My 3 week Interrail experience in the UK

Hello everyone!

I went on a three month Interrail trip this summer, and spent the final three weeks of it traveling around the UK. I thought sharing my itinerary, budget and thoughts could prove useful to someone, or perhaps spark some discussion about Interrailing in the UK.

For some brief background information, I traveled together with my wife on a 1st class Interrail ticket. My 3 month Global Pass cost me 775€, and her 22 day pass cost her 475€. We wanted to get as much as possible out of the tickets, so we didn't stay in one place for very long.

Itinerary:

After taking a short break from the previous parts of my Interrail trip, I took a flight with my wife from Finland to London Stansted on 25.7. The flight arrived at night, and we stayed in the airport until the morning train arrived. The airport isn't very suitable for overnight stays, so we didn't get much sleep.

York - We arrived in York in the morning of the 25th, and stayed there for one night. The city was gorgeous, with lots of history and interesting places to see. It had one of the nicest city centres of our trip. There was an old book shop which I found fascinating, as we don't really have anything like that in Finland. As another noteworthy activity there were tons of squirrels in the Museum Gardens, and it was fun watching them from up close. I will definitely visit the place again someday.

Berwick-upon-Tweed - We took a day trip here on the 26th, both because we wanted to go on the LNER train that took us straight there, but also because it seemed like a nice little place to visit during the day. We only had a few hours, so we skipped a lot of the town and went straight to the beaches and the area around the medieval walls. It was a fascinating historical site with pleasant views, and well worth the day trip. Not sure if it'd be worth a longer stay, though.

Middlesbrough - After the day trip on the 26th we went to Middlesbrough, solely for our accommodation. I tried to pay great attention to accommodation prices, and other nearby cities were much more expensive. That's the only reason we stayed here, and it still wasn't really worth it. We stayed here for 2 nights, going on another day trip in between. It didn't help that we stayed in a relatively bad area of town. My wife didn't feel very safe, and we weren't particularly keen on exploring the city any more than going out to eat and walking to the train station. The train connection wasn't very good either, as we had to take a regional train out and switch to high speed rail in Darlington.

Durham - We went here for a day trip during our stay in Middlesbrough, on the 27th. I really loved the vibe of the city. The paths around the river were very pleasant to walk, and as a Harry Potter fan the Durham Cathedral was really fun to visit. Sadly we didn't have time to see the Durham Castle, but at least we got to eat at a great Caribbean restaurant. It was quite noisy, but the food was delicious. I'll definitely visit here again.

Edinburgh - On the 28th we took a train to Edinburgh (LNER again, yey!), where we stayed for 3 nights. It was both of our favourite big city by far. Friendly people, lots of food and culture, and the best museum we've been in. The National Museum of Scotland took us one entire day, and we still didn't manage to see all of it. It beat the British Museum in London very easily. We also took a hike to Arthur's Seat one day, and the views were gorgeous. We managed to see so much from there, especially as we weren't able to visit the Edinburgh Castle. We also missed out on the Fringe Festival by a couple of days, though it helped a bit with avoiding the crowds. If I had to pick one city that warrants a trip on its own, this is it.

Stonehaven - While Edinburgh was really nice, we decided to take a short day trip out of the city on the 30th. Partly because we wanted to see more of the East coast, but also because we wanted to take the LNER train again and get a free breakfast. We hopped on a train and decided which place looked the nicest. This was definitely a good choice for a walk in the countryside. All we did was walk to Dunnottar Castle and back, but the views were magnificent. Definitely worth the day trip.

Mallaig - We left Edinburgh early in the morning to get to Mallaig via Glasgow in one day. The main reason was to see the views along the West Highland Railway. The train was absolutely packed, even more so because the train was operating at half the carriages. Mallaig itself was really nice as well. We ate at a restaurant, which served the best seafood we had the entire trip. The accommodation was by far the most expensive, since it's so scarce at a village like this (triple our average stay). The Airbnb host was the loveliest person ever though, and we had such a nice stay for 2 nights. We also took a little swim in a secluded part of the beach. It was really cold (11 degrees I think?) but super fun. I'm glad we decided to go there, though we already saw everything we wanted during that time.

Glenfinnan/Morar - We took a day trip from Mallaig to these places, to see a bit more of the West Highland sights. We visited Glenfinnan solely for the viaduct (the bridge from Harry Potter) and it made us both really happy to see it in real life, along with the steam train, which we didn't take as it's not included in the Interrail pass. We visisted Morar for the beaches, which were also stunning. We didn't go for a swim, but it was a nice little hike and we ended up climbing a random hill for some more views. It was a lovely time.

Glasgow - We only had a one night stop in Glasgow on the 2nd of August, as we couldn't go much further by train in one day. We didn't see much of the city, but it had much more of a "big city" vibe than Edinburgh, and didn't really spark our interest. We mostly just went out to eat, checked out the cone-headed Duke of Wellington statue, and went to sleep. I'm willing to give the city another chance, but this time we couldn't fit it into our schedule.

