Hamilton & Chase Tours
Epic Britain — Private Package 10-day United Kingdom tour: The complete island circuit — London, York, the Lake District, Snowdonia, the Cotswolds, Bath, and Oxford.

10-Day Private Package Journey

Epic Britain

The complete island circuit — London, York, the Lake District, Snowdonia, the Cotswolds, Bath, and Oxford.

Available as Private Semi-Private Self-Guided
From €3,590 per person 10 days / 9 nights
View Itinerary

Tour Overview

10 days across United Kingdom.

Britain is the island that, in 2,000 years of recorded history, has produced the Roman occupation, the Norman invasion, the Magna Carta, Shakespeare, the Industrial Revolution, the British Empire, and the Beatles. This ten-day private journey is the complete circuit: London in depth, Cambridge, York, the Lake District, the Welsh castles of Snowdonia, the Cotswolds, Bath, Stonehenge, and Oxford. The route runs clockwise from London — north to Cambridge and York, west through the Lake District and North Wales, south through Chester and the Cotswolds to Bath and Stonehenge, and back to London via Oxford. It is designed so that no landscape repeats itself and no day is dominated by driving. Wales adds a dimension that is entirely absent from the standard England tour: the Edwardian castle circuit of Conwy, Caernarfon, and Harlech — built by Edward I between 1283 and 1295 to suppress Welsh independence — and Snowdonia National Park, whose mountains, slate quarries, and Welsh-speaking communities represent the most concentrated expression of Welsh identity on the map. This is the tour for guests who want to understand the whole island rather than the English portion of it.

Detailed Itinerary

Your journey, day by day.

Every day is designed with breathing room. Sleep in, take a detour, linger at lunch — the itinerary flexes around you, not the other way around.

Day 1 — Arrival in London
Day 1
1

Day 1

Arrival in London

Two thousand years of continuous occupation.

Your private driver meets you at Heathrow or Gatwick Airport and transfers you to your hotel in the West End. London is where the Britain you are about to travel through was largely designed: the maps drawn in the Admiralty, the empire administered from Whitehall, the laws made in Westminster, and the money made in the City. The afternoon at leisure: Westminster Bridge for the Parliament view, Borough Market on the South Bank, and the Tate Modern in the former Bankside Power Station. Welcome dinner in the West End or Mayfair at a restaurant that takes the contemporary British kitchen seriously.

  • Private airport transfer to central London
  • Westminster — Parliament and the Abbey
  • Tate Modern and Borough Market on the South Bank
  • Welcome dinner in the West End
4–5★ hotel, London West End
Day 2 — London — Tower and the City
Day 2
2

Day 2

London — Tower and the City

The Norman fortress, the Crown Jewels, and the Square Mile.

The Tower of London: the Norman fortress that has served as palace, prison, and treasury for nine centuries. The Crown Jewels in the Jewel House, the Yeoman Warders who have guarded the Tower since 1485, and the ravens whose continued presence (by royal decree) is said to guarantee the survival of the kingdom. St Paul's Cathedral — Wren's 1710 dome that survived the Blitz while the surrounding City burned — and the Whispering Gallery inside the dome. The Museum of London in the Barbican for the city's archaeology from the Roman period to the Great Fire. The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square for the afternoon: the collection that spans from Duccio (1285) to Seurat (1891) and includes the Arnolfini Portrait, The Hay Wain, Sunflowers, and the National Gallery's great Vermeers.

  • Tower of London — the Crown Jewels and the Yeoman Warders
  • St Paul's Cathedral — Wren's dome and the Whispering Gallery
  • National Gallery — Arnolfini Portrait to Sunflowers
  • Trafalgar Square and the City of London
Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ hotel, London West End
Day 3 — Cambridge and York
Day 3
3

Day 3

Cambridge and York

King's College Chapel and the Roman capital of Britain.

