Outstanding experience!! Our guide Ben was extremely knowledgeable and accommodating. And our driver Philip knew the roads like the back of his hand. We saw many astonishing places and learned a lot about Britain.

This trip was the perfect combination of sights, scenery, stops and movement. Just at the perfect pace !

Wasn’t sure I would enjoy a bus tour but I’m sold now. Great crew, guide and driver, small bus able to venture down small back roads to places most people will never get to. Also avoids having to drive in busy cities and rather just enjoy the views.

Excellent tour of Britain from London, ending in Edinburgh. Enjoyed walking through castles, Cathedrals, streets of Cities and towns, touring the back roads around the countryside. So many opportunities for photos along the drives and in the towns. Hotels were amazing and the meals were fantastic. Our tour guide was so knowledgeable on the geography and history of Britain which was great. The driver was great and was so competent driving and gave us bits of history as well.

I was unable to complete tour as I contracted COVID.

The tour was scenic and interesting. I would have preferred to tour with a mixed aged group which included younger adults. My group was mainly elderly folks 60+, retired, with limited mobility. Please don't use age as a primary placement factor.

Perfection from beginning to end. Charlie was a wonderful tour guide! He was extremely well organized, provided detailed information about each location, and even kept us entertained on the bus. Oh, and yes, he even provided fun treats along the way! We felt safe with our driver Dan, and he definitely added to a most pleasurable trip. All the stops along our journey were truly highlights of Britain.

The tour was amazing. The accommodations and food were all excellent. The tour guide, Justin Walley, was the best as was his driver Dimytri.

There were some problems initially with Tour Radar in setting up accommodations in London and in understanding that Blue Roads and Back Roads were the same company. A little explanation of this at the outset would have been a big help.

The selection of places, stores, roads, and hotels was excellent. The tour parts of Britain we saw were wonderful.

I would recommend that the tour guide commentary be much more positive about Britain and its history. The commentary was difficult to listen to at times, and it tended to fit a particular view of politics and history. I would've enjoyed the trip more if we could have visited places of cultural greatness without a commentary that deconstructed it--such as making the greatness of Britain an expression of class, power, and luck.

We recently returned from the tour and had a great time exploring the UK. Our tour guide Tony was extremely knowledgeable and provided us with all that we needed during the tour. The accommodations were very good and the venues we visited were interesting and lovely, especially the countryside.

Tony Wade was an excellent guide; conscientious, knowledgeable, kind, good natured and accommodating to everyone on our tour. Almost every site we visited was of cultural or historic significance and we were given information about various towns, villages or other sites we were passing on the sometimes-long travel times. Accommodations and meals provided were excellent. There were a few towns where I wish I could’ve spent more time but it’s the nature of this trip to fit in a lot of different sites.

Excellent tour. Great guide. Hotels and meals were all very good to excellent.

Wonderful trip through the backroads of England Wales and southern Scotland. Local knowledge was helpful in learning about the history and the landscape of these areas.

Small coach tour was excellent. 14 people on the tour - small enough group so we got to know each other easily, a fun sociable group. (2 from Canada, 2 from New Zealand, 10 from Australia.) Darren the tour guide and Simon the driver took great care of us, very knowledgeable, friendly, helpful, and added to the fun. Hotels were all very good, The Mulberry Inn in Wales was excellent! Lots of variety in the tour stops. It would have been nice to spend more time at some but then we wouldn't have been able to fit in other spots. The tour is a sampling of Britain, gives you ideas of places you'd like to return to on your next trip. Back Roads tours meant we used secondary roads, more interesting roads than the main motorways. And with the small coach we were able to go through small towns and use some very narrow roads. The tour was well worth the money. I would definitely travel with Back Roads tours again.