Keswick - We stayed in the Lake District for 2 nights, between 3.8 and 5.8. I love hiking in the nature, so this was a great place to visit. On the first day we went to Blencathra (wife absolutely hated it, as she doesn't like climbing, but I really liked it), and on the second day we explored Keswick and went on a slightly easier hike on the countryside nearby. It's a beautiful region that definitely deserves more than two days.

Manchester - We stayed in Manchester for two nights between 5.8 and 7.8. I had made inquiries on visiting different places before traveling, and Manchester rose as one of the places people don't recommend visiting. Honestly, I can somewhat agree. We went there for industrial heritage, but it wasn't present nearly as much as I would've hoped. There were some pretty cool things to visit, such as the John Rylands Research Institute library, which had a pretty cool vibe to it. There was also a very nice Indian restaurant we ate at. Other than that, it was mostly a time for us to just relax a bit and have a few drinks at our hotel, because the city itself wasn't that interesting. Next time I'd definitely save the travel days for something nicer, such as the Lake District.

Stafford - Once again we took a small day trip on the 7th, partly to enjoy a free meal once again, this time on an Avanti West Coast train (which was also great, but more unreliable in terms of food availability). Honestly, it was a pleasant little town, albeit a little dead, with closed shops everywhere. I had to do some things regarding my studies, so I visited the library and got myself a Staffordshire library card as a souvenir. Honestly I should start collecting library cards as souvenirs... Regardless, probably not worth a long visit but I enjoyed my time there.

Crewe - We stayed here for 3 nights between the 7th and 10th, solely to serve as a hub for trains to Wales. Welsh accommodation was too expensive, so we opted for a bit more train travel to save some money. The hotel itself was nice, but the city isn't really worth spending any time in, as it's mostly just boring and dirty. The location of the train station was really convenient though.

Conwy - This was our first Welsh day trip, on the 8th. Honestly, it was a really nice little town. with a big castle and nice views. The centre was very walkable, and easy enough to see in one day. There would've been a nice hiking trail to the South, but we didn't have time for that unfortunately. Not sure if I'd visit again, as I saw most of the town already.

Bangor - Technically we didn't spend much time around Bangor, but we took a bus from there to Snowdonia. This was also a day trip from Crewe, so we didn't have too many hours to spend, but we did do a nice hiking trail around Llyn Idwal, which I highly recommend. The views were some of the best I've ever seen. I'd definitely like to spend even more time hiking around Snowdonia.

London - We got to London on the 10th of August, and spent 4 nights there. There's honestly so much to see around London, but to me it was a bit overwhelming. Everything's quite expensive, and there are so many people around. There were some really cool places we visited though, such as the Frameless art exhibition, one of the only activities we actually spent money on during our trip. The British Museum wasn't quite as enjoyable, honestly, as most of the stuff is from other countries anyway, and I was more excited seeing Greek things in Greece compared to the British Museum. Either way, there's so much to see in London that you could spend a lot of time there, but I didn't vibe with the city that much.

Oxford - We ended up taking a day trip to Oxford on the 12th. Initially we went there for a less crowded and more manageable garden experience, and the Botanic Garden was honestly really nice to visit. We walked there for a few hours, and explored the city afterwards. We visited two bookshops as well, and they were massive. If we weren't backpacking, I would've bought several books from there, as there were some very fascinating ones. The vibe of the city was quite similar to Cambridge, which I had visited a few years before, and overall it was a really nice city, probably worth a day or two more.

My wife took a flight back to Finland on the 14th of August, while I opted for the Eurostar and other trains through continental Europe, as I had a few more days left in my pass. It was a really nice trip, and honestly the UK is one of those countries I'd gladly visit again in the future. I know it doesn't get a very good rep among travelers, let alone Brits themselves, but to me there's just something very charming about the country.

How about the budget then? Here's a brief summary of what I spent during the trip:

Interrail ticket - 775€ for 3 months (189€ for the 22 days in the UK), or 475€ for a 22 day ticket. Both Youth 1st class. Individual train tickets during this time would've cost 2000€ each in 1st class, or 960€ in 2nd class!

Accommodation - 533,26€ total per person for 20 nights. 11 of these nights were in shared hostel rooms, and 9 were in private rooms. The average cost per night was 26,66€ per person. Without staying in Mallaig, which had by far the most expensive accommodation, the average would've been 22,59€.

Food and other expenses - This one I didn't calculate very accurately, as I could just see my spending from my bank transactions. The total spending on everything except the Interrail ticket and accommodation was 850€. This makes for a bit under 40€ per day. On average, every day included one meal at a restaurant and one meal deal from a Tesco or Sainsbury's, as well as some random snacks and whatever.

Total cost - With the 3 month Interrail pass divided for the UK trip, I spent about 1570€ for the entire 22 day trip. With the shorter Interrail ticket, my wife spent about 1860€. Both below the cost of individual 1st class train tickets for our trip. Overall, I'd call this a massive success.

Sorry about the long post! I'd be happy to hear everyone's thoughts and answer any questions, in case any of you have some.