Neil Turner

Our 2025 holiday: Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch station

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The old station house at Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch station

I wonder how many RSS readers I’ve broken with the title of this blog post? Anyway, our last stop on our day out to Anglesey was Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch railway station.

I think most Brits are award of Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch station’s claim of being the station with the longest name on the British Rail network. However, it’s more commonly known as ‘Llanfairpwll station’ and this is what appears on train destination boards. Indeed, its unnecessarily long name was a contrivance thought up by the railway company that originally built it in the 19th Century as a way of encouraging people to visit it by train. It roughly translates into English as ‘The church of St. Mary of the pool of the white hazels near to the fierce whirlpool and the church of St. Tysilio of the red cave’.

The platforms at Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch station

Llanfairpwll station today

Llanfairpwll station (as I will call it for the rest of this post) isn’t much of a station. It survived the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, but nowadays it gets a rather infrequent service. Going back towards the mainland, there was a wait of over an hour for the next train whilst we were there. And it’s a ‘request stop’ – if you want to get on a train, you need to make a clear signal to the driver of the train, as otherwise services will pass through at low speed. Similarly, if you’re on a train and want to get off there, you need to tell the guard that you want to do so, so that he/she/they can tell the driver to stop.

There are two short platforms – indeed, some trains that do stop there need to use selective door opening as they’re longer than the platforms – and a footbridge. Only platform one, for trains back towards the mainland, is accessible from the car park as there are no ramps or lifts on the footbridge. There is a gate leading from platform two, for trains towards Holyhead, but it would be a very long walk/wheel back into the town.

As well as being a request stop, Llanfairpwll station is unstaffed. The old station master’s house has been restored, but isn’t in use as far as I can tell. There aren’t even any facilities to buy a ticket here. I think Transport for Wales is missing a trick here, as tickets purchased from here could be collectors items. A machine could be installed that even just sells ceremonial platform tickets.

A photo of the outside of James Pringle Weavers at Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch station

Tourist trap

The reality is that most people who go to Llanfairpwll station arrive and depart by road. The station retains a large car park, and the fact that this car park has bays for coaches tells you a lot. Next to the station is a large shop, run by James Pringle Weavers (in reality a subsidiary of Edinburgh Woollen Mill) which sells a range of merchandise with Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch branded on it, amongst other things. I’m sure most people grab a couple of photos on the station platforms before going to the shop, and then moving on, without setting foot on a train. And yes, that’s exactly what we did too.

It’s nice that quirks like this still exist in places in the UK, but I feel like the station itself could be more front and centre. Perhaps, with longer platforms, better access, a more frequent service and some ticket machines, more people might actually visit Llanfairpwll station by rail.

New new new iPad

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A photo of an iPad Air 6

A couple of weeks ago, I bought myself a new iPad. I’ve gone for the 6th generation iPad Air, which has now been discontinued having been on sale for around 10 months until March this year. The fact that it’s discontinued is why I’ve bought an iPad Air, rather than a standard iPad; I ended up buying it cheaply from Costco for £360, versus around £300 for a standard iPad.

Saying goodbye to my old iPad

My previous iPad was a standard iPad 6, and I’d had it for seven years. During that time it was used almost daily, and it was starting to show its age. As well as a dented case on the back, the battery was not holding charge well and it became very picky about which Lightning cable it would actually charge from. It’s also no longer fully supported by Apple; it can only run iOS 17 which has only had minor security updates since last autumn. I expect it won’t get any updates at all soon. Still, seven years of almost daily use is pretty good going. Before that, I’d had an iPad Mini 2 for four years, and before that, a year with a second-hand original iPad which was the first one that I owned.

This new iPad Air 6 is a Wi-Fi only model, whereas my previous iPad also had cellular data. My main reason for going Wi-Fi-only was to take advantage of the cheap deal at Costco, but also I don’t use cellular data as much as I used to. Back in 2018, I was spending quite a bit of time on trains that didn’t have Wi-Fi; nowadays, I tend to only commute to work twice a week, and the trains all have Wi-Fi now. I also have a higher data allowance on my mobile plan, and so I can hotspot off my iPhone if needed.

