acantor

I am planning to travel from London, UK to the Cotswolds (northwest of London). How easy is it to travel this route by bicycle on quiet roads and bicycle paths? It would be a credit card tour – I would be looking for a hotel or B&B each night.

nun

There are bike paths most of the way.

www.sustrans.co.uk

raybo

I've ridden from London to Bourton-on-the-Water and it took me three days. How long a trip have you planned?

I used the AA road atlas of Britain available almost everywhere (gas station, grocery store, drug store, bookstore, magazine seller) that has all the roads in Britain. I looked for the smallest roads that eventually got me to the next stop. In fact, route finding was one of the things I enjoyed most on that trip.

As for where to stay, I'd suggest you consider couchsurfing.org and warmshowers.org before looking for places to use your credit card.

Getting out of London might be tricky. There is a Thames route but some of it is off-road. While Sustrans can help, it's maps aren't cheap and they are specific routes that may or may not go where you want to go.

Here are two links to information about biking in London that you may find useful.

Ray

MichaelW

I would suggest the Sustrans routes 4 and 5 to Oxford and up into the Costwolds.
B&B accomodation should be easy enough to find except on bank holidays where you may have to book ahead.
Stanfords have every map you could want.

EKW in DC

One general, non-cycling note I'd add about travel in the UK I encountered when in Northern Ireland last year for a day (and it probably applies to several other European countries as well) - make sure you have a credit card that will work there. Smaller businesses (even some not-so small businesses) were unable to take our American Visa credit card b/c it was the old magnetic strip variety and not the kind with the microchip. Only bigger stores like Tesco were equipped to handle our cards.

Canada may be getting hip to international standards for modern credit cards in a way that head-up-our-butt-USA isn't, so this word of advice may be unnecessary. It's also possible my brief experience in N. Ireland was representative of the UK as a whole. In any case, if your credit card tour really will be relying on a credit card, it's something you might want to look into.

Otherwise, I'd say have a blast!!!

fietsbob

And Billing periods still apply, and they bill your home address, so late fees will add up
if you cannot arrange to pay the minimum at least,
from where you are.

freebooter

You will get more local knowledge on the ctc forums.

https://forum.ctc.org.uk/

acantor

Thank you, everybody, for your good advice!