Great Britain Guidebook

In Rick Steves Great Britain you'll find in-depth Rick-tested information on:

England

• London
• Windsor
• Cambridge
• Bath
• Glastonbury and Wells
• Stonehenge and Avebury
• Salisbury and nearby
• Cotswolds
  • Chipping Campden and nearby
  • Stow-on-the-Wold and nearby
  • Moreton-in-Marsh and nearby
  • ​Blenheim Palace
• Stratford-upon-Avon
• Ironbridge Gorge
• Liverpool
• Lake District
  • Keswick and the North Lake District
  • Ullswater Lake Area
  • South Lake District
• York
• Durham and Northeast England
  • Hadrian's Wall
  • Beamish Museum

Wales

• North Wales
  • Conwy and Beaumaris
  • Caernarfon
  • Snowdonia National Park (including Betws-y-Coed, Beddgelert, and Llanberis)
  • Blaenau Ffestiniog
  • Ruthin and Llangollen
• South Wales
  • Cardiff and nearby
  • Wye Valley

Scotland

• Edinburgh
• Glasgow
• Stirling and nearby
  • Falkirk
  • Culross
  • Doune
• St. Andrews
• Oban and the Inner Hebrides
  • Isles of Mull, Iona, and Staffa
  • Inveraray
  • Kilmartin Glen
• Glencoe and Fort William
• Inverness and nearby
  • Culloden Battlefield
  • Clava Cairns
  • Cawdor Castle
• Loch Ness
• Practicalities
  • Self-guided walks and museum tours
  • Easy-to-follow maps (including color maps of Great Britain, West London, East London, Bath, and Edinburgh)
  • ​Trip planning: When to go, pre-trip checklist, festivals and holidays, recommended books and movies
  • Recommended three-week itineraries and city-specific advice on planning your time and avoiding lines
  • Transportation: Trains, buses, city transit, and driving (including route tips)
  • British history, culture, and cuisine, plus Scottish and Welsh language tips
  • Handy British–Yankee vocabulary list
  • Detailed advice on managing money, communicating, reserving rooms, handling emergencies, and other helpful hints

Also included: a 14½" x 19½" full-color foldout Planning Map that shows all of Britain and Ireland, plus key driving distances/times, and handy thumbnail close-ups (showing major sights) of Edinburgh, York, the Cotswolds, Bath, and Dublin — and a large city map of London on the back. (Note: This is a slightly smaller version of Rick's stand-alone Britain & Ireland Planning Map.)

What's the difference between this Great Britain book and either Rick's England guidebook or Rick's Best of England guidebook?

Rick Steves Great Britain covers Scotland, Wales, and our top picks of English destinations. Both Rick Steves Best of England and the complete Rick Steves England exclude Scotland and Wales, and just focus on England (with one exception: Best of England does cover Edinburgh). While the Best Of book covers fewer destinations in England than the Great Britain book, the complete Rick Steves England covers some English destinations not included in the Great Britain guidebook (Canterbury, Dover and southeast England, Brighton, Portsmouth, Dartmoor, Cornwall, Oxford, Blackpool, and some of North Yorkshire).

If you're going to Scotland as well as some of the destinations that are covered in our England books but not covered in the bigger Great Britain book, you could opt to forgo the Great Britain book and instead supplement your England book with Rick Steves Scotland. (If Edinburgh is your only stop in Scotland, you could instead grab Rick Steves Snapshot: Edinburgh.)

Should I get the London guidebook (or London Pocket guide) in addition to this Britain guidebook?

If you're spending only a few days in London, Rick Steves Great Britain is all you're likely to need.

If, however, you're spending four days or more in London, the extra information in Rick Steves London can be worthwhile. It offers more in-depth sightseeing information, several additional self-guided city walks and museum/sight tours, and more specifics on shopping and nightlife, plus activities for kids. Other information is generally the same — the London chapter of Rick Steves Great Britain has nearly all the hotels, restaurants, and nitty-gritty practical advice for London that you'll find in the Rick Steves London guidebook.

It would make less sense to supplement Rick Steves Great Britain with the smaller Pocket London guide, which includes just one walk and one museum tour more than what's included in the London chapter of the Rick Steves Great Britain guidebook, but otherwise offers far more limited coverage of the city's sights, hotels, and restaurants.

Latest updates: When we learn of critical changes to the information in this guidebook, we post them. (Of course, it's still smart to reconfirm critical transportation and sightseeing details locally.) Armed with a Rick Steves guidebook and these late-breaking updates, you're set for a great trip!

Submit feedback: Once you've used this book in Europe, we'd love to hear your feedback — good or bad — about our advice on sights, hotels, restaurants, and travel tips. We're also interested in any tips or discoveries you made while in Europe. Your comments help us improve our guidebooks for future travelers.