Size, performance and connectivity

Being an iPad Air, it sits between the standard iPad, and the iPad Pro in terms of performance. It has one of Apple’s M-class processors, which you see in the iPad Pro and its Mac range, rather than the A-class processors that come in the standard iPad and on iPhones. That also means it has Apple Intelligence, Apple’s on-device AI. Not that I’ve really used Apple Intelligence much, apart from some minor photo editing. But overall, I’m very happy with the performance, compared to my previous model.

Also compared to my previous model, the 11″ iPad Air 6 that I bought is about the same size and weight. There is also a 13″ model, but this is fine for me and I’m used to the size.

Whilst the case is roughly the same size, with the narrower bezel, the screen has a much larger viewable area, and with a higher resolution. To unlock the screen, the iPad Air moves the Touch ID sensor to the lock button on top (only the iPad Pro has Face ID for unlocking). That takes a little getting used to; to unlock, you rest your finger on the button, rather than pressing it.

Apple is phasing out the Lightning connector, and all new iPads now come with a standard USB-C port, rather than Lightning. In the box, there’s a USB-C to C cable, but no AC adaptor; which is fine for me as we have several. Christine, being more of the Android persuasion, already has plenty of USB-C to C cables as well. There’s also no 3.5mm audio socket, so I’ve already picked up a USB-C to 3.5mm adaptor. Speaking of audio, there are speakers on both short sides of the iPad Air, rather than just the base.

A bargain price

Considering that the iPad Air 6 retailed for £549 when new, and a refurbished model costs £469 direct from Apple, getting mine from Costco for £360 was an absolute bargain. Before you rush off to your nearest Costco, bear in mind that mine was ‘sold as seen’, and they may have already sold out by now. Still, the money I saved was more than the cost of our annual membership. And, being a more powerful model than the one I’d planned to buy, I hope that it’ll last longer too. I don’t know if it’ll manage seven years, like my last iPad did, but 4-5 years would be good going.

Our 2025 holiday: Anglesey Sea Zoo

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A photo of a boat at Anglesey Sea Zoo

After Beaumaris Castle and Plas Newydd, our third stop on our Anglesey day out was at Anglesey Sea Zoo. This is towards the southern tip of the island.

Anglesey Sea Zoo is an aquarium, with a focus on the sea creatures that you would encounter in the seas around Wales and the rest of Britain. As such, you won’t see many tropical fish, or massive sharks, but you will get to see the Lobster Hatchery of Wales – a conservation project to boost the numbers of wild European lobsters. Anglesey Sea Zoo was also the few aquariums in the world to successfully breed the native British species of seahorse, and you can see some of the seahorses on show there. There are also plenty of anemones, starfish, crabs, prawns, and various different species of fish.

Anglesey Sea Zoo is quite small, especially compared to Sea Life Centres or The Deep in Hull, and we got around it in about an hour. But it was interesting, and is certainly something to bear in mind for a wet day as it’s almost all indoors.

Accessibility

Anglesey Sea Zoo is mostly on one level and so those who struggle with steps should be able to see almost everything. There’s a modest car park, and (at time of writing) there were two free of charge medium-speed 7 kW electric car chargers available for visitors to use. The same bus that serves Plas Newydd gets within about a mile of the aquarium.

Nearby attractions

Next door to Anglesey Sea Zoo is the Halen Mon Sea Salt Factory – there’s a shop, and you can book on factory tours which run twice a day.

There’s also Foel Farm Park nearby, which is an open farm with play areas. We didn’t have the time to visit either of these when we went.

National Trust Tracker app

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A screenshot of the National Trust tracker app

If you’re a member of the National Trust like we are, and want to get the most out of your membership, then there’s an app for that.

The app is, appropriately enough, called National Trust Tracker, and it lets you view nearby National Trust properties and track those that you have visited. You can either view them as a list, split by county, or on a map.

