Berwick-upon-Tweed to Keswick – illustrating a car-free holiday travel map

Every summer for the last three years we’ve travelled to Keswick in the Lake District for a walking holiday with my parents. This is lovely for me as I get to recreate my childhood (although we definitely haven’t gotten lost coming down mountains as much as I remember!)

My family in the Lakes

The dog enjoying the view

There and back again – a public transport adventure

The journey from Berwick-upon-Tweed, where we live, to Keswick in the North Lakes, is just over 120 miles and would take approximately 3hrs in a car. Because – primarily for environmental reasons – we don’t own a car, the journey is slightly more complicated. Going via public transport takes us about 5hrs30 with two long stops at Edinburgh and Penrith in order to stretch our legs and do some sightseeing.

The route involves:

Train from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Edinburgh
Train from Edinburgh to Penrith
Bus from Penrith to Keswick

The first time we made the journey, I worked out that we had saved more than 15kg CO2e by taking public transport to reach our holiday destination, as well as ensuring that there was one less car on the busy Lake District roads when we got there.

For our Edinburgh stop, we had time to get a snack to eat whilst wandering around the Prince’s Street gardens, including taking in a bit of open air theatre that happened to be playing. In Penrith, we had time to explore the town, visit the castle ruins and look around the lovely churchyard of St Andrew’s in the town centre. On our outward journey we also found a lovely deli – James and John Graham’s – where we were able to drop-in and purchase lunch for our train journey from Penrith to Edinburgh on our way home.

We didn’t plan exploring Edinburgh and Penrith in advance – we just gave ourselves permission to look around without a plan.

Illustrating the journey

I wanted to create something that celebrated the fact that our family chooses not to own a car and demonstrate that it is (just) possible to travel around the UK by public transport. I was inspired by old-fashioned British Rail travel posters to create something in a relatively limited colour palette and even used the British Rail font for the typography! The illustrations focus on the different stops on our journey, as well as detailing the type of transport we used to reach each destination. There was even room for a little bit of narrative to cover the key points:

“Combining train and bus travel, two adults, a child and a dog made the journey part of their holiday adventure, travelling from Berwick-upon-Tweed in North Northumberland to Keswick in the Lake District. Not only did they reduce their CO2 emissions, they also ensured that there was one fewer car on the roads in the lakes.”