Cambridge is an hour north of London and the appropriate context for Oxford later in the tour: the rivalry between the two ancient universities has shaped English intellectual life for eight centuries. King's College Chapel — late Gothic fan vaulting at its most refined, and the Christmas choir broadcast since 1928 — is the architectural centrepiece. The Backs give the famous view of the colleges across the River Cam. York in the afternoon: the Roman city of Eboracum where Constantine was proclaimed Emperor in 306 AD, Viking Jorvik from 866 to 954, and the medieval walled city whose Minster is the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe and whose Shambles is the best-preserved medieval street in England.

  • King's College Chapel Cambridge — the finest fan vaulting in England
  • The Backs — the Cambridge colleges along the River Cam
  • York Minster — the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe
  • The Shambles — the medieval butchers' lane of overhanging houses
Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ hotel, York city centre
Day 4 — York in Depth and the Moors
Day 4
4

Day 4

York in Depth and the Moors

The JORVIK Viking city, the city walls, and the heather plateau.

The JORVIK Viking Centre beneath the Coppergate: the excavated 10th-century Viking street whose anaerobic mud preserved everything from leather shoes to Byzantine silk. The York city walls — the most complete medieval walls in England — walkable as a 2.1-mile circuit above the rooftops. Clifford's Tower: the 13th-century royal keep where the 1190 massacre of York's Jewish community took place. The North York Moors in the afternoon: the drive over the heather plateau to Whitby on the North Sea cliff, past the North Yorkshire Moors Railway station at Goathland that appeared as Hogsmeade in Harry Potter. Whitby Abbey on its clifftop — the 7th-century monastery destroyed at the Reformation that Bram Stoker used as the landing point for Dracula.

  • JORVIK Viking Centre — the excavated 10th-century Viking city
  • York city walls — the 2.1-mile medieval circuit
  • Goathland — Hogsmeade station on the steam railway
  • Whitby Abbey — Dracula's clifftop landing point
Meals: Breakfast 4★ hotel, North York Moors or Whitby
Day 5 — The Lake District
Day 5
5

Day 5

The Lake District

Wordsworth's landscape and Beatrix Potter's farmhouse.

The Lake District is England's largest national park and the landscape that generated English Romanticism. Dove Cottage in Grasmere: Wordsworth's home from 1799 to 1808, where he wrote The Prelude while walking every day along Rydal Water and Grasmere lake. Hill Top at Near Sawrey: Beatrix Potter's farmhouse, preserved exactly as she left it, where she wrote Peter Rabbit and eleven other tales that have sold 250 million copies. Windermere — 17 kilometres of lake — by steamer in the afternoon. The evening at a country house hotel in the Lake District with views of the fells in the last light. The Lake District has a stronger concentration of country house hotels than any other English national park, and the dinner here is often the gastronomic highlight of the tour.

  • Dove Cottage Grasmere — Wordsworth's home and the Romantic landscape
  • Hill Top — Beatrix Potter's farmhouse above Esthwaite Water
  • Windermere steamer — the longest lake in England
  • Lake District country house dinner
Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ hotel or country house, Lake District
Day 6 — Snowdonia and the Castles of North Wales
Day 6
6

Day 6

Snowdonia and the Castles of North Wales

The highest mountain in Wales and the chain of fortresses Edward I built to hold it.

Snowdonia National Park in northwest Wales covers 2,176 square kilometres of glaciated mountain landscape centred on Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa in Welsh) — at 1,085 metres, the highest mountain in Wales and England. The Snowdon Mountain Railway, a rack-and-pinion steam railway built in 1896, ascends from Llanberis to within 20 metres of the summit in 75 minutes. The castle circuit of North Wales was built by Edward I between 1283 and 1295 as a ring of fortresses to suppress Welsh independence after his conquest — they are still the largest and most ambitious medieval castle-building programme in European history. Caernarfon Castle: the 1283 fortress where the future Edward II was born and where the Prince of Wales investitures have been held since 1911. Conwy Castle: the 1287 fortress with the complete town walls still encircling the medieval town of Conwy — eight towers, 1.3 kilometres of wall, and the narrowest house in Britain (Aberconwy House) within.

