Sign advertising "Gorgeous" Pancakes, Sheffield town centre.
In thinking about Dave and his family’s upcoming trip to the UK, I started thinking about the things that might be helpful to know in terms of conversions – clothing/shoe sizes, money, temperature, etc. I’d also like to share some of the helpful online converters I’ve bookmarked in my nine months living here.
First, let’s look at money. You’ll be faced with that conversion before you even leave home. One of the best online converters I’ve found is XE Universal Currency Converter. They seem to stay pretty on top of the dynamic worth of one currency against another, and can help you know what to expect when you turn up to change out your currency for pounds sterling. Currently (as of this posting), the conversion looks like this for dollars to pounds: 1.00 GBP = 1.60281 USD. Not so great for visitors from the US, sadly, but not as bad as it has been.
My suggestion is to check with your bank and see what the currency conversion charge is and if it’s not bad, just hit an ATM when you land. Of course you’ll also want to make sure you know what the daily withdrawal limit is for your account before you make the decision to go this route. You can also plan to use your credit cards in the UK as long as you warn the person at the till point that your card does not have a chip. I still use two American credit cards and I am so accustomed to using my English debit card that I’ve almost put my non-chipped credit cards in the chip scanner!
If your trip includes other countries in the EU and you’re planning to get Euros, they will be accepted in some places in the UK but you can expect some funny looks. While the UK is a member of the EU, the exchange rate is not 1:1, so just be aware. The same theory applies to traveler’s cheques, though I’m not sure anyone even uses those anymore.
Now that you’ve sorted your spending money, it’s time to go shopping! For clothing, the rule of thumb that I follow is that a UK size is four numbers higher than a US size. A 14 in the UK, in my experience, is a 10 in the US. I was scandalized the first time I tried on a size 14 pair of trousers, thinking they’d fit just like my size 14 jeans did “back home,” and couldnt even get them up all the way! The best thing I can say in the way of advice, though, is to always try things on if possible. A size 16 blouse for me at Primark is a good fit if not a little tight, while a size 16 blouse at Next is too big.
Men’s clothes are much simpler, as the sizes seem to run about the same in both countries. The fun comes in when my husband is looking at something that has European sizing, but we don’t see that in men’s nor women’s clothes as often as we do shoes. Men’s and women’s shoe sizes tend to be about two to two and a half numbers smaller than their corresponding size in the US, but as they sometimes are made differently I would again recommend trying on any shoe that you intend to purchase.
A great website that I’ve used many times when shopping online and, on my Blackberry, when in the shops is the European Clothing Sizes page at About.com. I admit that I’m not as familiar with children’s clothing size conversions because I don’t have any of my own yet, but from buying clothes for my nieces in both countries they seem to be about the same.
Next, let’s talk a little about weights and measures. You’ll need to fill your hire car up with petrol in order to get to the shops and the town centre, so an important thing to know is that prices will look a bit different in the UK than they do in the US. Petrol stations advertise prices by the imperial gallon, not the US gallon, so it may seem that the prices are a bit steeper than those to which you’re accustomed. Don’t worry, you’ll get a bit more for the money you pay. In my informal survey I couldn’t find anyone that really knew why the UK used a different gallon, but if you’d like to be able to do more conversions such as miles/gallon, etc, this website seems to be pretty comprehensive and easy to use.
If you’re going the self-catering route, you’ll need to visit a grocery store while you’re here. For the most part things are similar enough that you shouldn’t have any problems, but you may notice some differences in the information listed on the packaging. If you’re a calorie counter (on vacation? Really? Well, if you must…) you’ll notice that calories are listed as “energy” or in kcals. It may be a bit more difficult to figure out the sodium content if that is something you are careful of in your eating. My suggestion is that if you’re going to be taking care of your own food, go to UK based websites for recipes, such as BBC Food. Copy down the ingredients you need including the amounts and take that info with you to your local Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons, etc. The British retail work ethic is all but based on fantastic customer service, so you should be able to ask a sales associate for help without much incident. I’ve done that on several occasions!
Finally, you will notice that the weather forecast is given in Celsius rather than Fahrenheit as it is in the US. So far I have learned that above 28C is enough to make a British person faint, 0C is cold enough to need a hat, and the whole of Scotland may very well be at -5C or under for most of the winter. Most weather websites will let you convert from English (Fahrenheit) to Metric (Celsius), but if you want to be able to convert on the fly this website from the US National Weather Service Forecast Office may help.
