{"id":105402,"date":"2026-08-17T19:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T19:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/105402\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T19:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T19:36:15","slug":"were-uk-tour-guides-for-well-off-americans-theyre-obsessed-with-these-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/105402\/","title":{"rendered":"We’re UK tour guides for well-off Americans. They’re obsessed with these places"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Royal Family, a green and pleasant landscape (in theory, at least) and a layered literary tradition all tempt Americans to the UK. Do they see the country\u2019s holiday potential more clearly than Brits?<\/p>\n

There was a record 5.6 million visits from the US to the UK in 2024, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS)<\/a> estimates based on the International Passenger Survey. During the travellers\u2019 visits, their estimated total expenditure was \u00a37.3bn (another record), with an average spend of \u00a31,301 per visit. London was the most popular destination, accounting for 48 per cent of all overnight stays by American visitors. They tend to be older than the average tourist. In 2024, 30 per cent were 55 or over.<\/p>\n

We spoke to four tour guides about how discerning Americans travel in parts of Britain<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Tanya Firth is part of the Driver-Guides Association<\/a> and a Blue Badge tour guide for South East England<\/p>\n

Most visitors want to see the White Cliffs of Dover. But the medieval towns of Sandwich and Rye are also popular. Castles are another theme: they really like Walmer Castle and Gardens (originally built by King Henry VIII as an artillery fort), Deal Castle and Bodiam Castle (a 14th-century moated castle in East Sussex).<\/p>\n

\"BodiamBodiam Castle\u2019s good looks appeal to tourists (Photo: Andrea Pucci\/Getty) <\/p>\n

Recently, I had a lady who had done a lot of research into Second World War sites. She wanted to go to Ramsgate as it was the primary port and departure gate for Operation Dynamo, in which \u201clittle ships\u201d were sent to rescue allied troops from Dunkirk. <\/p>\n

Kent is undervalued. It\u2019s often thought of as a transit area. I did a private tour for British people, and they were surprised by how beautiful it was away from the M20.<\/p>\n

Nikki Emms, from British Tours, a private tour operator that typically runs tours starting in London<\/p>\n

Americans come to see something quintessentially British, so they\u2019re drawn to places like the Cotswolds or Bath, and sites connected to the monarchy. Since Clarkson\u2019s Farm (a series on Amazon Prime that charts Jeremy Clarkson\u2019s experience of owning and running a farm), everyone wants to go to his pub.<\/p>\n

\"theBath is a typical inclusion on Americans\u2019 itineraries (Photo: New Zealand Transition\/Moment RF\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Anything to do with ghosts or spies is popular. A lot of people are interested in James Bond. For Bond, they want to see the St James\u2019s area<\/a> as a whole: Dukes Hotel (home of the martini), gentleman\u2019s clubs and the Aston Martin boutique in neighbouring Mayfair.<\/p>\n

The North Wales coast is popular, too. Its castles are part of that \u2013 there\u2019s a lot of interest in staying in one.<\/p>\n

We do all sorts of weird and wonderful things, too, such as military tours at US air bases in the UK, and a lot of Americans want to visit places connected with their ancestry. <\/p>\n

Jeff\u00a0Appleyard, a Blue Badge\u00a0guide\u00a0and driver-guide for Cumbria<\/p>\n

The Lakes and scenery are the main interest. Discerning travellers know what they want. And they\u2019re interested in the history and politics of the UK. They often ask about property prices or how much a farm might cost (more out of curiosity than wanting to buy).<\/p>\n

One area I take visitors to is the Cartmel Peninsula. Cartmel itself is always rated among the prettiest villages in the country, plus it has a priory that\u2019s over 800 years old and Michelin-starred restaurants. <\/p>\n

Some visitors are interested in Barrow-in-Furness where submarines have been built since 1886. And the landscape around there is scenic. I also recommend Carlisle, with its cathedral, a superb museum and a castle with a Roman legacy (it stands on the site of a Roman fort).<\/p>\n

\"RuinedFurness Abbey, in Barrow-in-Furness, an area that\u2019s popular with some American tourists (Photo: JonnyJim\/istock\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Americans like to buy\u00a0local produce,\u00a0such as\u00a0Grasmere\u00a0gingerbread. And they like eating in a\u00a0nice\u00a0country\u00a0pub. Our pubs are\u00a0quite special\u00a0\u2013 a beautiful\u00a0Lakeland pub is hard to beat.\u00a0 The\u00a0Kirkstile\u00a0Inn (Loweswater) is\u00a0in\u00a0a beautiful location and I take people there quite often.\u00a0There and the Bower House Inn (Eskdale valley)\u00a0near\u00a0Muncaster\u00a0castle, or to Cartmel, which has Michelin-starred\u00a0restaurants.<\/p>\n

Americans watch British dramas on PBS [an American public broadcaster], and are very enthused by things like All Creatures Great\u00a0and\u00a0Small [it may be set in Yorkshire, but it features bucolic countryside, like the Lakes]. More recently, they might be interested in The Other Bennett Sister,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not filmed in the Lakes, but the theme of the\u00a0Lake District\u00a0runs\u00a0through it. <\/p>\n

Frank Dowling, Green and Blue Badge tour guide for Canterbury, South East England and Wales. Qualified driver-guide<\/p>\n

The overwhelming majority of my\u00a0visitors are from the US. The\u00a0place that\u00a0comes\u00a0up most is Dover Castle.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0interested in UK history.<\/p>\n

One specific tour I guided was Anne-Boleyn themed. We went to\u00a0Chiddingstone (Boleyn\u2019s father bought property in the Kent village), which is near Hever, and then from there to Hever Castle.\u00a0Typically, driver-guide tours are booked with an agent, but, with that tour, the clients had booked directly, so\u00a0I could plan the\u00a0day exactly how they wanted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"FrankFrank Dowling outside the King\u2019s Gallery in Canterbury<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also doing tours to Wales<\/a>, that\u2019s in its infancy. I had a tour a couple of years ago to Wales, and when I got the itinerary from the agent, it was two two or three castles every day. <\/p>\n

Wales, of course, is famous for its castles. It has more castles per square mile than anywhere else in Europe. But it turned out that the visitors were not particularly interested in castles at all. In fact, after a couple of them, one said: \u201cOh, not another pile of stones!\u201d. It became very clear that their agent had made some inaccurate assumptions about what they would want to visit.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d heard that Wales was a beautiful country, a country of legends and music, and that\u2019s what they wanted to experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Royal Family, a green and pleasant landscape (in theory, at least) and a layered literary tradition all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4872,309,9794,40499,104,5,1500,6],"class_list":["post-105402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-cotswolds","tag-kent","tag-lake-district","tag-summer-in-the-uk","tag-travel","tag-uk","tag-uk-travel","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117112536107866230","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}