Pros and Cons - The points visited cover a number of interesting destinations across the UK, many places the average tourist should see. The tour guide (Carolyn) was very good and provided a continuing narrative as the bus moved across the country as well as specific points about each stop. She also was helpful when passengers had special needs like having to find a place to get medications. The driver (Jimmy) was also excellent. A few things could be improved: first, the tour bus is a little cramped, and the rear bench seating is awful (that is 4 seats, out of the total 19). Everyone is encouraged to try different seats each day and take a turn in the back bench, but for the several men who were taller in our group, the rear bench seats are just not acceptable because of being extremely tight in knee room and, in addition, those seats were just not comfortable. Most of the 2-seat positions were ok, though. Some of the hotels were disappointing, such as The Porch House which was the first stop; also we made the mistake of eating dinner at the Three Ways Hotel and the food was awful. Finally, they do advertise as doing "Back Roads" touring and any traveller should be aware that this means a number of very narrow roads are traversed and the progress getting from point A to point B is slower, and sometimes we seem to zig-zag from eastern UK to western, back to eastern, back to western, and so forth, instead of an itinerary that makes the most of a more circular path around the UK (so that could be improved). I also don't know why the Woodland House Hotel was chosen, since it is so far to the west and our next day was just going back toward the east; I'm sure there could be other more sensible locations for a hotel and I'm sure you could find a bagpipe player elsewhere. So you do see a lot of the back country, but it seems to take a long time to get places. Even though this tour was worthwhile, I probably would not book a Back Roads/Blue Roads tour again because of the above drawbacks.

It was even better than we had hoped. Great itinerary, and we had a great tour guide and driver. We our looking at future Blue-Roads (Back Roads) tours.

The Highlights of Britain was a great tour. I would give it a 4.75 The itinerary matched up closely to where we wanted to go and see. The small group tour worked out well. The group was very friendly, and we had a lot of fun together. Guides Terry and Tony were very knowledgeable and personable always solving any glitches along the way. (There were very few.) Steve was a great driver. They had lots of fun surprise along the way. Most of the accomodations were very good. The countryside, and quaint villages were wonderful. It truly was a backroads adventure. The only weak spot was Snowdania National Park. All but one hotel took care of loading and unloading our luggage. That was a bonus. The included meals and the breakfasts were good. The mini bus was comfortable. There were 14 of us, but a full load of 18 could make it a little tight. Overall, the trip was well organized, and the guides worked very hard to make it a memorable trip. We will definitely book with Blue Roads/Backroads again!

Impressive Tour Guide and driver. Loved every Back Road stop and visit. The itinerary was well thought out and fun to follow.

Tour guide Charlie was fantastic but the sites visited on the tour were not very interesting. If you really want to see the highlights go on a tour that stops at the highlights ! Most of the Inns that we stayed in were pretty good. The Mulberry Inn was exceptional .

we were onlly 2 americans on tour of 18. all others were australians. they were very friendly and had a great tie. tour guide Justin was sensitive to clients needs and very knowledgeable and fun to have on tour. Sights visited were good and population we met were very friendly

Stunning scenery around every corner. Five star hotels, small group made for a nice pace. Too much ancient history. I would have liked to hear about their economy, topography of the land, etc..

We really enjoyed our tour. The itinerary was great, and our tour guide and driver were exceptional. It was fantastic to get to see and do so many things without having to worry ourselves about travel logistics/arrangements.

There were only two drawbacks that would have me think twice about booking another similar tour.

First, an issue that seems like it could have been managed by the company was our hotel beds. We requested twin beds because we are accustomed to having more space when we sleep. We both have back problems, and smaller beds (like double beds) don't allow us space to be comfortable throughout the night. I understand that there are hotels where twins are not available, but we were given double beds at hotels where twins were available. I wish we could have guaranteed the beds we needed, even if we'd had to pay a bit more. It really affected our enjoyment of the trip, especially when we spent more than one night in a bed that was too small.

