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Our Travel Adventures
Welcome to the Adventures of Larry and Connie Farquhar.
Planning for "Epic Adventure 2023"
Island Princess
Even before last year's "Epic" adventure was finished, we started discussing what we would do for 2023. After listing the different places and countries we wanted to visit, we settled on visiting Iceland. Earlier in the year, we mentioned maybe visiting Iceland to Leslie, our oldest daughter. She and her boyfriend decided to "beat us to the punch", as they made a summer trip and spent a couple weeks in Iceland in a campervan. They had a great trip!
While their trip looked fascinating, I decided I wanted to do more than just visit Iceland. We researched possible cruises and found a 16-day Princess Cruise that left England, and made several stops in England, Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland. We liked the itinerary, and this became the start of our "Epic Adventure 2023". Since we would be flying over to London, I started thinking of expanding the trip and take advantage of being in the United Kingdom.
With a little more research (okay, a lot of research), I decided to add a road-trip in the U.K. after the cruise ended. We both had visiting Scotland on our bucket list, and we were going to be so close. I ended up renting a 6-meter (almost 20') campervan from McRent in London. After our European adventure in 2021, where we rented a 7-meter (23 feet) motorhome, we knew we wanted something a little smaller. The roads in England and Scotland can be very narrow, so the smaller campervan would be easier to maneuver and park.
The next step was to figure out our route. We knew we wanted to explore England, Wales, and Scotland. We came up with a four-week itinerary. But I wanted to squeeze more out of the trip and decided to add the Republic of Ireland to the route. Why not? We were going to be so close! Well, if we were going to take a ferry over to the Republic of Ireland, why not add Ireland to the route? So now, I extended the length of the road trip to 6-weeks. We were already going to be in the U.K. and already had a rental campervan selected. Back to planning the route and the stops.
After more research and planning, I had a 6-week route planned. Ugh! This was going to be too much driving with spending only 1-night in most of the locations. I made this mistake on our 30-day driving tour in Australia. Then, we changed plans while in country since we were driving so much and not really "sight-seeing". I didn't want to make that mistake again and changed plans, yet again.
Epic Adventure 2023
We finally ended up keeping the 16-day cruise followed by a 6-week road trip just visiting England, Wales, and Scotland. We'll do the two Irelands another time. Besides, the cruise does make one stop in Ireland, so we'll see "some" of Ireland. With this finally decided, we confirmed our reservations for the cruise and the campervan rental. We were now committed!
A point on terminology: What we call "campgrounds" in the USA are called "campsites" in the UK and Europe. What we call "campsites" in the USA are called "pitches" in the UK and Europe. They also don't use the term "RV" or "Recreation Vehicle". They are simple called "caravans" (camping trailers), campervans, or motorhomes. What we call a "reservation" is called a "booking". What we call a "vacation" is called a "holiday". What we call a "RV Park" is called a "Caravan Park" (although, they also mean campervans and motorhomes. Got it?
While we only have 5 months until this trip begans, we knew we better start making some campsite reservations. There would be some UK holidays during our trip. Although we wouldn't start the road trip until the end of August, we might still have some problems with bookings. July and August are the busiest holiday months. We recently spent an afternoon on the Internet making bookings for most nights of the road trip. Our research had include reading several travel blogs and watching several hours of YouTube videos. This made making bookings fairly easy, as we already knew our route and had several caravan parks in mind. We did encounter several locations that were already fully booked or required a 2 to 4-night minimum stay. But alternatives were also easy to find.
Epic Adventure 2023 is now 95% planned. 16-day cruise to Iceland and Greenland, followed by a 6-week campervan road trip in England, Wales, and Scotland. We're 100% committed, as almost everything is paid for with most not having a refund policy. Let's hope we both stay healthy for the trip!
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