Cotswolder Travel Guide

When we fly into England for a trip to the Cotswolds, we frequently start out with a few days in Bath. Getting from the London airports to Bath is not that easy. We usually have a car service take us, but that is expensive. It was worth it to us because of the time it saved and the convenience. But today I found another option.

RailAir - Buses run by First Great Western trains take you from Heathrow directly to Reading train station where you can get express trains to Bath (station name Bath Spa) or Oxford (and other places).

RailAir pickup is at the Central Bus Station at Heathrow, not at the terminals. The Central Bus Station is in the center of the airport surrounded by terminals 1, 2 and 3, with walking links from these terminals. From terminal 4 take the free Heathrow Express. (No transportation from terminal 5 yet.)

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(post updated June 16) We are still thinking about moving to England for a year. Every single person that I mention this to, even my friends in Vancouver, say “how will you stand the weather?”. I figure for one year, who cares? But, each time we go to England and say to ourselves this is the trip where we will look at houses for rent and pick one, we don’t.

We were there in May 2006, the wettest May in 20 years. We booked a trip for August 2007, but had to cancel (and stay longer in Switzerland) because many rivers in the Cotswolds flooded and it was somewhat of a disaster when the water treatment plant flooded (the water to the cottage we had booked was shut off for two weeks). We went back in January and February this year, but got a horrendous flu or something our last two weeks there.

But here I am at the start of a hot Santa Fe summer - temps up to 90 already - where we can only go walking before 11am or after 5pm and I think, if we were in England we could do an afternoon walk. I looked up weather for five places: Santa Fe (where I live), Vancouver (where I lived 20 years ago), Seattle (where I lived 15 years ago), Rome (where I have never lived) and Stroud in the Cotswolds. I put the charts on the main site.

Weather Comparisons - originally I had the chart in the blog, but I needed more space, so made a page on the website. Here is a summary of the results (average annual rain in inches, average monthy temps in farenheit).

• Stroud: annual rain 25.90″, high temps from 43 - 69
• Vancouver: annual rain 45.90″, high temps from 42 - 71
• Seattle: annual rain 38.25″, high temps from 47 - 75
• Rome: annual rain 33.00″, high temps from 53 - 88
• Santa Fe: annual rain 14.22″, high temps from 43 - 86

Comparing Stroud in the Cotswolds to Vancouver Canada, Vancouver gets almost twice as much rain and the temperatures are similar. I compare it to Vancouver because we lived for years in Vancouver. We were happy to move away to a sunnier place, but we survived the rain in Vancouver, so I figured we could survive it in England.

A few notes about what I am working on this month.

Still to come in the Accommodations section: Notes about vacation rental databases used by more than one website. Holiday Cottages Group runs a large vacation rental database that is represented by various companies/websites. (Holiday Cottages Group is a subsidiary of Wyndham Worldwide, owned by Travelport, previously Cendant). The Rural Retreats listings are also represented by other companies.

Coming Next

Towns and villages in the Cotswolds. Descriptions of the towns, favorite tea rooms, pubs, restaurants. Nearby activities.

Walking and Hiking in the Cotswolds. What is available, best hiking books and maps, my favorite walks.

Photo Gallery. More photos of the Cotswolds.

Technology on the Go. Cell phones in England, bring technology with you, traveling with an Amazon Kindle.

Well, back to work!! :)

The Cotswolder Accommodations section is launched! This section has my list of favorite vacation rental resources for the Cotswolds, notes on what to expect in English vacation rentals, reviews of places we have stayed, lists of best towns for hotels and B&Bs, and recommendations of places to stay when flying in or out of London airports.

I have not listed all vacation rental agencies for the Cotswolds, but have listed the ones that I think are the best. I have not listed individual vacation rentals (rent from owner) but instead have linked to what I think are the best resources for finding them.

Click here to go to Cotswolder - Accommodations

If you have a favorite vacation rental agency that I have missed, or have something to say about the ones I listed, either email me or post a comment.

We want to hear from you! Leave your comments below for any of our Cotswolder website pages or sections.

• Are you planning a trip to the Cotswolds and have a question? Ask us here.
• Do you have a favorite Cotswolds vacation rentals agency or resource? Tell us about it.
• Do you have opinions about any of the vacation rental agencies that we listed? Post your comments.
• Do you run a Cotswolds vacation agency and want to be listed on the site? Tell us about it.

Thanks for visiting the Cotswolder website!