  • Snowdon Mountain Railway — rack-and-pinion steam to 1,085 metres
  • Caernarfon Castle — 1283, birthplace of the future Edward II
  • Conwy Castle and the complete medieval town walls
  • Snowdonia National Park — the glaciated mountain landscape of Wales
Meals: Breakfast 4★ hotel, North Wales
Day 7 — Chester and the Cotswolds
Day 7
7

Day 7

Chester and the Cotswolds

The Roman fortress city and the honey-coloured stone villages.

Chester: the Roman fortress of Deva Victrix whose 3.2-kilometre walls have been walked continuously since the 2nd century, whose Rows are the unique two-level medieval galleried shopping streets found nowhere else in the world, and whose cathedral has the finest medieval choir stalls in England (1380). The drive south into the Cotswolds in the afternoon: the A44 through Chipping Norton to Chipping Campden — the wool town at the northern edge of the Cotswolds whose 1627 Market Hall and 15th-century wool merchants' houses represent the prosperity of the medieval English wool trade. Bourton-on-the-Water, Bibury, and the Windrush valley villages in the evening light before the overnight in a Cotswold stone country house.

  • Chester Roman walls and the unique two-level medieval Rows
  • Chipping Campden — the wool town at the Cotswolds' northern edge
  • Bibury — Arlington Row, William Morris's most beautiful English village
  • Cotswolds village circuit in evening light
Meals: Breakfast 4★ country house hotel, Cotswolds
Day 8 — Bath and Stonehenge
Day 8
8

Day 8

Bath and Stonehenge

The Roman baths, the Georgian city, and the Neolithic stones.

Bath is the only English city where Roman, medieval, and Georgian history are all present at the same level of intensity. The Roman Baths: the preserved bathing complex around the geothermal spring that has been rising at 45°C since before the Romans arrived — the Great Bath, the votive objects thrown into the sacred spring, and the museum that covers 2,000 years of the site's history. The Royal Crescent (1774) and the Circus (1768) by John Wood father and son: the finest Georgian townscape in England, built in Bath stone and arranged around radiating axes that no other English city attempted at the same scale. Pulteney Bridge (1774): the Palladian bridge with shops on both sides above the River Avon. Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in the late afternoon: the Neolithic stone circle built in phases between 3000 and 1500 BC, UNESCO World Heritage, and the most visited prehistoric site in Europe.

  • Roman Baths — the 2,000-year-old bathing complex in active geothermal spring water
  • Royal Crescent — the 1774 Georgian crescent above the city
  • Pulteney Bridge — Palladian bridge with shops on both sides
  • Stonehenge — 4,500 years on Salisbury Plain
Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ hotel, Bath city centre
Day 9 — Oxford
Day 9
9

Day 9

Oxford

The university city of spires and the 44 colleges.

Oxford has been educating the people who run the English-speaking world since 1249 — more prime ministers, Nobel laureates, and world leaders than any other university on earth. The colleges range from Merton (1264, the first to have a formal library) to Keble (1870, whose polychrome brick was considered outrageous). The Bodleian Library has received a copy of every book published in Britain since 1610 — the Duke Humfrey's Library room within it, used as the Hogwarts library in the Harry Potter films, is the oldest reading room in the country. The Ashmolean Museum: England's oldest public museum (1683), whose collection includes Alfred the Great's jewel, Powhatan's mantle (the ceremonial cloak of the father of Pocahontas), and the Stradivarius violin from 1716. The Covered Market, the Bridge of Sighs, Magdalen's deer park, and the Oxford Union. Dinner in Oxford.

