Discovering England, the land of contrasts, is better done by car, no question about that. Whether you want to take a tour of the biggest cities like London, Liverpool or Manchester or you’d rather just take a quick shopping tour of London and then hop around the English countryside, than you’re better off using your own means of transport than being a slave to public transport. Not that public transport is especially bad in England, it’s not perfect either, but it’s perfectly average. In fact, you’re probably better off using public transport in London than driving around, especially if you’re renting a car. A car hire company in London will have a much higher rate than, let’s say, an Essex car hire firm. So perhaps the best option is to wait until you’re a little further from London to rent your vehicle, as long as you make sure you’re close enough to public transport for when you have to make it back to London, assuming you’ve flown in through Heathrow. There’s a sense of freedom when you drive around a country like England that you’ll not really experience anywhere else in the World and you really need to see it for yourself to understand why.