Scotland and Orkney

An ascent of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain, overlooking Glen Nevis just outside Fort William.	The Road to the Isles, over 22 miles (37 km) overland across the high Scottish moors of Lochaber from Corrour Station to Fort William.	A trek through Glen Nevis and the Water of Nevis.
The Brealach Walk out of Pitlochry though the southern Highlands and past some megaliths.	Skara Brae, a Neolithic village on Orkney.	Neolithic Orkney: Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness, and the Knowe of Onston.
West Coast Walk along the sea cliffs of Orkney's Mainland Coast.	Scapa Flow and the Churchill Barriers.	The Sousterrain, an underground Pictish dwelling in Orkney.
The Isle of Iona, and Oban and Mull.	The Grit Boxes of Scotland.	Navigating with the UK National Grid system and Ordnance Survey maps.

England

Walking along Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland.	Stonehenge, Woodhenge, and Durrington Walls.	Avebury, with its stone circles, Silbury Hill, the West Kennet Long Barrow, the Avenue and numerous tumuli, a much better collection of megaliths and structures than Stonehenge!
C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford.	Dover's tunnels in the White Cliffs from World War II through the Cold War.	The Swingate Chain Home radar station near Dover.
The World War II glider base near Harwell, south of Oxford.	Bletchley Park, the secret installation where the British broke the German codes during World War II.	The Cabinet War Rooms, Churchill's emergency World War II government center underground in central London.
You could go to Lee Ho Fook's and get a big dish of beef chow mein.		What's the plumbing like?

Travel in the U.K. — places to stay, how to get around

UK — Places to Stay

Plan ahead and have reservations. Budget places fill up fast! This is especially the case in London, which is an extremely popular destination, and in Scotland, where there aren't nearly as many places to stay and places outside Edinburgh and Glasgow are only open for part of the year.

England

Scotland

Transportation

Ask the man in Seat 61 for all details on UK train travel.

Telecommunications

Guide Books

I have generally been very happy with the Lonely Planet guide books, at least for logistic details of how to get around and where to stay. They have a pretty good overview of what the important things are to say.

However, as someone who speaks Colonial English, I find some of the Lonely Planet titles a little hard to follow, what with their descriptions of places as "rather twee" and "cluttered with a lot of naff pikes" and other British slang.

Also, when I first bought a Lonely Planet book, for Japan in 1992, they were definitely for the independent traveler. Now they are far more upscale. I have read that their current accommodations coverage is intentionally only about 20% budget, 20% ultra-expensive, and 60% medium to fairly expensive.

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