  • Oxford colleges — Christ Church, Magdalen, Merton, Balliol
  • Bodleian Library — Duke Humfrey's Room from 1488
  • Ashmolean Museum — Alfred the Great's jewel and Powhatan's mantle
  • Bridge of Sighs and the Covered Market
Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ hotel, Oxford city centre
Day 10 — Departure
Day 10
10

Day 10

Departure

Ten days and the whole island.

Oxford in the morning: the Radcliffe Camera — the circular 18th-century reading room by James Gibbs that is the most photographed building in Oxford — and a final coffee in the covered market before the drive back to London. Oxford to Heathrow Airport is 45 minutes by the A40. The drive back through London is possible if the schedule allows a final lunch in the city. Your private driver transfers you to Heathrow or Gatwick at the agreed time. Ten days covering London, Cambridge, York, the North York Moors, the Lake District, Snowdonia, North Wales, Chester, the Cotswolds, Bath, Stonehenge, and Oxford — the complete island in a single private journey.

  • Oxford final morning — Radcliffe Camera and the covered market
  • Optional: lunch in London on the way to the airport
  • Private transfer to Heathrow or Gatwick Airport
Meals: Breakfast

Where You'll Stay

Hand-picked hotels, every night.

We choose properties for character, location, and the kind of service that makes you feel looked after — not just checked in. Every hotel can be swapped for an alternative if you prefer.

4–5★ hotel, London

London

2 nights

4–5★ hotel

West End

Two nights allows both the Westminster/South Bank programme and the City/Tower day

4–5★ hotel, York

York

1 night

4–5★ hotel

City centre

The Grand York (former station hotel) and the Principal York are the benchmark properties

4★ hotel, North York Moors / Whitby

North York Moors / Whitby

1 night

4★ hotel

Whitby or moors

Whitby is the more atmospheric choice — the abbey and harbour on the doorstep

4–5★ country house hotel, Lake District

Lake District

1 night

4–5★ country house hotel

Windermere or Grasmere

The Lake District has more country house hotels per square mile than anywhere in England — the dinner here is usually memorable

4★ hotel, North Wales

North Wales

1 night

4★ hotel

Llandudno or Conwy

Llandudno is the Victorian seaside resort at the edge of Snowdonia — the Grand Hotel on the promenade is the landmark property

4★ country house hotel, Cotswolds

Cotswolds

1 night

4★ country house hotel

Village location

Staying in a Cotswold stone country house is the experience — the village hotels in Burford, Lower Slaughter, and Chipping Campden are the best

4–5★ hotel, Bath

Bath

1 night

4–5★ hotel

City centre

The Royal Crescent Hotel is the landmark; the Gainsborough Bath Spa has the only natural thermal pool in a hotel

4–5★ hotel, Oxford

Oxford

1 night

4–5★ hotel

City centre

The Randolph Hotel opposite the Ashmolean is Oxford's landmark hotel; Old Bank Hotel on the High Street is the boutique alternative

Hotels shown are indicative of the standard we book. Upon request, we will provide a detailed itinerary with specific hotel options tailored to your preferences and budget.

What's in the Price

Included

  • 9 nights in 4–5★ hotels and country house hotels
  • Daily breakfast at each property
  • Private airport transfer at London
  • Private vehicle and driver throughout
  • London guided visits — Tower, City, South Bank
  • Cambridge guided visit including King's College Chapel
  • York guided visit — Minster, Shambles, JORVIK Viking Centre
  • North York Moors circuit including Whitby Abbey
  • Lake District — Dove Cottage, Hill Top, Windermere
  • Snowdon Mountain Railway
  • Caernarfon and Conwy Castle guided visits
  • Chester Roman walls and Cathedral guided visit
  • Cotswolds village circuit
  • Roman Baths and Bath Georgian city guided visit
  • Stonehenge entry
  • Oxford guided tour including Bodleian Library
  • All entrance fees for guided visits
  • 24/7 travel specialist support
  • Hamilton & Chase digital travel booklet

