NEWS: ‘The Ultimate Guide to Exploring Tudor England’ is Nearly Here!
BIG Changes Are Afoot…
Do you LOVE exploring Tudor England? Then, I have important news to share with you. Big changes are afoot at The Tudor Travel Guide!
I am delighted to announce that in just a few days, we will launch a new project crafted especially for lovers of Tudor history just like you! It is a membership site called, The Ultimate Guide to Exploring Tudor England. If you have closely followed The Tudor Travel Guide, you will likely know I have been working on a new membership site for several months. This will represent a step change in the value I can offer our followers.
Last year, I interviewed several members of the TTG community. I wanted to know what you valued most from The Tudor Travel Guide – and what you really wanted to see from TTG in the future.
What came back was that people wanted in-depth, hard-to-find details and, because many of you are looking to visit the UK and see your favourite Tudor locations, lots of itineraries with maps were right at the top of your wish list.
You asked, and hopefully, I am about to deliver! The new membership is part of a long-term project I have deeply committed to. It will see The Tudor Travel Guide endeavour to produce the most comprehensive guide to learning about and visiting Tudor locations across the UK.
The membership will be called The Ultimate Guide to Exploring Tudor England.
Apart from a growing library of content that will allow you to immerse yourself in the past like never before at The Tudor Travel Guide, the membership allows me to bring together all my best, most comprehensive content in one place: blogs, videos, live chat, progresses, maps, itineraries, travel information and podcasts – just as you asked for!
The membership is about to go live as part of a beta-test for a limited group of Founder Members. To celebrate the moment, I wanted to share the two core motivators that have moved me to develop this new community. First and foremost…
What you Say Matters Deeply…
As I mentioned above, last year, I did a deep listening exercise, talking directly with followers of The Tudor Travel Guide to find out exactly what you guys enjoy – and what you most want to see being developed next.
Two things came through loud and clear. The first was a plea to continue producing high-quality, factual information with lots of hard-to-find details about the places I put under the microscope. You wanted to keep learning stuff you didn’t already know. I am happy to say that this is one of the foremost reasons people love The Tudor Travel Guide!
The second request I repeatedly heard came from people planning to visit the UK. They wanted to see a range of travel itineraries that would remove all the guesswork from planning the perfect Tudor-themed vacation.
And so, my friends, at the heart of this membership is a growing library of exactly this: Itineraries. These are based either on a Tudor person, on a geographic area (by county) or on itineraries built around a set amount of time you might have available for your travels: one, two, three days, a week or more…
However, the membership is NOT just for people who want to travel. There is plenty in there if you simply want to go deep and explore Tudor places, the people and the events associated with them from the comfort of your armchair.
This includes the person-centric itineraries that feature progresses and journeys undertaken by key figures of the Tudor age. These itineraries will include detailed information about the historical context of the progress, detailed write-ups of the locations visited along the way and interactive maps that link to other audio-visual or text-based resources from across the Tudor Travel Guide site.
But this is JUST the beginning! There is so much more on offer that I will be sharing with you in the coming weeks. In the meantime, let me tell you a little story about the second motivator behind the creation of The Ultimate Guide…
This time it is a bit more personal.
In the Footsteps of my Tudor Hero!
I have long admired the work of the architectural historian Anthony Emery, whose Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales is a three-part tour de force on the very subject. If you have hung around the TTTG community for any time, you will probably have heard me refer to his work. It is a wonderful resource and one I greatly admire. However, I also have a rather unusual Tudor hero who has inspired this project.
His name is John Leland. Leland was a Tudor antiquary who travelled the length and breadth of Tudor England during the 1530-40s, recording what he saw of the places along the way – the palaces, manors, castles, towns, villages and cities of note. His legacy is his Itinerary, an invaluable snapshot in the time of Henry VIII’s England, which he presented to the king as a gift upon its completion.
Both gentlemen, separated by 500 years, have planted a seed of desire in me to craft my own version of their work.
There is something deeply satisfying in taking time and devoting yourself to something that will take many years to complete. It seems to me that it is an invitation to develop patience and resilience. It requires love and commitment. These are values that I think can only add to the richness of life. And so, while it did not have a name until a few months ago, The Ultimate Guide to Exploring Tudor England is something that I’ve wanted to create for a while now…
More Than Just a Membership…
However, The Ultimate Guide to Exploring Tudor England is more than just a membership. You will be coming on a journey with me and my co-creators as something is brought forth that I hope will have deep substance and serve the Tudor community for many years.
Ultimately, this membership will create an extensive content library for people who love Tudor places and artefacts and who want to know how to best see them for themselves. My ultimate intention will be to turn all this content into a book – perhaps a book with several volumes. Of course, such an endeavour will take, I estimate, anything between six to ten years to complete.
But I don’t want to keep all this content from you until then! The membership is my way of sharing this with you as it comes into being.
Not only does the idea of creating something like this fill me with a sense of purpose, but knowing that you will be alongside me to witness its creation – and no doubt to shape its course – is beyond inspiring!
The question you might be asking now is how do I get involved and sign up?
When Does the New Membership Launch and How Can I Be Part of the Venture?
The new membership will soft launch to some of my most dedicated followers at the beginning of March. Those who join from the outset will be my Founder Members. This list has now closed. The next opportunity to sign up for membership will be in mid-April. So, if you want to join the waiting list, click here and enter your email. I will write to you in early April with an update on when doors to join The Ultimate Guide reopen and with all the details you need to join.
It’s an exciting time, and I can’t wait to see you in the membership.
Happy Time Travelling!
Sarah,
