Explore the real Britain with The Real Britain Company

If you’ve only ever used Britain small town buses as something to stare at from a train window, you’re missing the good stuff. The big-city networks get all the glory – London’s tap-and-go smugness, Manchester’s trams, Edinburgh being… Edinburgh – but the real character lives in those hourly (if you’re lucky) buses that connect small […]

I’ve lost count of the number of friends who’ve asked me to plan “The Kinks Muswell Hill walking tour” for them, as if you can map one of Britain’s sharpest, most awkward bands onto a neat circuit between coffee stops. You can’t, really. Muswell Hill matters, of course, but The Kinks were never a heritage […]

If you’re trying to see the Scottish Highlands without a car, first of all: good. Your stress levels (and the midges) will thank you. Second: you’re in for some of the most oddly satisfying public transport in Britain – Victorian railway lines that cling to sea lochs, buses that wait for ferries, and little boats […]

If you grew up on the sort of history that treats the Knights Templar as a minor footnote before zipping off to the Black Death, the phrase “Templar sites in Britain” probably sounds oddly specific. I used to file them under “continental thing, plus that church in London with the round bit”. Then, years ago, […]

If it’s your first time in London, you’ll probably land with one suitcase, three half‑formed plans, and the vague idea that you should “see Big Ben and eat fish and chips”. I did exactly that on my first go, then spent an afternoon queuing for stuff I didn’t care about and paid £4.50 for a […]

I’m going to say this straight away: if you came here looking for a Coldplay UK travel guide in the usual sense – list of places to tick off, selfie spots, that sort of thing – you’re going to be disappointed. Coldplay’s Britain isn’t a route on Google Maps. It’s pubs with sticky floors, late […]

If you take nothing else from this very unofficial UK seasons travel guide, take this: our weather is not a backdrop, it’s the main act. You don’t “get lucky” with sunshine here; you learn to work with the drizzle, the sideways rain, the grey that hangs around like a relative who won’t take a hint […]

Bank holidays creep up on you. One minute you’re idly promising yourself you’ll “do something” this time; the next, it’s Friday lunchtime, you’re still at your desk, and every cottage within a 100‑mile radius that takes dogs and doesn’t smell weird is booked. So I’ve started thinking of British bank holiday weekend ideas in three […]