"My favorite place outside of the great... " a United Kingdom Travel Page by dinagideon

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May 14, 2002: Ooh, you all! I found a great website on daytrips in Scotland. I suggest you all run there right now and check it out! (It's for bicyclists, but you know, it can be applied to walkers and drivers, too!!)

http://www.toroddfuglesteg.com/daytrips2.html

March 11, 2002: I found a great article in the Washington Post Magazine this weekend on Scotland (and Edinburgh specifically). Please enjoy it by using this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50482-2002Mar6.html

DECEMBER 14, 2001: I have updated QUITE A LOT on this page. The travelogue is especially fun, in my humble opinion. Please explore, I don't think you'll be dissapointed. ESPECIALLY if you love Scotland!

Ahhhh! What can I say? I keep coming back to the Bristish Isles! The people are so lovely and the scenery gorgeous. You can have it all here, and more. London is cosmopolitan, and the countryside is the true meaning of pastoral. Scotland is rugged and Wales is surreal!

I lived here in the Fall of 1995, in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Many of you are going to ask, "where?", but it is real, I assure you. The home of both Sir Isaac Newton and Margaret Thatcher, Grantham is a nice sized, pleasant red brick town in the Midlands of England. It is true that Grantham has a limited social life, but it makes up for that by being the sort of amiable place where travellers can learn what the other English are like (in comparison with Londoners).

The reason I was there was for a study abroad at Harlaxton University, two miles from Grantham. If you have seen the movie the Haunting (1999), you have seen the university from the outside! And I lived there! Every semester, between 70 and 150 students from the states come to Harlaxton to have a British Experience!

Above is a picture I took when I went to Scotland in the Fall of 1998. This was the third trip back since studying abroad. We concentrated our efforts on the southwest of Scotland, and spent a couple of Nights on the Isle of Arran. They call in "Scotland in Miniature," and for a good reason, it really does have the best of all Scotland has to offer. I highlight it above because Arran and its cities (if you can call them that) are now my favorite places in the whole United Kingdom. Read more on Arran below!

The places I have been besides Grantham and Harlaxton and Arran include:
London
Oxford
Birmingham
Brecon Beacons, Wales
Nottingham
Lincoln
York
Melrose, Scotland
Pitlochry, Scotland
Endinburgh, Scotland
Stirling, Scotland
Cromarty, Scotland
Oban, Scotland
Isle of Mull, Scotland (Tobermory)
Isle of Iona, Scotland
Glasgow, Scotland
Dumfries, Scotland
plus many more still to be entered!