There’s also a Statistics tab, which gives you some insights into the properties I’ve visited. I’ve recorded visits to 29 in the app – the actual number will be higher, but I’ve limited it to those where I can record an exact date that I last went. That means that I’ve not included any visited in childhood. Overall, I’ve been to 4.6% of all National Trust properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

You can also see how many visits you’ve made each year, your top region (which is Cheshire for me) and your favourite day to visit (Sundays, perhaps unsurprisingly).

The app is for iOS only, although there appears to be an unrelated app for Android which doesn’t look as nice.

Our 2025 holiday: Plas Newydd

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A photo of Plas Newydd, looking up from the sea wall along the Menai Strait

After visiting Beaumaris Castle in the morning, the second place we visited on Anglesey was Plas Newydd (Welsh for ‘New House’). It’s a large country house overlooking the Menai Strait, originally started in the 15th Century but substantially rebuilt in the 18th Century. Nowadays, it’s in the care of the National Trust, who look after both the house and its gardens. The house is presented largely as it would have been in the 1950s.

We went around the house first. Not all of the rooms are open to view; though the National Trust have cared for it since 1976, until around 10 years ago people still lived in the property. The dining room is home to a huge painting by Rex Whistler, which was the largest ever canvas painting in the UK when it was unveiled in the 1930s. A previous owner of Plas Newydd, Henry William Paget, fought in the Battle of Waterloo where he lost a leg – the house has an exhibition about him including one of his prosthetic legs. He was awarded the title of ‘Marquess of Anglesey’ for his bravery.

The 5th Marquess of Anglesey, Henry Cyril Paget, was a rather flamboyant character who inherited Plas Newydd in 1898. He converted the chapel into a theatre, where he performed in what we would now most likely describe as drag. Whilst he was born into great wealth, ultimately he ended up bankrupt six years later in 1904, and died the following year. Many of his costumes were subsequently sold in the ‘Great Anglesey Sale’. However, some photographs survive, and visitors are invited to dance in one of the rooms, as the 5th Marquess would have done.

The gardens at Plas Newydd

Gardens

There are some formal gardens at Plas Newydd, on the slope down to the Menai Strait, and there are great views across the Strait towards Caernarfon. There’s also plenty of parkland, including an arboretum. Anglesey is also one of the few remaining places in Britain with wild populations of native red squirrels, and there’s a feeding station in the arboretum. We didn’t get a chance to visit this, unfortunately, and we didn’t see any red squirrels during our time in Anglesey.

As it’s the summer holidays, there were plenty of activities for kids as part of the Summer of Play event that runs until the end of this month.

Accessibility

For the house, only the ground floor is accessible to those who can’t use stairs. There is a step-free route from the car park to the house, but not all routes across the parkland are step-free and it is on a slope.

When we visited, five electric car chargers were being installed in the car park – these appear to be operational now, offering 7 kW medium-speed charging on the RAW Power network. Bus services pass the site on Mondays-Saturdays, or it’s a roughly 2 mile walk from Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch station, if you want to catch the train.

Higoom Cordless car air pump review

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A photo of the Higoom cordless car air pump

One thing that all cars have in common, regardless of the type of engine or number of wheels, is that they all use tyres. Tyres can lose their inflation over time; a deflated tyre creates more drag, meaning the engine has to work harder to counter the increased resistance. So, keeping your tyres properly inflated should improve your car’s fuel economy, or miles per kWh for electric vehicles.

Our previous car came with a portable car air pump, that also doubled up as a puncture repair kit. However, our new car doesn’t, and so I needed to buy a new pump to keep the tyres correctly inflated. Coincidentally, I started seeing social media adverts for cordless car air pumps, although ultimately I ended up buying this Higoom cordless car air pump from Amazon (sponsored link). At time of writing, it’s ‘Amazon’s choice’ and costs £25.

