Lands End to John O'Groats by car, with kids!

caroline233

In an attempt to make an interesting, cheap(ish) and UK based holiday for the kids we were talking about what we'd like to do. The kids came up with the idea to do LEJOG by car in the summer holidays. I guess camping is the only way to do it cheaply and we have a tent but no other camping kit. Has anyone got any ideas of where to stay en route or kit lists for camping with 3 kids of 12, 11 and 7?

Thanks in advance.

daveyjp

Remember with a LEJOG you actually do it twice as you need to get to JOG to start and get back home from Lands End. Thats at almost 1800 miles, work out the fuel costs.

http://www.lovetheoutdoors.com/camping/checklists.htm

Plenty of campsite websites. How much time do you have to stay at each site? Setting and breaking camp for a couple of nights on a regular basis soon becomes tiresome.

caroline233

I thought we'd have a couple of weeks to get there and back and work out from that how many nights we'd spend in each place. We live just outside Cardiff and often drive the area between Bristol & Birmingham so thought we'd do that bit in a day and spend that night north of Brum. It's early days in the planning stage at the moment so any advice is welcome.

I have considered the fuel cost and it's not going to be cheap but I'm running a diesel car doing high 30s per gallon so it's not disastrous. Anyway, it seemed like a different way of taking a holiday, which might just teach the kids something of the diverse nature of our countryside.

greenface

set out some ground rules such as no motorway/less than 100 miles per day/ alphabet towns (aberdeen/berwick/carlisle/Darwin/Ewloe/Ffestiniogg etc)get a blog up and running or join a forum with similar interests with lots of pics. Visit every ??? on your journey ( Theme park,Premiership football ground buy a scarf,Zoo and sponsor a animal,Castle becom a member whatever interests you have ) how old are your kids how many and what sort of car ?good luck
sorry just seen the age of your kids . Camping all the way get basics and easy to use /dry/pack plus cooking bbq or cooker. Not too much but make time to stop for a few days at least 3 times. we did the west coast from North wales to Devon in 2000 with 3 caravans 6 adults & 10 kids had a ball but we are all experienced campers who get on well.

daveyjp

Cardiff to Brum is only about a 2 hour drive. Do this distance every time before camping and it will take all the summer holiday. Time to rethink your plans.

How it could work and to give an idea of how much distance you have to cover to do it in 2 weeks with sensible driving distances.

Cardiff to Lakes

Lakes to Aviemore

Aviemore to JOG

JOG to say Stirling

stirling to Leeds

Leeds to Bristol

bristol Padstow

padstow LE

LE Cardiff

Thats 9 full days driving, leaving 5 days for two night stops. An endurance test rather than a holiday.

Labmanager

Not something I'd attempt to do and my child is 30! Motor up to the Borders and maybe the Central belt around Edinburgh/Glasgow.