January 2026 Travel Adventures: Godalming, Kensington, Mayfair and More!

January in the UK is perhaps not the most exciting month to travel; short days and cold, wet weather are not most people's idea of fun. However, it's a month where tourism is lower, meaning lots of places are more peaceful than they are in warmer months or at Christmas. And the colder weather also makes it an ideal opportunity for visiting museums and other indoor attractions. 

We've had a few interesting trips out since the new year, both near our home in Reading and in London. Here are our highlights!

West London Audi and Gunnersbury Park

As you probably know if you're a regular reader of this blog, Claudio is a massive car fan! So one cold weekend, we decided to visit West London Audi, the biggest Audi dealership in Europe. It has seven floors filled with cars, plenty of which we could sit inside, and it also has panoramic views of the area - not that it's the most beautiful part of London! There's also a big Mercedes dealership next door that we visited afterwards. Overall, it was a fun, free, indoor activity, away from the capital's crowded touristic areas. 

We then went for a walk around the nearby Gunnersbury Park, a surprisingly picturesque park that we hadn't heard of before. It got dark while we were there, so the pictures didn't come out the best, but we really enjoyed exploring it, especially the Italian Gardens and the little Roman-style temple. It reminded us of visiting Villa Borghese in Rome!

Arborfield Green

My AI training work and search for a permanent job are keeping me busy, but I'm still trying to make time for the occasional trip out during the week when I can. I know that once I have a full-time role, I'm not going to have very many chances to do things like this anymore, so I want to make the most of this less-structured period in my life.

In January, I took the bus one Wednesday morning to the village of Arborfield Green, because I wanted to see these interesting horse sculptures that I'd spotted from the bus en route to California Country Park in November. They were really stunning to see up close!

Next to the horses, you can find an Australian café, Stables Coffee Co. I enjoyed a strong flat white and a very tasty pistachio cake slice there.

I also went for a walk around a little lake in this quiet, peaceful village.

The Museum of English Rural Life

One weekend, we wanted to get out and do something, but as is often the case, we didn't fancy taking a train or bus. So we decided to go to one of Reading's free museums, the Museum of English Rural Life. We really like walking in the area of the town where this museum is located; it's got lots of grand, old redbrick buildings, and the museum is no exception.

To be honest, we weren't expecting anything super interesting based on the museum's name, but we enjoyed it much more than we thought it would. I particularly liked the exhibition about Ladybird Books (it brought back memories of reading them as a child) and Claudio liked looking at the old Land Rover!

We also had a nice time exploring the old building itself and its garden.

Godalming

Naturally, over the Christmas period, we watched The Holiday, and found ourselves wondering where the Surrey village scenes were actually filmed. We looked it up, and found out that the scenes around the cottage (which unfortunately was fake!) and in the pub were filmed in Shere, and the scenes in the village high street were filmed in Godalming. To get to either of them by public transport, you need to first take the train to Guildford; then to get to Shere, you need to walk to a bus stop and take a 20-minute bus ride, or to get to Godalming, you need to switch trains and take a 10-minute train ride. We find buses round here can be quite unreliable, so we'll probably leave going to Shere until we've got a car. However, we decided it was worth an hour of train travel to get to Godalming, and to visit one of the settings of this classic Christmas movie!

As it was January, we could still experience Godalming with The Holiday's wintery vibe, but without the Christmas crowds. It's a very charming, old-fashioned town, and we enjoyed exploring both the street from the movie and its lesser known attractions, including a furniture store located inside a big old church!

Destinations Travel Show, Museum of Design and Mayfair

We were back in London at the end of the month, as I had been sent free tickets to visit the Destinations Travel Show at Olympia in Kensington. It was our first time going to this kind of event, and I was intrigued by the opportunity to get an insight into the marketing that the different travel brands there were using.

It was an interesting experience; we listened to a talk by a group of travel writers about the best and worst travel trends, watched a South African dance demonstration and an Italian cooking demonstration, and tried some food and tea at the Saudi Arabia stall.

Afterwards, we went for a wander through Kensington, taking in the grand architecture. Claudio was also happy to have a good look in the window of the Koenigsegg dealership!

We then visited one of London's many free museums, the Museum of Design. It was interesting to see the designs of various objects over the years. We also had fun participating in a pop-up exhibition by Canva, where we took our photo in a photo booth.

We finished off our day in London by taking the bus past Marble Arch to Mayfair, where Claudio wanted to go carspotting! We enjoyed walking around the elegant neighbourhood and were lucky to see Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces!

I'll be writing again soon about more of our travel adventures! 🌏