Go to Stonehenge or Skip Stonehenge, That Is the Question!

Is Stonehenge worth it? From a cost analysis perspective, no it really isn’t. However, from a touristy, OMG I’m in England perspective, then yes, it is. In hindsight, it’s a difficult call. Perhaps we should have waited until we knew more about traveling around and what tours are good plus necessary and which ones are not. But on the other hand, this was perhaps the best short little trip to venture out and start the learning process for traveling around the country. Ultimately, we need to get out of the city and test the waters, go see some iconic British sites and figure out how to move around and experience things in an efficient and economical manner. The only way to do that is to go out and give it a try, and then learn from our mistakes. Traveling is like anything else, the more you work at it the better you get.

One aspect of living here in London that is taking some getting used to is not having a vehicle. I am very happy to experience urban life and public modes of transportation but on a certain level, I really miss my truck. I just miss being able to jump in it and go wherever I need or want to go, but that isn’t the case for us here. We must plan out any and every movement we make. In the city, we need to decide if we can walk, take a bus, or ride the tube, and usually it’s a combination of all three. Traveling out into the countryside to other cities and sites requires train tickets and planning for how you are going to move around when you get to your destination. I don’t mind it at all, in fact it’s fun to plan out your travels regardless of whether you are going to Stonehenge or out to eat, but because we are UK noobs there is a learning curve for simply getting from point A to point B.

Thank goodness for Google and the freaking internet. How did anyone do anything before? To plan out our first excursion outside the city, the first thing I did, obviously, was Google how to get to Stonehenge from London. Everything is very straight forward but the next search for me was what is the cheapest way to get to Stonehenge from London. Tassa and I are not penniless (pence-less?), yet, but we want to do so much that we absolutely must do things on a budget. To get to Stonehenge if we were on vacation and only here for a week or two, we would most likely take an all-inclusive tour by bus from London to Stonehenge and not have to worry about anything. We are not tourists, well, yeah, we really are but we are a different kind of tourist, so expensive tours and all that are not the way we are going to do things.

To get to Salisbury, we took England’s South Western Railway booked via Trainline for 63.79 pounds total for two roundtrip tickets. I did have to purchase a Railcard for 30 pounds. A Railcard provides discounts on all UK train tickets. I purchased a Two Together Railcard, so if Tassa and I travel together and show the Railcard then we get the discounts. It has already paid for itself in discounts for the train tickets I have purchased so far. When we got to Salisbury, we didn’t exactly know how we would get to Stonehenge, so we made a rash decision and bought a bus tour ticket right at the train station that cost 40 pounds each but would take us to Stonehenge and back and include an inclusive tour. We would also be able to see some things in Salisbury, like the big Cathedral and the Magna Carta. We didn’t go full on London to Stonehenge tour, but we spent a little more than we figured, but it was an easy out and back service to Stonehenge.

The Rail Card and the train tickets are all on apps. And yes, the apps work without service or WiFi.

Stonehenge is very cool but also very touristy. I don’t know if it is because I have seen so many pictures of the iconic site that it seemed a bit overrated but as we drove by on the bus and saw it from the road, we contemplated just staying on the bus and going back to Salisbury. I am glad we didn’t though, it was worth seeing. I have a fascination with the Druids and think it is so cool to see remnants of their ancient civilization. The tickets that we bought through the bus tour basically got us on the shuttle bus at the Stonehenge site, otherwise we would have had to walk the mile and a half up to the stones. Here is where the cost factor doesn’t really line up with the experience. We took the shuttle, but we could have walked instead. Maybe we could have had a person walk around the site with us and tell us information, but we didn’t inquire into that. We just walked around like everyone else and took the shuttle back. We were there maybe an hour total.

Salisbury is the quintessential English medieval city and our first English experience outside of London. When we got back to town from Stonehenge, we walked through streets lined with old buildings straight to the Cathedral, which is impressive, to say the least. It was only three o’clock but when we got to the Cathedral it was closed. So, we couldn’t walk around inside and see the Magna Carta. This was a bummer and further made the cost of our “inclusive” tour tickets not really worth it, but it is what it is. Really, the issue was that since I had to book round trip train tickets, I also had to figure about how much time we would need. I think I cut this one a bit short. It’s a tough call though because we didn’t need much more time at all but maybe getting there an hour earlier would have allowed us to see the Cathedral and more of the town.

What we did do though, and honestly what Tassa and I do best, is we found an amazing place to eat and have an ale. We ate at the Haunch of Venison est. 1320 and it felt like you were dining in the 1300’s. The place was like something out of a movie. We had cask ales and the Sunday roast pork belly plate. This finally felt like England to me. The food was great, and the atmosphere was what I always pictured England to be like. After dinner, we went to Hattie Bells Pub and watched the beginning of the England/Slovakia round of 16 Euros match. Conveniently, the pub was right by the train station. We had a couple pints and then took the train back to London.

We spent basically 150 pounds to go from London to Salisbury to Stonehenge and back, for train tickets, tour, and the cost of the tube from our place to the train station in central London. Add on dinner, snacks, pints, and miscellaneous things it was a little over 200 pounds for a day trip. It was a really nice day and refreshing to be out of the city but maybe a bit pricey for what we actually got to see and do. The highlight for me wasn’t Stonehenge it was Salisbury and the Haunch of Venison. I must remember that for Tassa and I, these places are one and done trips. Our objective is to see as a much as possible and I doubt we are going to go anywhere more than once, so we really have to do our homework and capitalize on squeezing as much out of each place as we can, while also doing everything for the best possible price instead of wasting money where we could either save it or spend it on some additional experience. Everything is a learning experience, and we had a great time at one of England’s most iconic sites. My recommendation is to definitely go to Stonehenge but budget your time and money to really enjoy Salisbury too.