Size Matters (Sometimes)

I was thinking back to my 2014 Trip Of The Century, and thought I’d share a little with you about driving in England.  When I first made my trip plans, I showed them to my English counterparts.  They were aghast.

2014 Trip of the Century

You can’t do that!  It’s way too much driving.  You’ll poke your eye out (sorry, a little reference to Ralphie’s dilemma there).  They were just *sure* as heck that 2.5 weeks was not enough time to see large parts of England, Scotland, and Wales.

“There are roadworks and closures everywhere,” they told me.  “You’ll be spending your entire holiday in your car!”  “You wouldn’t find ME doing that!”  On and on it went.  They finally scared me so much that I contacted my Texas friend living in the UK.  “Can I do this?” I asked her?  “I think so,” she said.  “They have a different idea of time and space here.”

That’s actually something I’ve had to grapple with, myself.  When you look at that map of Great Britain, it seems huge!  But, we are equating the size of a country to the USA.  In fact, the UK is only 35% the size of Texas.

UK is 35% the size of Texas

As Texans, we are used to taking day trips to Dallas or Houston (6 hours round trip). Or heading to Padre Island (8 hours from Houston).  So, England (which is equivalent to about the size of Louisiana) doesn’t appear very daunting to us.

Flip that, and look at it from the British perspective.  Their entire universe lies within a relatively small country.  At one point, the British Empire governed over about 458 million people, one-fifth of the world's population at the time, and covered more than 13,000,000 square miles, almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area.

How could anything be larger than Great Britain?  And, England lies at the heart of both GB and the UK.

Centuries of driving their roads has taught them that the distance between Leeds and Bradford would take you at least a couple of days with a layover in between! And, if you want to park your car, you should find the car park (consisting of two spaces) at the post box near the Smith’s farm on Underbelly road and walk to the pub ¼ mile down. 

The truth of the matter is that I did the trip around GB handily, and with only a couple of minor traffic issues.

In years past, I had a couple of English friends come to visit me who wanted to see Disney World (doesn’t everyone?).  So, I told them I could drive it, and to give them some perspective, I told them it would be like driving from London to Rome.

Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

If you’re an American (and especially a Texan) traveling in the UK, don’t be afraid to check out drive times and settle up your trip accordingly.  You’ll see tons of great landscape with fairly little driving “skin” in the game. 

Now, there are some things to be aware of.  Like sheep being herded along your path or giant, scary roundabouts that the GPS always gets confused on.  “Enter Roundabout” and “Recalculating” were two of my LEAST favorite phrases!

But, we made it, alive, intact, and no worse for wear.  It did help that I had not only GPS, but a great navigator in my side seat.  So, travel on, me ducks! It’s not as bad as you might think!