Best places in England or South of Scotland for a January birthday break

[Itwasallyellow2]

Need your ideas please!

If you were looking to go somewhere in England, Wales or Southern Scotland for a week in January (two adults, dogs, no children) to celebrate a special birthday, where would you choose to go?

If it was me I’d go to Forest Holidays in Glentress.

Funnily enough I was thinking about Edinburgh so I could combine the two! Great idea, thank you!

Cotswolds. Endless walks and lovely places to stay and lots to see.

Dorset. Ditto. North Yorkshire. Don’t know much about Scotland, but I’m staying in the Borders in a castle in August. I’ll have more info after that. People like the Pembrokeshire coast too.

These are great ideas. Thank you. We regularly holiday in Dorset and North Yorkshire. Not familiar with the Cotswolds though (but would like to be).

Enjoy your holiday in a Scottish castle - that sounds very special!

@Itwasallyellow2 It only has 3 guest bedrooms. The owners live in the rest of it. Hopefully very special.

I know the Cotswolds pretty well. Areas like Chipping Campden or around Cirencester are lovely. Stow on the Wold and Burford are great too. (Avoid Clarkson’s “pub” - over hyped and ridiculously busy!) We like villages like Guiting Power and there’s great restaurants and pubs around Winchcombe. You cannot go wrong really, but, it’s never cheap! There’s the Heythrop point to point at the end of January near Burford too. Can be fun if it doesn’t rain!

This is super-helpful, thank you. We were thinking of a weekend in the Cotswolds at some point so this could work well. And yes, fully expecting it to be £££ although at least January prices should be lower than peak season. We usually holiday in coastal places such as Dorset, Devon and Pembrokeshire but out of season it is very quiet and I would rather go somewhere that has a bit of life to it (as much as January can!)

I like Cheltenham too. Very good restaurants and racing is on at Cheltenham racecourse on 23 Jan. Usually a bit lively! Not sure your dog can go in though. The theatre there is ok too.

I would head south, as hopefully you have better weather and it’s less likely to snow. Scotland would have much shorter daylight hours than London, as well.

I would head to a historical city - Bath, Cambridge, Oxford, or maybe something near the sea - Whistable (plus Canterbury, Leeds Castle) , Portsmouth, Lymington ( and New Forest) etc

Thank you! Oxford a good
choice (can combine with the Cotswolds). As @MeetMeOnTheCorner said, Cheltenham too. We visit the New Forest most years for holidays - we try to pick a dry time of year for that though!

Haven’t been to Whitstable for years!

DH's birthday is January 2nd so this is something we have done occasionally. Usually to the Lake District. In fact a couple of times we booked a New Year Package at The Keswick Country House Hotel and stayed an extra night for his birthday. Mind you this was years ago before we were parents and we do enjoy walking.

I love this. Great idea to extend a New Year package. The Lake District is stunning!