Visit Every County in the UK

CHALLENGE: To Visit Every County in the UK

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.

Challenge to visit every county in the UK

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.

The grounds at Hampton Court Palace

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?

Uk_outline_map


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?


Awesome Wave