My Magical Trip to England

Traveling can change your life

Time in life as we age becomes increasingly measured by before and afters based on significant life events. Graduations, births, and marriages, for example. And now my life will forever be punctuated by my trip to London. 

To sum up my trip in one word, it was magical. My daughter and I had the best time, the group we traveled with was amazing, and we got to see almost everything we wanted to, plus things we didn’t know we wanted to see, all thanks to an organized trip with opportunities to participate in activities we never would have known about. None of this would have been possible without our amazing tour coordinator. 

A behind-the-scenes tour at the Royal Opera House was just one of these unique opportunities. We got to see the inner workings of the theater, the costume department, and sit in on a rehearsal of one of their operas. 

We visited towns outside of London, including Windsor with a tour of the castle, Stratford on Avon with all things Shakespeare, and Oxford with its connection to the Harry Potter movies.

Being a theater-themed trip, we saw four shows: Mama Mia, The Mousetrap, As You Like It, and The Show That Goes Wrong. My favorite was Mama Mia, followed closely by The Show That Goes Wrong. 

We took a boat tour of the city on the Thames. My favorite way to see a city is by water, and London was no exception. And the day that we did this was our best weather day with the most interesting sky, rendering my capture of London’s Tower Bridge epically perfect. 

The food. Oh, my, the food. It’s so easy to be vegan in England. Everywhere we went in the city had multiple vegan choices, and every place we had a contracted meal through the tour company had a fabulous special meal AND dessert for me. In Stratford on Avon, I visited an all vegan cafe and was completely breath taken by how beautiful my sandwich was! I had no idea the highlight of my toastie would be the rainbow bread (all vegetable dyes). 

I can safely quell the rumors that British food is bland and boring. It’s simply not true. I also expected to have lots of stomach issues during the trip because of my vegan diet. Not once did I need to take the Tums I packed just in case. 

Likewise, the perception that the British are rude is also incorrect. Of course, there are rude people everywhere, including in the US, but I found almost everyone we encountered to be lovely and eager to share information about their beloved city. 

Something came over my soul in England. I felt a tremendous sense of peace and belonging. I never felt unsafe here, even riding the tube. I felt at home, especially in Stratford on Avon. I didn’t expect to feel this, but forever grateful to have experienced this type of joy.

Part of this peace was being a part of such an amazing group. The adults on the trip were so great, easy to talk to, and on the same page politically. The young adults on the trip were smart, engaging, funny, and respectful. Everyone looked out for each other. 

I was impressed with how eco-conscious they are in England. All of the toilets were low flow. Greenways and roadsides were kept wild and natural. Food tastes better because there’s no high fructose corn syrup or artificial colors and flavors here. Cars are smaller. Public transportation is better. Segregated bike lanes are the norm, not the exception on roadways. The city is extremely pedestrian friendly. 

Our hotels required a key card in a slot by the door to keep the electricity on, including the air conditioning! We did figure out a way to keep the air on while we were not in the room, though, which was necessary, since many days were well into the 80s during our trip! 

There is a sugar tax here, so sodas with real sugar are taxed, and it explained the abundance of “diet” drinks available. But there were also many different and delicious fruit juice sweetened sodas that don’t exist in the states. My favorite was a rhubarb soda. 

And, of course, there were visits to pubs. I was surprised by the abundance of hard ciders here. As this is my adult beverage of choice, I was delighted with this discovery and loved tasting several different ones!

Connecting some of the places and stories I heard about England with songs by British artists was enlightening. Our tour director was also a fan of The Smiths and made sure he pointed out some specific things to me, which I deeply appreciated. 

Speaking of music, there were other great discoveries. We got to see the venue where David Bowie played his first official gig. And I scored a couple of albums: a compilation that includes a song by The Smiths and a UK-printed REM 12” single. 

Other souvenirs included some ancient coins for my husband, as he is an avid relic hunter, a vintage clutch for my older daughter that we bought in the cutest little shop in Stratford on Avon, and a pair of beautiful earrings from the Windsor Castle gift shop. We tried to avoid the more traditional tourist items, but I couldn’t resist a tea towel with sights from England. It was too cute!

Our trip wasn’t all magic and sunshine, however. Our first day was greeted with a room mixup in our reservations. They thought my daughter and I were the same person (her name is Anna), and slighted our group by one room. One of the days, our bus broke down, and the one they sent us to replace it had virtually no air conditioning. That was a long hour trip back from Oxford. And the operations coordinator scheduled a trip to a market that happened to be closed that day. But they compensated with tickets to ride the London Eye! Our last hotel also had room mix-ups, including sending some of our group to rooms that were already occupied! But it did get sorted.

Even so, I was so sad to leave a place where I felt so connected and at peace. 

My first steps back in the US were stressful and anxiety-inducing. It was the first time this entire trip that I felt this way. It started with noticing the now familiar haze of smoke from Canadian wildfires that mostly obscured the view of the Charlotte skyline. I was not prepared for returning to such poor air quality. And especially weird were the signs warning travelers that they couldn’t bring their guns on the plane as we passed through security for the second time on our return trip. Only in America do you see such ridiculous things. 

I’m happy to see my husband and fur babies again, but I am also eager to return to England someday. I will be forever changed by this experience. 

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Lead photo is from the streets of Oxford. Photo by author.

Do you find traveling to be life-changing? I’d love to hear your stories!

As always, I hope you all are safe and healthy.