The Higoom car air pump in use inflating my car's tyres

Unlike my previous car air pump, this can be used without being plugged into your car’s 12V supply – although you can still plug it in if you want and a 12V car adaptor with a barrel plug is provided. Instead, there’s a hefty battery inside, which makes it a lot easier to use. It’s also a digital model, so you can set the target air pressure first and pump the tyres to this level, and then it’ll automatically stop. The standard tube also has a lever-top fixing, so you don’t need to screw it on to your tyre valves. It also comes with a variety of adaptors, for inflating other things like bike tyres and paddling pools.

The car air pump also doubles up as a power bank – there’s a USB-A output socket on top – and as a torch, with an LED light. The battery inside charges using a USB-C socket.

Whilst the size of the battery makes it quite hefty – almost a kilogram in weight – it’s still small enough to store in your car’s glove compartment. It also comes with a storage bag, which is big enough for the pump and all its accessories.

I’ve seen similar devices sell for double the price of this Higoom model, so at £25 it’s worth considering.

Our 2025 holiday: Beaumaris Castle

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A photo of the outside of Beaumaris Castle on Anglesey including its moat

We spent a day of our holiday on the island of Anglesey, starting at the north east corner with Beaumaris Castle. You could be forgiven for thinking that Beaumaris Castle is now a ruin, but in reality it was never actually finished.

It was commissioned by Edward I of England in the late 13th Century, along with Conwy Castle, Caernarfon and Harlech, and was supposed to be the biggest and grandest of them all. However, the money ran out, and construction basically stopped in the 1320s. The towers were never as tall as planned, but what remains today is still a large castle with multiple fortified walls. Nowadays, as with Conwy, it’s in the care of Cadw. Despite being built by an English king in Wales, ‘Beaumaris’ is derived from the French ‘beaux marais’, or ‘fair marsh’.

Visitors can climb up onto the walls, and up some of the towers, to get a view across the Menai Strait and towards mainland Wales. There’s also a video history of the castle, and the chapel has been restored with new stained glass windows. The outer walls are enclosed by a proper water-filled moat, and whilst it was never completed, it’s still a formidable castle. It’s worth a 1-2 hour visit.

Accessibility

As you would expect from something built over 800 years ago, accessibility isn’t the best. Access to the walls and towers is by staircases only, but there’s flat access to many other parts of the castle, albeit mostly on grass or gravel surfaces.

The castle is in the centre of the town of Beaumaris, which doesn’t have a railway station (and indeed never has) but is served by regular bus services. There’s an official castle car park just to the north, but we parked in a pay and display car park at a nearby leisure centre, that was a similar distance walk away. The leisure centre car park has two medium-speed (7 kW AC) electric car chargers on the PodPoint network.

Nearby

We didn’t spend much time in the town of Beaumaris, but it looked quite nice for a bit of pottering around. There’s a pier, and a large sightseeing Ferris wheel was there when we visited.

Some thoughts on the state of public electric car charging in 2025

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A photo of my Nissan Leaf, with the car charging port open and a Type 2 cable plugged in.

So we’re about a month into owning an electric car, and in that time we’ve taken it on two long distance trips – our holiday in Wales, and to the Midlands and Oxfordshire for a family birthday. As our Nissan Leaf only has a 150 mile range on a full charge, we were therefore reliant on public chargers to be able to continue our journeys. This post is therefore some collected thoughts on our experiences, in case you are thinking about switching to an electric car.

Availability of charging bays

Across the UK, there are almost 42,000 places you can charge an electric car, according to ZapMap, with each location offering an average of two chargers and three connectors. However, sometimes you would encounter a charger with two bays, for two cars – but the charging machine could only charge one car at a time. This was a particular problem with the faster ‘Rapid’ chargers. There were a couple of occasions where we arrived at a charger, and could plug in a cable, but would have to wait because another vehicle was already charging.