Not Included

  • International flights to London / from London
  • Travel insurance (required — we can arrange on request)
  • Meals not listed
  • Personal expenses
  • Gratuities for guides and drivers
  • City tax (collected by hotels)

Good to Know

  • This itinerary begins and ends in London — no domestic flights required. The circuit is designed so that driving never exceeds three hours on any single day.
  • The Snowdon Mountain Railway is weather-dependent and does not ascend to the summit in poor visibility. Hamilton & Chase monitors conditions and has alternative Snowdonia programmes if the railway is suspended.
  • The Cotswolds in July and August are extremely busy — the village lanes narrow under the pressure of summer tourism. Hamilton & Chase times the Cotswolds day to avoid the worst congestion.
  • Oxford during Finals (late May to mid-June) has restricted college access. Hamilton & Chase adjusts the guided tour accordingly.

Make It Yours

Optional add-ons & upgrades.

Every trip is different. These extras can be woven into your itinerary — just let your travel specialist know what catches your eye.

Blenheim Palace

The baroque palace built for the Duke of Marlborough in 1705 — birthplace of Winston Churchill, UNESCO World Heritage, and Capability Brown's most ambitious parkland. 15 minutes from Oxford on the return day.

From €45 pp

Welsh language and culture experience

An evening in a Welsh-speaking community in North Wales — a session with a native Welsh speaker covering the language, the music, and why Welsh is the fastest-growing language in Britain.

From €65 pp

Thermae Bath Spa

Two hours in the rooftop open-air pool of the Thermae Bath Spa, bathing in the natural geothermal spring water with views across the Georgian city.

From €45 pp

Hadrian's Wall detour

A half-day at Hadrian's Wall between the Lake District and North Wales days — Vindolanda fort and the Roman Army Museum on the most complete section of the Wall near Haltwhistle. Adds approximately 90 minutes to Day 6.

From €125 pp

"Ten days and I finally understood what Britain actually is. Not just London. Not just the Cotswolds. The Welsh castles were the revelation — no one had told me that Caernarfon Castle was the most audacious piece of military architecture in medieval Europe. The Lake District in autumn light. Whitby at dusk. Hamilton & Chase had thought about this route in a way we could not have managed ourselves."

George & Linda R.

Vancouver, Canada · Epic Britain, October 2024

Common Questions

Questions about this trip.

Why is Wales included in a Britain tour?

Wales is a distinct country with its own language (the oldest living language in Britain), its own history, and its own landscape — and the Edwardian castle circuit of North Wales is one of the most extraordinary medieval building programmes in European history. Excluding Wales from a Britain tour is like excluding Sicily from an Italy tour. The castles of Caernarfon and Conwy are among the best-preserved and most dramatic medieval fortresses in the world.

How does this compare to the Essence of England and England's North tours?

The Essence of England (7 days) covers London, Oxford, the Cotswolds, Stratford, Bath, and Stonehenge — classic southern England. England's North (8 days) covers Cambridge, York, the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, and Chester. Epic Britain combines both circuits plus Wales, making it the complete island journey for guests who do not want to choose between north and south.

Private Package Journey

Epic Britain

10 days / 9 nights

From €3,590

per person

Ready to go?

Share a few details and a specialist will reply within one business day.

More United Kingdom Tours

Prefer to Talk?

+1 646-466-6841 [email protected]

Available Mon–Fri 9am–6pm CET.
On-trip support is 24/7.

Keep Exploring

More United Kingdom journeys.

Essence of England

7 Days · Private Package

Essence of England

London, Windsor, Oxford, the Cotswolds, Bath, and Stonehenge — the classic southern English circuit.

From €2,690 View Trip →
England's North: The Lakes and York

8 Days · Private Package

England's North: The Lakes and York

Cambridge, York, the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, and Chester.

From €2,990 View Trip →
Plan My Trip