8 Things You Need to Know Before Visiting The Cotswolds in England

We recently took a day trip to the Cotswolds and my expectations were thoroughly surpassed. I shouldn’t be too surprised, though, since the Cotswolds are known worldwide & topping peoples’ bucket lists.

The old stone buildings and adorable storefronts that dot the Cotswolds made me feel like I’d been dropped into Downton Abbey (or whatever your favorite period drama is).

We wandered through multiple picturesque villages, tasted delicious goodies, and even saw what may have been the inspiration for JRR Tolkien’s Doors of Durin. All in all, it was a wonderful day and I hope you have the same.

This post is to give you some helpful tips about visiting the Cotswolds that I wish we had known early on!

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8 Tips for Visiting the Cotswolds

Hopefully these Cotswolds tips will help you as you plan your trip! I wish I had known these 8 things about the Cotswolds before our first trip.

1. The Cotswolds are Definitely Worth Visiting

If you are wondering, ‘are The Cotswolds worth visiting?” I’m here to tell you YES!

If you love rural, rolling landscapes, picturesque stone cottages, colorful wood-framed storefronts and hundreds of years of history… then yes, you’ll love visiting The Cotswolds!

2. The Cotswolds is a large REGION in England, not just one town

Whenever I heard people talk about The Cotswolds I thought they were referring to ONE village, ONE place, ONE central location. I thought we would drive to The Cotswolds, park, walk around, and be done. Oh, how I was wrong.

The Cotswolds is a large REGION of England stretching about 90 miles long and 25 miles wide. It’s designated as an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ comprised of rolling hills, honey-colored stone villages, and small winding roads.

Because of its large size, you will most likely be visiting multiple cities and towns in the Cotswolds rather than driving to just one. There are LOADS of potential villages to visit so you’ll need to look into which cities and towns look the most interesting to you.

We really enjoyed the towns we visited in the Cotswolds. Some were of the most iconic villages while others were more off-the-beaten-path. You can read about our experience in this post: Our Cotswolds Day Trip Itinerary + What We Would Change.

3. Map out your Route Beforehand to Determine if you Have enough Time

As I mentioned above, the Cotswolds is a pretty large area. Because of this, I recommend mapping out your route beforehand to ensure that you’ll have enough time to hit all of the villages you want to see.

Many of the most popular villages are located a short drive from each other which makes it easy to visit multiple villages in one day. However, we dropped a couple of stops from our itinerary because it would have been too much driving.

If you don’t map out your route beforehand, you may run out of time and miss some of the stops you were looking forward to the most.

You may also realize you want to take it slower and see more by spending a night in the Cotswolds. I would have loved to stay in a quaint BNB or the like, but, unfortunately, we only had time for a day trip.

4. Renting a car or booking a tour are the easiest ways to navigate the Cotswolds

Navigating the Cotswolds via public transit is technically possible, however, it will take a lot of planning, may limit the villages you can visit and you’ll be tied to the limited bus timetables.

Rather, I’d recommend renting a car to visit exactly the towns you want to visit on your own timetable. Granted, driving on the left side down small, winding country roads isn’t exactly a walk in the park if you’re unfamiliar with it.

If driving in England sounds a bit like a nightmare, then I’d suggest booking one of the many amazing guided tours that visit the Cotswolds.

My two favorite websites to search for guided tours/experiences are Get Your Guide and Viator. Here are some of the tours I would consider if we had gone that route:

• Small-Group Cotswolds Day Tour From London
• 6-Hour PRIVATE Cotswolds Guided Tour to Iconic Cotswold Villages
• Full-Day Cotwolds AND Oxford Tour From London

5. Most shops in the Cotswolds close around 5/5:30 pm

If you are looking forward to shopping, know that most of the stores and cafes close around 5 or 5:30 pm. Obviously, restaurants are open later, but most everything else starts shutting down.

In the winter this is about the time that it’s getting dark, however, in the summer months it would still be quite light at this time.

6. Some villages in the Cotswolds are small & residential while others are large cities

Some of the villages you’ll read about in Cotswold itineraries are super residential. Like they are a couple small roads of picturesque houses that people actually live in (like the Slaughters). Keep in mind if you are visiting some of the very small, residential towns to be respectful of the resident’s space and privacy.

Other towns in The Cotswolds are quite large and bustling like Oxford. You may want to decide what type of towns you want to visit and plan your route based on that.

We spent many hours in Oxford on a separate trip so we didn’t include it in our Cotswolds itinerary. Instead, we chose a variety of small picturesque villages, some residential and some a bit bigger with cute shops and cafes to explore.

7. You can visit the Cotswolds any time of year

The most popular months to visit the Cotswolds are May-September with the busiest months being July and August. If you choose to visit in the peak summer months, know that the villages can be extremely busy and parking can be nearly impossible to find.

To avoid crowds, you may consider visiting in the fall or winter. We visited The Cotswolds in November and had a lovely time. The towns felt lived in and lively but not overrun with visitors.

The downside of visiting in the fall and winter is that you have high chances of rain/grey skies and the trees are bare and flowers not in bloom (which I imagine would be very beautiful to see).

8. Parking in the summer months can get a bit out of control

We have family that have visited The Cotswolds in the summer and they have told us about how extremely crowded some of the villages can get (especially Bourton-on-the-Water).

They said that parking lots are so full that most people resort to parking on the street leading into the villages which can make for a 20-minute walk into town.

We also noticed this when we watched Cotswold vlogs preparing for our trip. On some of these vlogs you can see how far of a walk people had to take just to get into one of these small villages in the summer.

When we visited The Cotswolds in November, parking was a total breeze.

If you plan to visit the area in peak summer, but don’t want to deal with parking, I’d consider booking a small-group guided tour like this.

And those are my top Cotswolds tips to help you plan a great trip! Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions about visiting the Cotswolds and I’ll be sure to get back to you.

Check out these other UK posts, I know you’ll love them:

• Our Cotswolds Day Trip Itinerary + What We Would Change
• Is it Worth it to Visit The Cotswolds in November?
• Our Day Trip to Oxford, England | An Easy Itinerary
• 16 Helpful Tips That Make Driving in Scotland as an American Feel Easy
• 3 Days in London with a Toddler: A Realistic Itinerary + Tips & Map
• The Only Itinerary You Need For a Day Trip to Edinburgh (+ Map)
• 21 Best Things to Do in Edinburgh With Kids + Top Tips
• Is it Worth it To Visit the Isle of Skye in April?
• 18 Things You Need To Know Before Visiting The Isle of Skye in Scotland

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