Oh, one more thing: pick up a copy of CAMRA's "Good Beer Guide" once you get to London. Then wherever you are, you'll know where you can find the pubs that offer (and properly care for) real ale. These usually offer good lunches as well, so integrating this into your travel planning can help kill two birds with one stone. Plus the atmosphere in most of the real ale pubs will soothe the missus and remind her she's on holiday, especially after you've had her tromping over barren real estate for half the day.

Hope you find this useful someday!

Visiting English Battlefields: An American's Guide [Saga 92]