TRANSPORT

For any kind of independent travel in England it is highly recommended that you hire a car. Although you can get to most places by public transport it can be time consuming. The nice thing about England is that public transport does exist to almost anywhere in the country. Buses will travel to remote outlying villages in into large towns are fairly regular intervals. These may be large buses or small mini buses that take only a few passengers at a time. Most buses will connect to the railway stations so you can travel from one to another fairly easily. However buses may not run very frequently and you might have to take convoluted routes to get where you want to go.

Having a car will allow you the freedom to move around the area and see more of the sites.
Be aware that the roads in Dorset are narrow. Often they are only one vehicle wide even though the road is two way. You have to look ahead and use the passing places, field entrances and such like to allow other cars to pass you. Be polite, don't try and push through; remember you are the visitor here so work with the locals, they have to drive these narrow roads all the time.

We strongly recommend that you do not hire a large car. You will notice that cars in England tend to be small (and have good gas mileage). One of the reasons for this is because a lot of the roads are small. The other is that gas is expensive (About $4.50 per US gallon as of 1/1/04, it's actually sold by the litre since most measures used in Britain are metric).

Many of the roads have been here since Roman times and others for several hundred years so the once horse and cart trails are now converted for cars but the width cannot be changed without demolishing half the villages. Thus British people have smaller cars on smaller roads and of course smaller parking spaces, so make sure you can park well in the little spaces.

Every village and town will have somewhere for you to park. In small villages this will be parallel parking on the side of the road. Make sure you are close to the curb when you park, there is not enough room for you to park 18" from the curb and you will most likely get a ticket if you do.
Almost all parking lots (car parks) now have a ‘pay and display’ system. You purchase a sticker at the machine for however long you think you will be staying and stick it on the inside of your windshield (windscreen). Don't try and cheat or stay longer the parking attendants are very diligent and check the stickers regularly if you overstay your time you will get a ticket. British people are usually very friendly about stickers and if they are leaving and have time left on the stickers they will usually give it to the next person arriving to save them money. In the south this happens quite frequently so you save money and then pass any stickers you have with time left on to the next person, it makes for friendly relations. When parking make sure you fit your car into the marked lines don't take up two spots or you will be expected to pay for two.

A car will allow you to visit the local towns and villages in the area and ensure you have the best possible time from your vacation. We strongly recommend that you purchase a map - and know how to read it. Ordnance Survey (topographical) maps for the area are number 116 (Explorer 1:25,000 series) or number 193 (Landranger 1:50,000 series). These are fairly readily available from local stores and can also be purchased and viewed on line. You may also want to buy some of the others from the surrounding areas if you want to go further afield. Ordance survey maps are very detailed and show all the roads, churches, post offices, hiking trails and almost everything you want so with one of these you can find your way almost anywhere.

All roads in England are signed, so with a map and reading the signposts it's really quite hard to get lost.