We came up with this idea when we were living in Thailand earlier in the year. We had been reminiscing about life back home and thinking about some of our favourite places in the UK. We love the Isle of Wight, New Forest, Birmingham, Cotswolds, Manchester, Cornwall, Durham, and London. We started chatting about how dispersed all our friends were and how much of a mission it would be to visit them all when we got back.
The conversation took another turn when I mused how fun it might be to just buy a van, whack a mattress in the back and go on a massive road trip around the country, visiting our friends along the way and discovering more about our home country.
That conversation has been continuing on for a good 6 months now.
We are still pretty keen on a campervan of sorts, and we’d love to get a bell tent (see previous post here). We’d also really love to explore the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the fair isle which we call home.
It’s amazing how far we’ve travelled for exploration, adventure and culture when so much of it is right on our doorstep.
So, instead of talking about it, we’re going to doing something about. It’s all too easy to get comfortable when you’re at home and think “oh, yeah, we must go visit that living country museum down the road some day.” But when it’s been 10 years and you’ve still not been you’ve got too lazy.
In order to get motivated and explore our island we are setting ourselves a 12 month challenge to visit EVERY SINGLE COUNTY IN THE UK.
Possibly an ambitious challenge, but that’s the point of a challenge right?
Challenge: Awesome Wave will visit every single county in the United Kingdom by May 31st 2016.
List of UK Counties
[column size=one_half position=first ]
England
1. Bedfordshire
2. Berkshire
3. Bristol
4. Buckinghamshire
5. Cambridgeshire
6. Cheshire
7. City of London
8. Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly
9. Cumbria
10. Derbyshire
11. Devon
12. Dorset
13. County Durham
14. East Riding of Yorkshire
15. East Sussex
16. Essex
17. Gloucestershire
18. Greater London, excluding the City of London
19. Greater Manchester
20. Hampshire
21. Herefordshire
22. Hertfordshire
23. Isle of Wight
24. Kent
25. Lancashire
26. Leicestershire
27. Lincolnshire
28. Merseyside
29. Norfolk
30. North Yorkshire
31. Northamptonshire
32. Northumberland
33. Nottinghamshire
34. Oxfordshire
35. Rutland
36. Shropshire
37. Somerset
38. South Yorkshire
39. Staffordshire
40. Suffolk
41. Surrey
42. Tyne and Wear
43. Warwickshire
44. West Midlands
45. West Sussex
46. West Yorkshire
47. Wiltshire
48. Worcestershire
[/column][column size=one_half position=last ]
Scotland
1. Inverclyde
2. Renfrewshire
3. West Dunbartonshire
4. East Dunbartonshire
5. Glasgow
6. East Renfrewshire
7. North Lanarkshire
8. Falkirk
9. West Lothian
10. Edinburgh
11. Midlothian
12. East Lothian
13. Clackmannanshire
14. Fife
15. Dundee
16. Angus
17. Aberdeenshire
18. Aberdeen
19. Moray
20. Highland
21. Na h-Eileanan Siar
22. Argyll and Bute
23. Perth and Kinross
24. Stirling
25. North Ayrshire
26. East Ayrshire
27. South Ayrshire
28. Dumfries and Galloway
29. South Lanarkshire
30. Scottish Borders
31. Orkney
32. Shetland
Wales
1. Gwent
2. South Glamorgan
3. Mid Glamorgan
4. West Glamorgan
5. Dyfed
6. Powys
7. Gwynedd
8. Clwyd
Northern Ireland
1. Tyrone
2. Antrim
3. Down
4. Londonderry
5. Fermanagh
6. Armagh
[/column]
(The list of UK counties is debateable for some. Do we go with historical counties? Current unitary or postal counties? This is what we have come up with so far)
Can we do it?
Is it even possible?
What are the logistics of such a challenge?
To be honest, we’ve not really thought it through in too much detail. We want to be flexible and see what comes. I think we could probably cover at least 6 or 7 counties in the next month perhaps? Yes, I’m ambitious.
And, are we allowed to tick off the counties we’ve already visited? Or do we have to start with a clean slate?
Do we try and cover loads in an extended road trip? Or is best to tackle them in lots of mini breaks?
Of course, we will share updates of our progress on our challenge. And if we find some fun stuff to do along the way we will share that here as well.
What do you think of our crazy challenge?
How many of these UK counties do you think you’ve covered already?
