Wow, 2020. You’ve given us a global pandemic, a nationwide lockdown and (in our case) a cancelled wedding. With all of the chaos going on, one thing remained for three months: travel was out of bounds.

Last month when we started to get a little crazy being cooped up in the middle of Whitechapel (read: we nearly killed each other), the UK government encouraged us to make “support bubbles” and “have a staycation.” Our Honeymoon trip around Ireland had been cancelled. We hadn’t seen many of our friends. Most of our families live in a different country. To be honest, all we wanted to do was jump on the first plane to the Maldives and call it a day.

Instead we rounded up three friends and booked an airbnb an hour outside of London in Kent. Yes, Kent. I grew up in Essex, by the QE2 and Dartford tunnel that ferries people between the two counties. Not once did I look over the Thames and think “oh, wow, I’d love to go on holiday there.” But… stranger things have happened this year. We packed up the car (a friends car, you think we own a car in central London?!) and off we went across the bridge, to a place called Ide Hill - none of us knew how to properly pronounce it.

After a brief stop at the Sainsbury’s in Sevenoaks, for wine mostly, we arrived at ‘The Little Barn.’ A cute self-catering airbnb next to the host family’s farmhouse, meadows and a patch of pine forest, where we enjoyed an incredible night around a fire pit, roasting marshmallows and bananas with chocolate buttons (if you haven’t tried it, what is wrong with you?) We spent three days walking, eating, napping and playing hours of Just Dance on the Nintendo Switch. I have to proclaim the holiday a roaring success. I can’t believe how good it was, and how bloody relaxed I felt afterwards. I hereby fully support the UK staycation and will be booking many more for the rest of the year (or at least for the rest of the summer!)

Ide Hill Walking Tour

This hike is a 6.4 kilometer loop trail which takes you through farmland, past sheep and cows, up and down picturesque hills and along peaceful paths. We were a group of 5 with varying skills and fitness, so although I call it a ‘hike’ it was more of a comfortable two hour walk which was a great thing to do on our first morning as it gave us a real understanding of our surrounding area. Even in Covid-time we found a pub, The Bricklayer’s Arms in the nearby village Chipstead, which had outside seating by a beautiful lake. The perfect place for a post walk pint.

Knole Park

The National Trust’s 1,000 acre Knole Park was a huge highlight for us. Used to deer-spotting from afar in London’s Richmond Park, the young deer in Knole were completely confident and inquisitive; often coming right up to us for photos (only slightly terrifying). The actual park is quite hilly itself, with huge, sprawling areas of fern (Cue: us taking copious photos of us pretending to be in Jurassic park) and woodland and gentle paths for those wanting to walk around and explore. With some history buffs in our group, we made sure to visit Knole House (although most is still closed at the moment). It was built and extended by the Archbishops of Canterbury after 1456 but then became a royal possession during the Tudor dynasty when Henry VIII hunted there and gifted it to Mary I for her official residence.

Lullingstone Country Park

We were spoiled with parks and gardens and blessed with beautiful weather, which made our trip even more special. On our last day we visited Lullingstone Country Park, a large open space and woodland.

The park is great for everyone as you can choose from different walks in which to explore the space. One thing to note is that this park was extremely popular with families - as the summer holidays had just started there were many children running around, eating ice creams and climbing on things (I was jealous.) The park has insane views of the surrounding countryside, including the neighbouring lavender fields which were magical to see in bloom.

Lauren Loves

I had such fun on this trip (and writing about it!) Being in the middle of nowhere really forced me to slow down and spend quality time with Rob and my friends. We often came back from our adventuring in the mid / late afternoon and just sat on our decking reading or napping. Leisurely breakfasts, a whole evening spent drinking wine and looking at the stars, or sitting around the fire pit talking - when do we really get the time to do that? The village of Ide Hill is beautiful, and a great place to stay if you’re feeling more adventurous than us: I’d love to return for the longer walks around the neighbouring Toy Hill, for example.

Robert Loves

It was great not having to be in the flat we’ve spent the last 4 months in, and actually get some outdoor time that didn’t involve the local park that we have now lapped about 10.000 times. We spent time with a group of friends that enjoy doing things together but also really respect quality solo time. This resulted in in a nice restful holiday with no pressure to do anything. Afternoon naps and having some solo time with a book were part of the daily ritual.

Where did we stay?

We booked a last minute stay at The Little Barn, an Airbnb in Ide Hill. A recently-renovated barn, it has everything you could want from a fully-decked out kitchen, two big bedrooms, wi-fi and Netflix. We really recommend looking into self-catering if you are still a bit weary of staying in a hotel during post-lockdown summer!

Top Tips

• If you’re planning on going for a hike, take good shoes! It’s insane how often that’s ignored, and I stupidly wore my Toms for one of the walks which was not ideal.
• Post-Covid a few local pubs were either busy (we could’nt park near them) or not open. It’s best to have a plan B.
• You really do need a car. As people who are environmentally-conscious and try to walk / bike / use public transport wherever we go, it’s difficult to do that in the countryside - pandemic or otherwise. We took one car for all of us, having to form a ‘bubble’ to do so.
• For our trip to Knole Park, we parked in the Sevenoaks town centre car park which is free on Sundays (and super cheap the rest of the time) meaning that we did’nt have to pre-book parking for the park itself.
• Plan your days out in advance (we found out the hard way!) Parking was only available by pre-booking for a lot of places, including Emmetts Gardens which we missed out on because of.