This trip truly was 15 years in the making. My husband moved to the States from England when he was 16, and when we first started dating at 19, we knew we wanted to travel back together to where he grew up. But we knew it would be a trip with so many destinations to see friends and family and all the tourist sites I wanted to see, so we kept putting it off due to expense and time. Last summer, when ticket prices dropped, I bought two and said we’d figure out the details later. Fortunately, everything came together – from the childcare to our crazy itinerary – and we had an amazing time.

-Cameras-  

I mean, I had to take my camera with me, right? The truth is, I didn’t really want to lug my camera with me most of the time, and it surprised me how little I ended up using it. My iphone captured almost everything. It fit in my pocket. We took tons of fun little videos for Instagram stories. That being said, I’m glad I had my DSLR for some of the time, and I tried to pull it out when we weren’t moving at warp speed to push myself creatively.  I took a 50mm and 24mm, and that was definitely all I needed on this trip.

-Travel-

We flew into Heathrow, rented a car, and our first destination was Poole to see some close friends. I took more photos here than anywhere because our friends had a six month old, so we moved at a slower pace!

We drove from Poole to Wimborne where my husband spent some of his childhood. This was a really special part of the trip. I got to know and understand where Andy comes from, and I think that helps me understand him in a whole new way. After 15 years together, that is a gift.  This was one of the homes he grew up in.  We also visited Wimborne Minster that day and walked around the adorable town.

From Poole we drove to Bath and then on to the North Allerton area. Andy’s aunt and uncle run a local pub, The Wheatsheaf Inn. If you’re ever in that area, you should definitely visit! It was a treat to spend the night with them, eat a fantastic English dinner and drink a pint.

I wanted to make Andy pull the car over every 5 seconds to take photos as we drove through North Yorkshire, but we had to get to our next stop in York.

York Minster was one of our favorite stops from our entire England tour mostly because we attended a really special communion service there.

From York we traveled to Thorner to visit with Andy’s grandparents and Aunt, Uncle and cousins.  This would be one of those times that I didn’t take my camera out much, and I don’t regret it. I captured the memories with my iphone, and for our personal memories, I’ll mix those with all my DSLR shots. I loved every minute of our time with Andy’s grandparents who we don’t get to see nearly often enough, and one of my favorite shots of the entire trip is the one below of Margaret with her cross-stitch, which we are fortunate enough to have one of her works hanging in our home.

Next we drove to Derby where Andy spent the majority of his time in England, and we attended the church he grew up in and visited with old friends before we dropped off the hired car back at Heathrow and made our way to London via Windsor for our final three days.

I’m working on another post to share about our time in London – what we did, what we saw, where we stayed, what we ate, etc.  If you followed along on our Instagram stories while we were in England – Thank you! It was a fun way to share our trip with friends. I only wish we’d had more time in each place and with each of the people we spent time with. Both of our favorite parts was being with family, and while I wish we all lived closer, it’s unique to have family across the pond! I can’t wait until we get to go back and take the kids.