Other times, we would get there and all the chargers would have been taken. On the way back from Wales, we visited Chester Zoo, which I’ll blog about later in the summer. There are 26 charging bays available, but on a summer Saturday in August, all were taken by the time we arrived at 10:30am. Thankfully, I could check their availability on an app, and was able to move our car around when one had become free around lunchtime.

There is a degree of etiquette when it comes to charging a car. For example, if your car has finished charging, then, if you can, it’s best to go back to it and move it to a standard space to free it up for someone else to use. Also, don’t hog a rapid charger if there’s a slower charger available that you have the time to use.

So far, we’ve not encountered a charging bay being ‘iced’, as in occupied by a standard petrol or diesel car with an internal combustion engine (ICE).

Only slower chargers available

Many public chargers are 7 kW ‘medium’ speed chargers. A full charge on one of these would take about six hours for our Nissan Leaf, and likely much longer for those with much bigger batteries. These chargers are fine for ‘destination charging’ – for example, at Portmeirion, where we were intending to stay for the whole day anyway. But they’re no good for a quick charge to continue a journey.

This problem will get better in time as more rapid and ‘ultra-rapid’ DC chargers are installed.

CHAdeMO, or the lack thereof

Our Nissan Leaf can charge from three types of plug:

  • Standard 3 pin plugs at around 2 kW for a slow charge
  • Type 2 plugs at around 7 kW for a medium charge
  • CHAdeMO plugs, for a rapid charge of around 40 kW

CHAdeMO is a Japanese standard, and a number of Japanese cars of a similar age to our Nissan Leaf were built with these sockets and sold worldwide. But it’s not the European standard for fast charging, which is CCS2. CCS2 looks similar to the type 2 socket, but with an extra bit on, and it’s DC rather than AC. We can’t use CCS2 chargers without buying a converter, and they’re expensive – at least £600.

A lot of rapid chargers will just have one or two CHAdeMO plugs. A good example was Northampton services on the M1, where a bank of 12 rapid CCS2 chargers have been installed, but only one CHAdeMO charger. Which, predictably, was already occupied by another Nissan Leaf. Thankfully, we managed to find somewhere else to charge.

I get the point that barely any new electric vehicles are being built with CHAdeMO connectors, but for those of us with such cars, it can be a pain when they’re not available.

All the apps

Public car charging apps are a bit like car parking apps, in that you may well end up with several of them installed. Early on, many public chargers could only be used using an app – I remember talking to someone who was a very early electric vehicle adopter, who said that having all the apps was the worst thing about it. Thankfully, many public chargers offer contactless payments with a credit card, which is much easier. And some accept an RFID card, which you can order from several places that you then link to a payment method. We’ve got one from Octopus Energy, which works most of the time, but not always.

But some still require you to download an app, sign up for an account, link a payment method and then start charging. The worst of these, in my view, is Pod Point, where you also have to top-up a balance before you charge. That means estimating how much you’re going to need to pay before charging, and then having any money left over held in a Pod Point account. Unfortunately, Pod Point are one of the bigger operators, having partnered with Tesco.

The other issue with apps is phone reception. We managed in Wales, but had we not had a signal, there would have been some places where we wouldn’t have been able to use the chargers.

No chargers where you need them

I mentioned ‘destination charging’ above, giving good examples of Portmeirion and Chester Zoo that allow visitors to charge whilst they’re there. This is one of the key advantages of having an electric car, in that you can charge at somewhere you were planning to stop at anyway, rather than taking a detour to a petrol station.

But not all ‘destinations’ have charging. Whilst in the Midlands, we visited Cadbury World, which doesn’t yet allow its visitors to charge their cars. Which was a shame, although we did find a rapid public charger at an art-deco McDonald’s in King’s Norton.

Thankfully, it looks like more places are investing in charging infrastructure for their visitors. The National Trust, where possible, is installing chargers at many of its properties. And they’re potentially another income source for these attractions. Whilst some may offer free charging, as an incentive, most electric car drivers do expect to pay to charge. So whilst there is the upfront cost of installing electric car charging infrastructure, and then maintaining it, in the long run it could make a good return on investment.

