Our Cardiff City Center Podcast is the first of two episodes highlighting the capital of Wales.  Cardiff's tourism is much less than other cities in the UK, but it offers plenty to warrant more travel attention.

We present a bit of Cardiff's history, fun facts, and our impressions of the city.  Cardiff is accessible by train from London.  If arriving by airplane, take the T9 bus from Cardiff airport to the city center.

Sports fans will be interested in the various sporting venues, including Principality Stadium, Cardiff City Stadium, Sophia Gardens, and Viola Arena.

Interesting towns, including Barry Island, Llantwit Major, Penarth, and Raglan, are just a short train ride away.

You’ll find our recommended itinerary for visiting Cardiff at the following link:

We used TripAdvisor to identify attractions to see once we had our short list of cities identified for this UK trip.  We selected Cardiff to be our hub in Wales.  That would make it easy to get to several places in Wales, including Raglan, Barry Island, and key attractions we selected in Cardiff.

We leveraged “DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Great Britain” to identify specific attractions during our trip.  The book helped to identify walking tours and museums and times when particular places are open to visitors.  We recommend purchasing a book similar to this one when planning a more extended trip.

It helps to identify top-ranked lodging for places where you travel. Here are three highly rated options in Cardiff:

Hotel Indigo Cardiff

SACO Cardiff

Pontcanna Inn

Our next episode will continue exploring the Cardiff City Center.  We’ll discuss food options, lodging, and general tips.

What will you visit on a trip to Cardiff? 

We hope to see you at the places where we go.

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Episode 2 Show Notes: Getting ready to visit Wales and England

This episode discusses planning our UK trip, including stops in England and Wales.  Our lengthier trips like this always begin with assessing the budget.  This helps us to plan trips that work with our financial situation.

Julie has been actively doing genealogy research on her family.  This sparked an interest in visiting places where her family emigrated to the United States.  This was our initial plan, as Sweden is one place with still-living relatives.  We considered Stockholm and Sodra Lian during our early planning.

However, having recently completed an Ancestry DNA kit, Julie was surprised to see a large percentage of ancestry from the United Kingdom.  This sparked new interest as she traced her lineage to the Ragland clan in Raglan, Wales, where there is a present-day castle ruin.  She decided this would be an excellent place to visit.

Our planning shifted to the United Kingdom.  Julie’s lineage came from Wales (Raglan, Llantwit Major, Penarth, Barry) and England (Watchet, Somerset), which are places around the general area of the Bristol Channel.  Julie tracing her family tree in that part of the world to the 1400s gave us an outline of places to consider for our visit.

Our planning timeline for lengthy trips like this usually begins around eight months in advance.  We discuss why planning is essential when traveling to popular destinations.

But then, our trip planning hit the pause button due to Brexit.  We weren't sure how this political situation might impact travel.  We watched the news and read the newspapers to avoid a condition resulting in social unrest.  Ultimately, we decided to venture forward with our UK travel plans regardless, as no Brexit solution was found three months before our calendar showed our tentative UK trip.

Art’s dad spent five years (1943-1948) in England during World War II upon leaving a Polish refugee camp in Palestine.  Adding the English footsteps of Art’s dad to the itinerary would add stops in London (for Osterley Park and Richmond Palace, where Art’s dad was invited by Lady Jersey, actress Virginia Cherrill, to spend holiday time), Halton and the Trenchard Museum, and Liverpool.

An itinerary influenced by tracing family lineage would keep us from visiting Scotland, Ireland, and Poland – places on our radar at the early stages of planning this trip.  A trip that takes you to particular places will likely cause you to leave out many otherwise popular tourist destinations.

Art doesn’t get to include his bucket list item of attending an English Premier League game on this trip.

We used TripAdvisor to identify attractions to see once we had our short list of cities identified for this UK trip.  We selected Cardiff to be our hub in Wales.  That would make it easy to get to several places in Wales, including Raglan, Barry Island, and key attractions we selected in Cardiff.

We leveraged “DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Great Britain” to identify specific attractions during our trip.  The book helped to identify walking tours and museums and times when particular places are open to visitors.  We recommend purchasing a book similar to this one when planning a more extended trip.

The book, “Survivors of War: One Family's Struggle Through World War II” by Dan Dobrucki and Walerian Joseph Dobrucki proved to be another helpful resource for planning this personal family history journey.

Because our UK trip included particular places, planning the trip ourselves versus a travel agent offered us the best approach.

This episode sets the stage and context for the upcoming UK episodes, where we’ll talk specifically about the places we visited.  Our next episode will focus on Cardiff City Center.

Where would a trip to trace your family history take you?  Consider tracing your family history to develop a personally fulfilling travel itinerary.

We hope to see you at the places where we go.

Fuel Your Wanderlust With Our Free Weekly Travel Tips Newsletter

Introducing The Places Where We Go Podcast on this inaugural episode 1.

And our podcast is born. Our journey unfolds here.  We’re always looking for a bit of an adventure. As we say in our podcast intro,  Sometimes we travel far. Sometimes, we explore the places in our local backyard. We’ll share highlights and top tips from our travels wherever we go. We hope you’ll bookmark us to help us plan your future travel adventures.

We're two ordinary people with regular lives. We have jobs, watch grandkids, and have typical family obligations. But we always find time to travel, whether local or more exotic travel adventures.

Art – My rearview mirror includes an extended residency in corporate America. My professional work experience covered insurance underwriting, marketing, and corporate education.  With a degree in Economics and an M.B.A., they even let me run a Data and Analytics department.  There’s been shiny trophies and awards to put on a shelf. Most importantly, that experience helped to fund our past and future travels.

I’m also a lifelong musician – often found on a piano or organ bench and standing behind keyboards in rock and roll settings. My keyboard work is featured on the album “All We Are” by Willard Overstreet and The Highborn Kinsmen.  My solo piano albums get streams; I’m thankful for the listeners.  And my original music finds its way as the soundtrack to our YouTube videos on our channel, The Places Where We Go.  

Julie - Mother of three children. All our grown children are involved in the music industry – playing, performing, and even building instruments. These days, when we’re not traveling, Julie is taking care of our grandkids. They’re the best.

Our packing expert extraordinaire, Julie, focuses on our future travel opportunities. You’ll find her often in our Twitter and Instagram posts most days as we share our past travel adventures.

Thanks for stopping by to listen to our first episode and hear how we got bit by the travel bug and the story leading to us starting "The Places Where We Go."

You can keep up to date on our travels at multiple outlets. Follow us on social media, where you can find us sharing our travel adventures.

Our Blog: The Places Where We Go Blog

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Podcast: The Places Where We Go Podcast is released every other week on your favorite podcast app

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Email: Write to us at [email protected]

We hope to see you at the places where we go.

Julie & Art