Right, so that’s how much “American?”
Sign advertising "Gorgeous" Pancakes, Sheffield town centre.
In thinking about Dave and his family’s upcoming trip to the UK, I started thinking about the things that might be helpful to know in terms of conversions – clothing/shoe sizes, money, temperature, etc. I’d also like to share some of the helpful online converters I’ve bookmarked in my nine months living here.
First, let’s look at money. You’ll be faced with that conversion before you even leave home. One of the best online converters I’ve found is XE Universal Currency Converter. They seem to stay pretty on top of the dynamic worth of one currency against another, and can help you know what to expect when you turn up to change out your currency for pounds sterling. Currently (as of this posting), the conversion looks like this for dollars to pounds: 1.00 GBP = 1.60281 USD. Not so great for visitors from the US, sadly, but not as bad as it has been.
My suggestion is to check with your bank and see what the currency conversion charge is and if it’s not bad, just hit an ATM when you land. Of course you’ll also want to make sure you know what the daily withdrawal limit is for your account before you make the decision to go this route. You can also plan to use your credit cards in the UK as long as you warn the person at the till point that your card does not have a chip. I still use two American credit cards and I am so accustomed to using my English debit card that I’ve almost put my non-chipped credit cards in the chip scanner!
If your trip includes other countries in the EU and you’re planning to get Euros, they will be accepted in some places in the UK but you can expect some funny looks. While the UK is a member of the EU, the exchange rate is not 1:1, so just be aware. The same theory applies to traveler’s cheques, though I’m not sure anyone even uses those anymore.
Now that you’ve sorted your spending money, it’s time to go shopping! For clothing, the rule of thumb that I follow is that a UK size is four numbers higher than a US size. A 14 in the UK, in my experience, is a 10 in the US. I was scandalized the first time I tried on a size 14 pair of trousers, thinking they’d fit just like my size 14 jeans did “back home,” and couldnt even get them up all the way! The best thing I can say in the way of advice, though, is to always try things on if possible. A size 16 blouse for me at Primark is a good fit if not a little tight, while a size 16 blouse at Next is too big.
Men’s clothes are much simpler, as the sizes seem to run about the same in both countries. The fun comes in when my husband is looking at something that has European sizing, but we don’t see that in men’s nor women’s clothes as often as we do shoes. Men’s and women’s shoe sizes tend to be about two to two and a half numbers smaller than their corresponding size in the US, but as they sometimes are made differently I would again recommend trying on any shoe that you intend to purchase.
A great website that I’ve used many times when shopping online and, on my Blackberry, when in the shops is the European Clothing Sizes page at About.com. I admit that I’m not as familiar with children’s clothing size conversions because I don’t have any of my own yet, but from buying clothes for my nieces in both countries they seem to be about the same.
Next, let’s talk a little about weights and measures. You’ll need to fill your hire car up with petrol in order to get to the shops and the town centre, so an important thing to know is that prices will look a bit different in the UK than they do in the US. Petrol stations advertise prices by the imperial gallon, not the US gallon, so it may seem that the prices are a bit steeper than those to which you’re accustomed. Don’t worry, you’ll get a bit more for the money you pay. In my informal survey I couldn’t find anyone that really knew why the UK used a different gallon, but if you’d like to be able to do more conversions such as miles/gallon, etc, this website seems to be pretty comprehensive and easy to use.
If you’re going the self-catering route, you’ll need to visit a grocery store while you’re here. For the most part things are similar enough that you shouldn’t have any problems, but you may notice some differences in the information listed on the packaging. If you’re a calorie counter (on vacation? Really? Well, if you must…) you’ll notice that calories are listed as “energy” or in kcals. It may be a bit more difficult to figure out the sodium content if that is something you are careful of in your eating. My suggestion is that if you’re going to be taking care of your own food, go to UK based websites for recipes, such as BBC Food. Copy down the ingredients you need including the amounts and take that info with you to your local Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons, etc. The British retail work ethic is all but based on fantastic customer service, so you should be able to ask a sales associate for help without much incident. I’ve done that on several occasions!
Finally, you will notice that the weather forecast is given in Celsius rather than Fahrenheit as it is in the US. So far I have learned that above 28C is enough to make a British person faint, 0C is cold enough to need a hat, and the whole of Scotland may very well be at -5C or under for most of the winter. Most weather websites will let you convert from English (Fahrenheit) to Metric (Celsius), but if you want to be able to convert on the fly this website from the US National Weather Service Forecast Office may help.