Broken infrastructre

At home, our nearest rapid charger is a short walk away. But it’s been out of order for months, and we’ve seen a number of public chargers that were broken on our travels. This particular charger is in a local authority car park, and I understand that the council got funding to install it, but not maintain it. And last weekend, when we needed to use a rapid charger in Congleton in Cheshire, all of them across the whole town were faulty.

I wouldn’t say faulty chargers are a widespread problem, and most mapping tools for finding public chargers will indicate whether chargers are faulty if they have this data. That should reduce the risk of arriving at a charger with only a few watt-hours to spare, to find it’s out of order.

Charging at home is (almost) always cheaper

Electric cars make the most sense when you can charge them at home. Your home electric supply will (almost) always be cheaper than using a public charger. We’re on a fixed electricity tariff with Octopus, where we pay 20p per kWh. And that assumes that we’re charging overnight, without any contribution from our solar panels.

By contrast, even the cheapest public chargers are usually more than double that. Rapid chargers, especially those at motorway service stations, cost even more – typically 88p per kWh, so more than four times more expensive than charging at home. Part of the reason for this is that public chargers must charge you a higher rate of VAT. At home, your electicity bill has VAT at 5%, but public chargers have to charge 20% VAT.

If you need to use a public charger to top up your charge to get home, then it’s worth calculating how much you need to charge to get home. That way, you only need to charge your car by that much (plus maybe a bit extra) to get home, where the rest of the charge can be done more cheaply.

I say ‘almost’ always cheaper because you may get lucky, and find a free public charger. There aren’t many, but we came across two in Wales. Admittedly, one was a 3-pin plug, offering a very slow charge, and the other was a medium speed 7 kW charger. But still, it’s free electricity, and as we were away and reliant on public chargers, it was very welcome.

Our 2025 holiday: Portmeirion

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A photo of the village of Portmeirion in North Wales

Our next day trip on holiday was to the village of Portmeirion. This was a little further away; though still in North Wales, it’s not along the north coast but instead further south, near Portmadog. The village was built gradually over 50 years between 1925 and 1975, and is designed to look like a Mediterrean port village, but on a small scale. So, unlike most of the local architecture, the buildings are brightly coloured, with lots of tropical planting.

It has always been designed to be a tourist attraction, and many of the buildings are available as holiday cottages. There’s also a range of gift shops and cafés, and some formal gardens and woodland.

Another view of the village of Portmeirion

All of us had been before, including our nine-year-old, although they were only two on their previous visit. I think they liked the smaller scale of it, and that there’s lots of little nooks and crannies to explore. Over the years, it’s been a popular filming location, and many of the buildings are now listed as heritage assets. The pottery brand Portmeirion takes its name from the village, and yes, there’s a pottery factory shop in the village.

Even though the weather was quite dull when we visited, I still took plenty of photos as it’s so picturesque.

Accessibility

Portmeirion is quite expensive, at £20 for an adult day ticket (at the time of writing). However, you can easily spend the whole day here – especially if you head off on the various walks. Being located on a hill side, with the car parks at the top, means it may be hard work for those with mobility issues. Whilst there are steps in places, there are usually alternative ramped routes available.

There is a large car park at the top, with 10 electric car charging points offering medium-speed 7kW AC output (Type 2), on the Monta network. At the time of our visit, we paid 60p per kWh to charge. Some of the charge points were out of order, however.

The nearest railway station is Minffordd, which is on the Cambrian Coast Line with trains from Birmingham, and the narrow-gauge Ffestiniog Steam Railway. This is also where the nearest bus stop is. There’s then a 1 1/2 mile walk to Portmeirion.

A narrow gauge steam locomotive called Linda at Portmadog Harbour station on the Ffestiniog Railway

Also nearby

After visiting Portmeirion, we went to Porthmadog, which is the terminus for both the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland narrow gauge steam railways. We didn’t have time for a journey – a return trip on the Welsh Highland Railway to Caernarfon and back takes most of the day – but we did watch a couple of trains departing and visited the shop.

