Where to go in UK

As any Londoner will tell you, England’s iconic, vibrant, melting pot of a capital city is near impossible to sum up in an essay, let alone only a few words. But if we had to give it a go, we’d start with the facts: there are 32 boroughs, eight million people, two thousand years of recorded history, more exceptional restaurants than you can shake a stick at, and 241 theatres. So far, so enormous – but the trick is to resist the urge to cover it all and instead choose some highlights and do them well. We’re talking a morning at the Tate Modern, with St Paul's directly across the Thames, Borough Market in the afternoon, where food has been traded for over a thousand years, and an evening in the West End. Or, perhaps Shoreditch for under-the-radar galleries and late nights, Bermondsey for the most exciting new restaurants, Notting Hill for Portobello Market, and Soho for absolutely everything else.

One of the finest capital cities in the world and preposterously beautiful, it’s hard not to fall in love with Edinburgh. Built across seven hills and around the volcanic plug of Castle Rock, the city sits in the looming shadow of Arthur's Seat (walk to the top in under an hour for a staggering view), named after the King himself. The Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a medieval labyrinth of closes and wynds that branch from the Royal Mile, the single spine that runs from Edinburgh Castle down to the Palace of Holyroodhouse and home to all manner of tartan stores, fudge houses and historic pubs. Beside it, the Georgian New Town, planned in 1765, is still one of Europe's finest pieces of civic ambition, the wide streets and sandstone townhouses as stately and elegant as ever. A little further and you’ll find Stockbridge, the prettiest neighbourhood in the city, and Leith, the port district and quickly on its way to becoming one of the UK’s most extraordinary restaurant destinations. And then there’s the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world that takes over just about everything in August: 3,000 shows, 25 days, half a million people, and pure joy and creativity.

Honey-hued cottages in chocolate-box villages, English-rose countryside, and a seemingly endless collection of cosy pubs and exquisite manor houses? It can only be the Cotswolds. Occupying a swathe of countryside to the northwest of London, this quintessential slice of English country life is as beautiful as you might imagine. In fact, in 1870, William Morris described Bibury as "the most beautiful village in England", and the statement still holds true today. Each village offers a different attraction: visit Chipping Campden for antique stores and rickety pubs; Bibury for the iconic 17th-century weavers' cottages of Arlington Row; Stow-on-the-Wold for fairy-tale churches; and Painswick for local ales and beautiful gardens. And if you need a few days to just be, the proliferation of hip hotels in recent years, many with Michelin restaurants and organic delis, blissful spas in converted stables, plunge pools and year-round tennis courts, might just help…

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club has been based in St Andrews since 1754, which makes the town's claim to be the Home of Golf very hard to dispute. And the Old Course, with its famous Swilcan Bridge and legendary Road Hole, is as extraordinary as its reputation in every way. But St Andrews has considerably more up its sleeve than the hallowed fairways, as good as they are. Visitors flock to see the ancient architecture and windswept beaches, namely the ruined cathedral, once the largest in Scotland, that perches dramatically on a headland above the sea, and the West Sands, a vast stretch of beach honoured in the opening sequence of Chariots of Fire. The town is also home to Scotland's oldest university, founded in 1413 and the cobbled streets hum with students almost year-round. And just beyond you’ll find the East Neuk of Fife, a collection of beautiful fishing villages strung along the coast and offering some of the best fish and chips in the country.

All brooding fells and ever-changing skies, the Lake District is one of England's largest national parks and has drawn visitors from far and wide ever since the time of William Wordsworth. He even wrote one of England's first travel guides to the region in 1820, which is a good indication of how long the landscape has been impossible to resist. Highlights include Grasmere for Wordsworth's Dove Cottage and Sarah Nelson's legendary gingerbread shop (in business since 1854); Cartmel for a table at Simon Rogan's extraordinary two-Michelin-star restaurant, L'Enclume; Near Sawrey for Beatrix Potter's picturesque Hill Top farm; and Wastwater, the deepest and most remote of the lakes, for the most outstanding view. You might need to pack for all four seasons in a single day and book your accommodation well in advance, but it’s absolutely worth it.