Great Britain 2019 - England, Wales and Scotland with kids in a tent

England, Wales and Scotland in three weeks, with four kids, a tent and our car from Poland. In summer 2019 we drove almost 5,000 km: by ferry from Dunkirk to Dover, past London and Stonehenge to Cornwall, then north through Wales and the Lake District to Loch Lomond in Scotland. We came home on the overnight ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Below is the whole plan day by day, with distances, campsites and links to a post about each part of the trip.

You can watch all the videos from this trip in order on our Great Britain 2019 playlist on YouTube.

Trip at a glance

• Dates: Saturday 10 to Friday 30 August 2019, 21 days.
• Countries: England, Wales and Scotland, plus Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France on the way.
• Distance: almost 5,000 km, including about 2,550 km in Great Britain.
• Ferries: Dunkirk - Dover (2 hours) and the overnight ferry Newcastle - Amsterdam.
• Where we slept: in our tent at campsites, booked mostly on pitchup.com, and one night in a cabin on the ferry.
• We travelled with four kids in our gold Ford Tourneo Custom.

Day by day

Days 1-2 (10-11 August): 1,528 km to Gravelines

We left on Saturday afternoon and drove through the night to Camping des Dunes in France. At low tide the beach here was almost a kilometre wide (Gravelines beach with kids).

Day 3 (12 August): ferry to Dover and the White Cliffs

A two-hour crossing instead of one, a slow puncture, a downpour on the cliffs and seagulls at Kingsdown campsite (Dunkirk to Dover ferry and the White Cliffs).

Days 4-5 (13-14 August): near London and Brooklands Museum

Three nights at a campsite in Chertsey, with planes from Heathrow flying over every few minutes. Old London buses and an aircraft factory at Brooklands (Brooklands Museum with kids).

Day 6 (15 August): Windsor Castle

Soldiers marching through the town, the castle rooms and the Changing of the Guard (Windsor Castle with kids).

Day 7 (16 August): Stonehenge

The famous stones in the rain, and a lesson to check how the visit works before you go (Stonehenge with kids).

Day 8 (17 August): Lady's Mile in Dawlish

A rainy day at a campsite in Devon, a local accent and huge British tents (Lady's Mile campsite in Dawlish).

Day 9 (18 August): St Michael's Mount and Land's End

In the morning, crabs under the stones on the way to an island with a castle (St Michael's Mount with kids). In the evening, the most westerly point of England and a wind that almost blew our tent down (Land's End with kids).

Day 10 (19 August): back to Dawlish

215 km east and one more night at Lady's Mile, this time with an indoor pool.

Days 11-12 (20-21 August): Whitemead and Puzzlewood

Bingo and a concert at the campsite, and in the morning the film-set forest of Puzzlewood (Puzzlewood with kids). Then 216 km on winding roads to Wales.

Day 13 (22 August): Wales

A playground in an old church in Caernarfon, the village with the longest name in Britain and a campsite that was not really there (The longest place name in Wales).

Day 14 (23 August): Macclesfield and Ullswater

A visit to a friend in Macclesfield and a muddy campsite by Lake Ullswater (Ullswater and Aira Force with kids).

Days 15-18 (24-27 August): Hadrian's Wall, Loch Lomond and Glasgow

Aira Force waterfall in the morning, then a walk on the Roman wall, three nights by Loch Lomond, a flat car battery and the botanic gardens in Glasgow (Hadrian's Wall and Loch Lomond with kids).

Day 19 (28 August): Bamburgh Castle

After a night near Edinburgh, a castle on a rock above the sea and a walk on the beach (Bamburgh Castle with kids).

Days 20-21 (29-30 August): ferry to Amsterdam and home

A night on the DFDS ferry from Newcastle, then the last kilometres through Germany to home (Newcastle to Amsterdam ferry with kids).

How we travelled around Britain

We tried to get as much as we could out of this trip. Besides sightseeing, we wanted to see everyday life in Britain: we went to bingo nights and concerts at the campsites, listened to local accents, bought food in British supermarket chains and cooked it ourselves next to the car.

One thing made it harder: supermarket car parks. Many of them have a height barrier at about 2 metres at the entrance, to keep out motorhomes. Our Ford did not fit under it, and all we wanted was to do our normal food shopping. In many places it was not possible, and we had to look for another shop.

Fun facts from British roads

• In Cornwall many country roads are only wide enough for one car, with stone walls covered in green along both sides. Only now and then is there a place to pass.
• In Wales place names are written in two languages, Welsh and English, a bit like in the Kashubia region in Poland. Even the words painted in white on the road are in both languages, for example ARAF, which means SLOW.

Best moments of the trip

• running on the kilometre-wide beach in Gravelines,
• looking for crabs on the way to St Michael's Mount,
• the magical Puzzlewood forest,
• London buses and the aircraft factory at Brooklands,
• three days of playing in the water at Loch Lomond,
• bingo nights and a concert at the campsites.

What we learned

Take umbrellas and good rain ponchos to Britain. In three weeks we had more rain than sunshine, and we bought our first umbrellas at Lidl on the very first day.

Ferry tickets show local times. Going from France to England you move your clock one hour back, so a "one-hour" crossing is really two hours. Take some food on board.

Before you book a campsite on a booking website, check the photos and reviews. If you have a tent, make sure there are toilets, showers and water. Once we found a "campsite" with nothing but grass. We got our money back a few days later, after a complaint through the booking website.

On a few days at a campsite, when you open the car doors all the time, start the engine now and then or carry jump leads.

A year earlier we spent the summer in the Alps and the Dolomites (Alps and Dolomites 2018 with kids), and in May 2019 we stayed near Paris (May holiday in France with kids). For more about travelling in Britain with kids, see our guide United Kingdom with kids, and our other long trips are on the Our trips page.

Practical info

We checked prices and rules in November 2026.

• Documents: in 2019 the UK was still in the European Union and an EU ID card was enough. Today most EU visitors need a passport, because ID cards have not been accepted since 1 October 2021, and every traveller, children too, needs an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA). It costs £20 and you apply online at gov.uk.
• Ferries: the Dunkirk to Dover crossing takes about 2 hours, and the overnight ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam leaves at 17:00 and arrives in the morning. Ticket times are local.
• Driving on the left: in a left-hand-drive car, barriers, parking machines and campsite gates are on the passenger side.
• Car parks: at many supermarkets and car parks in tourist towns there is a height barrier at about 2 to 2.2 m. In a taller vehicle, look for a shop without a height limit.
• Road charges: the Dartford Crossing near London is paid online (Dart Charge, £3.50), and today the ULEZ zone, with a £12.50 daily charge for older cars, foreign cars too, covers the whole of London. When we were there in 2019, it only covered the very centre.
• Weather: in August it rained almost every day for us, so umbrellas, ponchos and spare shoes are more useful than sun cream.