🔗 United Kingdom Trip 2023

Ido Perlmuter

After successfully completing my "project" of visiting all of the National Parks in the Contiguous United States, I started looking at other potential destinations to do something similar. I decided to go to the United Kingdom, where I could visit all of the National Parks (15 in number) quite quickly.

It's worth noting that the UK's National Parks are different than American ones, as many of them contain human settlements (many of those predate the establishment of the parks) and private lands. There is also a separate designation, "Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty", which are closer to the common definition of National Park. There are 46 of those in the UK, and while I did not plan to visit all of them, I did plan on visiting a substantial amount.

I started the trip in mid-May, landing in Gatwick and immediately driving south to the beach, to visit South Downs National Park. From there, my road trip continued in a figure-8 shape, often close to the seashores. The first part of the trip was on the eastern side of the country, from England to Scotland, where I moved to the west side of the country, boarded a ferry with my car to Northern Ireland, returned to Scotland, drove to Wales on the western shores of Great Britain, returned to England, drove to Cornwall, and finally returned to the Greater London are to fly back home.

I completed the trip in 2.5 months, working remotely along the way. I mostly slept in B&Bs, pubs and cheap Traveled motels. I had an incredible time on the trip. I also went to several music concerts, including a punk rock festival, a John Fogerty concert (my third), one of Elton John's final performances, and also Ashley Campbell.

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