Exploring Home

It was the week before Christmas. Before visiting family for the traditional family celebrations, we took our chance to explore a little more of the United Kingdom.

We visited Birmingham, Bath, London, and Gloucester during our holidays.

It is easy to overlook your own country. Everywhere else feels more worthy, more exotic, and less predictable. But these are assumptions and prejudices that do not hold up to reason. On visiting more the United Kingdom, I have come to realise many of the cities and locations I know more by stereotyped reputation than fact, are actually fun destinations.

Our travels are not adventurous. We are picking easy towns and cities to visit based on their train lines and general proximity to each other. Our visits to Manchester and Liverpool made sense; they are right next to each other. The same with our Scottish destinations. Little clusters of places where we can spend a night or two and then move on.

Last week we booked our flights for Christmas and again need to think about where to visit beforehand. We have a few days to play with. London is again a possibility – the city calls out to us. But we should also see somewhere new, somewhere unexpected, somewhere without expectations.