How we handled poor phone reception

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A photo taken atop the Great Orme in Wales

Our holiday in Wales was good, but we didn’t always have good phone reception whilst we were there. Now, it’s a holiday, and you can argue that we probably should have had a break from phones, social media and the like. But we also need our phones for certain things – I use Google Maps for navigation, for example, and we needed apps to find out where to charge our electric car.

In North Wales, most of the population is concentrated in a relatively narrow strip of land between the hills and the north coast. Providing a mobile service is therefore more difficult and expensive – each mast is likely to cover a smaller and more sparsely populated area than in a big city. For the most part, there were few places where we had no signal whatsoever. But even when showing full bars, we couldn’t make calls or use the internet in some places.

Here’s how we handled it:

Downloading things on Wi-Fi beforehand

It’s a bit hidden, but Google Maps lets you download offline maps on a Wi-Fi connection. We had good internet where we were staying – the Conwy area has been upgraded to full fibre broadband – so we could download a map of the area. This meant that we could still use Google Maps to navigate without a mobile data connection.

Note that Google’s guide, linked above, is a little out of date. At the time of writing, you need to:

  1. Search for a place
  2. Swipe right on the lower panel where it says ‘Directions’ and ‘Start’, until you see a button that says ‘More’
  3. Tap ‘More’ and then ‘Download Offline Map’
  4. You can then pinch and zoom to select the area – a larger area will take up more storage space

There are limitations – you won’t get live traffic data if you’re using an offline map without a phone signal. However, once Google Maps is able to reconnect, it’ll update your route if needed. If you use Gmail and sign in to Google Maps with the same account, you may get push notifications ahead of upcoming trips to prompt you to download offline maps. I’d recommend it, especially if it’s somewhere you’ve not been before, or somewhere particularly remote.

The same applies for content that you want to consume whilst outside of mobile data range. If you use Spotify Premium, you can download playlists ahead of time. I make sure that I download, rather than stream, any shows on BBC Sounds that I want to listen to.

Hotspotting where possible

If there’s free Wi-Fi available somewhere that you’re visiting, use it. Most National Trust properties have free Wi-Fi in their cafés, for example.

If you have another device on a different phone network, then you could try hotspotting off that too. My phone is on 3, but my iPad has a mobile data SIM on a virtual operator which uses EE. Whilst it was a bit of a pain to have to carry my iPad around as well, it meant I could use the iPad as a Personal Hotspot for my phone and get online. You may be able to do this with a newer car, if you have a data plan on it, or a portable Wi-Fi hotspot device.

Get an eSIM on a different network

When I’ve travelled abroad, I’ve used eSIMs from Airalo rather than roaming on my existing SIM, as it’s cheaper. But you can buy UK eSIMs too. If your primary SIM has poor signal, then you could buy an eSIM on a different network that may work better. My iPhone (and I assume most new-ish Android phones) can switch between multiple SIMs on the fly, if one loses signal. If you decide to buy from Airalo, use the code NEIL6715 for some extra initial credit.

If you want to go further, try Honest Mobile’s Smart SIM. This can connect to all four UK networks (3, Vodafone, O2 and EE, although 3 and Vodafone may merge their networks soon), and costs £45 per year. However, whilst there are no data limits, it is limited to set pre-approved apps. These are mainly navigation apps like Google Maps, messaging, news, weather, banking and apps for electric car parking. There’s about 400 in total, but it excludes any social media apps, or any that involve streaming audio or video. I signed up to Honest Mobile after coming back from Wales, and I’m giving it a try for a year to see how I get on. Here’s my referral link if you want your first month free.

Honest Mobile’s Smart SIM has been heavily advertised on my Facebook feed, and so I read this post by Martin Brophy before committing.

Ultimately, what works for you will depend on how often you’re without a mobile signal, and how much you rely on your phone. I normally get a good signal on 3 in most places, but I’ll see how I get on with Honest Mobile.