Second, I am not sure the company has much control of this, but one person on our tour group joined and was clearly sick when the tour began. She was coughing throughout our welcome meeting, the welcome dinner, and the first day of the tour on the bus. She was not wearing a mask at any point. Then, a few days later, one of her companions was sick and coughing. Then, a few days later, a few people on the tour, including our driver, had the cough. People missed days of the tour due to illness. We wore masks as soon as it was clear that people were sick, but several of the people who were sick chose not to wear masks, so our masks only did so much good. We ended up getting sick toward the end of the tour. I understand that people who were sick did not have much of a choice about getting back on the bus as we moved from location to location. However, it is a consideration that if anyone on the trip is contagious, everyone on the trip will probably pick it up if there are not expectations in place for the people who are sick to try to avoid making others sick.

Interesting sites visited. Main issue was time spent on the bus but expected due to the distance travelled from London to Edinburgh. Arrival at 5:00-5:30 pm at hotels gave little time to relax before dinner ( included dinners were excellent).

An amazing tour. Our tour guide Tony was outstanding and made the trip so much fun with lots of info and history and traveling off the beaten path. He always answered questions and made us feel special.He made the trip!!
Our driver Steve was amazing! I always felt safe while he was driving on some of the most narrow, twisty, up & down roads I’d ever been on.
The tour was everything and more than we expected!
Five star all the way!

We had a great time on the Highlights of Britain back-roads tour. Our guide, Ben Sims, was super knowlegeable and learning about the things we saw made the experience even better. We will definitely recommend this tour to our friends and hope to try another destination with Blue Roads.

Everything from the guide, driver, other travelers, and the sights we saw was perfect. We would use Blue Roads again.

Since my return, neighbors and friends have asked me what the highlight of the trip was, and I have answered them with “There wasn’t really a single place; every day we saw three to five things that were highlights.” Excellent service from both our guide and our driver. They were friendly, lively and witty.

We toured the Cotswolds, Wales, York, the Lake District and concluded in Scotland where we were piped into dinner. Being in a smaller group and coach, as opposed to a bus, let us enjoy and bond with one another. Great memories and just the right length. Wonderful.

The tour included most of England and most of the attractions were already included. The coach that we road in was comfortable and easy to stand and get in and out of. Our guide and driver were excellent and knowledgeable about their country. Enjoyed the gardens and homes of William Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott were outstanding. Then there was the Beatles Museum and the Castle - one day was better than the next. Loved the "back roads" Inns that we stayed in and the beautiful countryside spotted with sheep and lambs. Would definitely love to do another Back Roads Trip.
Sharon

The tour itinerary was even better than expected. Our tour guide, Rachel and driver Ben were excellent! We had a fabulous holiday doing this tour.

I enjoyed the trip but felt more time should have been spent in Wales and Scotland. I honestly felt I saw hardly anything of those countries and we kind of rushed through because we ran out of time co and had to get to other destinations.
The back roads were breathtaking and fun. Our driver was a pro negotiating the tiny, narrow roadways and he took us to many places that were not on the itinerary. Thank goodness for him!

I already submitted a survey on behalf of myself and my wife James and Joan Foster but after completing it I remembered a point that I would like to cover .We had an incident in Oxford where two of the passengers got lost and we were delayed by an hour and a half while the tour manager went looking for them ,these particular passengers delayed us to a lesser extent later in the tour .I think it should be mandatory that the tour manager should give us his full name and phone number at the outset so this type of incident should not waste the time of the remaining passengers ..

Hotels were subpar. We could have stayed in Liverpool for example and gotten a better hotel. There seemed to be a lot of dropping us off and we were left to find something to do and somewhere to eat with no suggestions. Oxford was another beautiful city where we could have stayed and had something to do but we were there for a short time.

Exceptional tour guide, van driver, fellow tour members, itinerary, hotels and restaurants!

Good value for the money.

Good itinerary, but dependent upon guide for what is highlighted.

Excellent Trip. Exceeded expectations.