I’m putting myself in your shoes. You’re visiting the United Kingdom with kids for the first time. You want to see as much of our island as possible, but you don’t want to exhaust everyone in the process. So I’m thinking you’re here for a fortnight and you don’t want any more than five stop offs. And, although I’d love to be wearing your Jimmy Choos, I’m expecting you to be mostly wearing your Converse and to have packed clothes for every weather system.

Oliver the black Labrador, must have the best job in the canine world. He is the hotel dog at the Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire. That’s Hampshire in the UK, about an hour southwest of London.

Oliver’s job description involves being stroked and cuddled all day long, breaking only to be walked or jogged around the hotel’s beautiful grounds or to take the occasional nap amidst the cosy luxury of the hotel’s interior. Only the hotel’s guests are more spoilt …

I think if I didn’t live in England. I’d assume that outside of the cities, it was just a very green and pleasant land, with a picturesque fairytale castle on every hill. But, I do live here and there isn’t.

Although that illusion need not be shattered completely; I live on the outskirts of London, looking out over a patchwork of rolling countryside. And, an Englishman’s home is said to be his castle and some of my neighbours have taken this rather literally and added Romanesque porticos …

London is a fantastic place to eat out with your kids, as long as you know where to look. Wander along the main tourist thoroughfares of Knightsbridge, Oxford Street and Regent Street and you could quickly enter panic mode as the time creeps nearer to dinner time, and the ‘I’m hungry whines turn to I’m starving and you’re searching in vain for a decent restaurant.

The answer is normally to head down a side street, or alternatively, call up this blog on your smart phone. Here are my recommendations:

I’ve been itching to get to the English countryside for months now and finally had the opportunity to do so when we had grandparents in town in September. Given the sheer number of flights going in and out of London, it’s often less expensive to fly into Heathrow (or other London airports) than other European cities (this applies to flights from major North American hubs as well).

Once our tickets were purchased, the real challenge begun. The English countryside is vast and has an unbelievable array of extraordinary things to see and do.

What do you do with a long weekend in the fall from London? Grab the kids and head up to York for 4 days of vikings, ghosts, food, ruins, music and a whole lot of fun history.

York is a small city, the center of which is contained in a walled circle, and is the best preserved non-capital medieval city in Europe. Many of the streets are narrow with timbered buildings (“as London would have looked before the fire,” my kids pointed out.)

LEGO must be the one toy ever invented that is just as much fun to play when you are 33, 43 and 53 as it was when you were just three? It’s the only toy that I will happily play with my kids for hours. Which is why we were all excited at the prospect of immersing ourselves in a land of those little bricks for the day.

Most of Britain’s theme parks are little more than permanent fairground structures and best avoided, with two exceptions: Blackpool Pleasure Beach, because it is deliciously tacky to the extreme; and Legoland Windsor, because it bares no relation to any other UK amusement park.

When you only have 3 days in a big city like London, mild panic is a distinct possibility on your last day when you take stock of all that is left to do.

My advice: Don’t fall into this trap!

Read London with Kids: Day 1 and London with Kids: Day 2 to catch up on recommendations for the first 48 hours. Major attractions missing from our holiday …

If Day 1 in London with kids is about an introduction to London’s royal heritage and iconic sites, an ideal Day 2 is one where you roll your sleeves up and dig into a neighborhood.

The best way to really learn about a place in a meaningful way is to go on a walking tour with a professional guide. Not all guides are created equal, but the good ones give you perspective you can’t get on your own.

72 hours in London will go by very quickly — there is quite simply too much to do in and around the city with kids to even make a dent in that long list of attractions you should experience.

My first tip is the most important. Forget about what you should see – stick to an absolute priority list and count on the fact that you will be back at some point. London is big. Seeing London takes time. Rushing through London detracts from the experience and impact.