Prologue - England 2025!

After two years away, I am once again headed to my favorite place! I fly tomorrow and arrive Tuesday. 😊

It's always difficult to choose what part of the country I want to visit. I went back and forth this time between the areas of Dorset (southern coast), Devon and Cornwall (southwestern coast), and the Lake District (northwestern area, relatively close to the Scottish border). Dorset and Devon/Cornwall require a lot of bus travel and that's stressful to me and, even though the Lake District also requires bussing, it's less than the other locations -- so I decided to go with the Lake District.

I also liked the idea of the Lake District because after we went to Sedona, I realized how much I enjoy hiking. I love that I'll be out traversing the fairly remote English countryside. And, of course, the Lake District is known for its beauty and I'm all about that. The area has been on my list for a while.

It would easily take three trips or more to hike the major areas of the Lake District, but this time I am focusing on the northeast corner and my home bases will be Penrith, Keswick, and Grasmere. And then, of course, a few days in London at the end.

Below is a full map of England so you can see where the Lake District is situated in the country. London is in the lower eastern area; the Lake District is towards the top to the west right below Scotland.

And below is a map of the zoomed-in Lake District area with red pins pointing out my home bases -- Penrith, Keswick, and Grasmere.

The focus of this trip will be the natural beauty of this area and just getting out in the countryside. Lakes, hills, mountains, waterfalls. I'm excited and hoping for good weather!

Another piece I wanted to talk about in this trip prologue is my English ancestry! I go on spurts with working on my family tree. I will be gung-ho for a few weeks, then fall off for months, and then come back to it again with fervor. I was really into it the first few months of this year. At the same time, I was heavily researching things to do and see in the areas I'll be visiting, like I do before every trip.

I started noticing names of towns and points of interest were sounding familiar. Then I started to notice the birth/death locations and the last names of my ancestors sounding familiar. Things were starting to click that my ancestry runs deep in this area of England. We're talking nobility who lived in castles and shit. We're talking earls and barons and knights and members of Parliament. This is all the way back to the 16th and 17th centuries, but still, I couldn't believe it.

Most the links I was seeing were specifically in the area of Penrith, which is my first stop on this trip. I had already planned to visit Penrith, had already booked my bed and breakfast there, and now was learning there were towns and castles and buildings all over the area with connections to my ancestors. It felt like I was meant to find these parallels when I did so I'd be able to visit knowing my kinship to the area.

I'll get more into this when I make posts about different sightseeing stops because there are several that have their own stories and people.

Once we get this far back in history, the accuracy of the family tree does comes into question. I'm not a professional and I'm sure I've made errors. This specific line, though, I am fairly confident on.

I won't be writing the blogs until I get back so I can focus on my adventure and not feel pressure to write while I'm there. But I hope you'll follow my photo posts on social media in real time and then read the blog when I return. Cheerio!