Our tiny house vacation in England

(German version here / auf Deutsch hier)

I know, I know, we will all be doing very little travelling in the near future. But for exactly that reason I thought I would share some travel inspiration. Anticipation is, after all the, the greatest pleasure. Personally, I like to get lost in inspiring travel photos, even if I can’t visit the travel destinations.

Last year we travelled around Southern England, as a kind of mini honeymoon (we still want to do a bigger honeymoon, but that won’t be possible for an indefinite period. We travelled via train from Berlin to England). A lot of people questioned why we wanted to spend our summer vacation in England – a country known for its amazing pub culture, but apparently not known as a wonderful romantic summer vacation destination.

We were very lucky with the weather, it hardly rained and it was so hot that we didn’t go hiking as much as we had actually planned. But even when the sky was cloudy and rainy, our vacation was wonderful because the landscape, the food and all the cafés and small boutiques were amazing – regardless of whether it was sunny or stormy!

During the first part of our trip we were in Whitstable , Eastbourne and Brighton on the go. We stayed here in private accommodation or hotels. Then we travelled on to Dorset, Somerset and the Cotswolds. During this part, we only stayed in tiny houses, since these were mostly located somewhere remote in nature. That’s exactly what we wanted for our vacation: peace and nature!

We booked the tiny houses through Canopy and Stars (paid everything ourselves, had no discount and no collaboration). All three tiny houses were lovingly decorated and I would highly recommend them! In retrospect, of course, I had favorites and next time I would try to slow down, for example, only to stay in two houses instead of three different ones, but for a longer time in each one.

But I don’t want to babble for too long and will cut to the chase and share with you some photos and info of our three tiny houses from our vacation in England here:

Sika, Warmwell House Hut

This shepherd’s wagon in Dorset was our first stop on the tiny house tour. The wagon is on the property of Warmwell House. You park in the front area of ​​the manor, then walk through a small garden, past a field over a meadow to the edge of the forest where the shepherd’s wagon was set up. So you are really in the middle of nature!

The wagon was lovingly furnished, had everything we needed and was even equipped with hiking maps. We only did a short hike over the grounds of the manor house (which is very big!). We were able to look around freely and also visit the vegetable garden and the greenhouse. From the vegetable garden we were even allowed to help ourselves and “harvest” vegetables, herbs and fruit for cooking.

There is even a labyrinth on the site! And it was not so easy to figure out!

The only downside for me was that the toilet and shower were in a separate hut. This was right next to the sleeping hut, so really only 5 steps away, but I always have to go to the toilet at least once at night. And going through the pitch black night with all the nature sounds in the background sounds romantic, but it was a little creepy for me as a city kid, haha ​​:) But that was of course not actually a problem! I’m just a little scared.

We made some day trips by car. I will then share our destinations in a separate blog post.

Here are a few photos of the Warmwell House, the Tiny House, vegetable garden and the surrounding landscape:

Mendip Molly, Croft Cottage

We were particularly looking forward to this accommodation! Unfortunately we only had two days there, but we really enjoyed it. The old showman’s car stands on a small meadow next to the Croft Cottage in Somerset. So there is not as much free space around the car as the other place, but you look directly at a horse meadow and wake up in the morning to ruffling horse noises – it was just so wonderfully soothing! In addition, the sunsets there are simply beautiful.

The car is quite big, especially compared to the previous tiny house. It has three areas, the main living room with kitchenette, the bedroom on the left and the bathroom on the right. Outside there is additional space to sit and a basha tent for the summer. There is also a barbecue area on the Croft Cottage grounds that can be used.

Here, too, we did day trips by car. We walked to the local pub Horse and Jockey Inn, which was not very far.

The car is a bit older, it was used as a showman’s car in the 1950s. But it is in very good condition! It doesn’t seem run down or anything. All the details and little windows make it cozy and playful:

Under The Walnut Tree, Painswick Lodge

This little house was the wonderful conclusion to our tour! You can only get to Painswick Lodge on a very narrow, wild, overgrown road, so drive very slowly! But you will be rewarded for it.

You arrive at a stately mansion, as you only know from film and television. The Tiny House is located at the bottom of the huge garden in a small secluded corner, right next to the cow pasture (which is also huge by the way). You overlook a valley and far and wide you can only see meadows, fields, forests or small houses or smaller villages. As guests of the Tiny House, you can also use the pool of the manor house, which of course we really enjoyed when it was 30 degrees in the shade. Here, too, like the other houses, we were very well taken care of by the landlords and had everything we needed.

We did not hike directly on the site, but mainly took the car and went on other excursions or other hiking trails. We especially liked the Stroud’s Farmers Market!

Conclusion

Overall, I can highly recommend all accommodations! The stays were romantic, all in the middle of nature, excursions around were not far and you could also do many hikes directly from the house. All of the hosts went out of their way to make our stay as pleasant as possible. Everyone had their own individual tips for the area.

But 7 nights in tiny houses were enough for me. After a week I personally had enough of Tiny Houses haha. I think mainly the toilet situation became the problem area for me at some point. We always had a normal toilet, but almost all of them were dry toilets that you have to get used to. Nothing really dramatic, but despite the wonderful time I wanted to be honest and list 1-2 disadvantages. I want to give a realistic picture 🙂

I would go on a tiny house vacation again and again 🙂 I really enjoyed it and 7 days was the perfect time for me. The trips around the houses were also exciting and beautiful. I will share this in a blog posts soon!

Have you ever had a tiny house vacation? Or maybe you live in a tiny house? How was or is it for you?

Here are some additional photos that did not fit in above:

Sika / Warmwell House:

Mendip Molly:

Under The Walnut Tree