Astha eerbinuppeer?

Ehem. Forgive my lapse into my native tongue. One of my colleagues, a self-confessed Londoner, amazed me the other day. She has never been further north than Watford. As she rightly points out, it is warmer if you head south. Being from north of Watford myself, I have all too often joked about the folk down south who think there's nothing of any value north of Watford, but I had been yet to actually meet one in the flesh. I certainly didn't think that they would take the form of a well-rounded person, and I couldn't possibly imagine that they might be the sort of person I could get on well with. But they are. She is. The revelation left me gibbering slightly in my dulcet Yorkshire tones.

In the absence of northern family or friends, the reason to travel north of Watford is to experience those awe-inspiring slivers, urban and rural, which nestle between the folds of the country. I scraped five together to evidence my assertion that there were places north of Watford that were worth the journey, even if that journey involves the M25 and M1. Here's my off-the-top-of-my-head list of locations:

Scotland: If you don't make it north of Watford, you'll die without seeing the Highlands. If the scenery doesn't move you (assuming the weather has been kind enough to permit you to see it), check your pulse and if still viable, take a crash course in spirituality. Edinburgh's up in Scotland, too. Definitely worth a trip, and not just for shortbread retail therapy.

The Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford: I cannot understand why this place is not rammed full of visitors gawping at its shrunken heads, war quoits, and the spoils of the Victorian Smash-and-Grab approach to cultural exchange. It has an amazing and wonderful (though quite ill-gotten and somewhat higgledy-piggledy) collection of anything that interested our explorer types on their overseas jollies, and which they fancied relieving the natives and noble savages of and bringing back home. So visit the shrunken heads, the mummies, the random collection of boats suspended overhead. Take time to reflect. Pause for thought at the scale model of the sun, earth and moon on the balcony above the natural history collection on your way out, and say hello to the dinosaurs - they don't bite.

Berwick Upon Tweed: I defy anyone to visit this little town and not fall in love with it. