Receiving phone calls from researcher-writers on the road is one of the (many) true joys of editing for the Let’s Go series. In the past weeks, I’ve heard tales from big cities and small towns, from the local pub and contemporary art galleries, from the Londonderry/Derry border and the Channel Islands. While painstakingly updating every listing in the book, the intrepid Let’s Go: Britain writers have taken tea with old age pensioners, received an impromptu invitation to a gala ball at Cambridge University, gone seal-watching, and learned that Shakespeare invented the phrase “skim milk.”

Needless to say, I’m jealous. The researcher-writers have experienced the gamut of what the United Kingdom--a nation with one sixth the population of the United States but only one fortieth of the land mass--has to offer. In doing so, they’ve committed themselves to serving our diverse readership with a selective, witty, savvy, and, above all, accurate guide to Britain. The best hostels, country walks, pints of lager, flutes of Pimm’s, gastropubs, alternative music festivals: they’re all there.

It’s our hope that the Britain guide will not only enable budget travelers to visit the well-trodden routes around Stonehenge and London, but also to visit obscure castles and idiosyncratic islands. We’ve covered surfing, bird-watching, even Monty Python sightseeing. We’ve expanded coverage of the newly hip northern cities and our Beyond Tourism section, wherein we hope to help our readers study, work, or volunteer in Britain. And we’ve upheld Let’s Go’s forty-year commitment to watch out for your wallet so that you won’t have to.

We hope you’ll be learning to Scottish line dance, drive an Aston Martin, or shear a sheep instead.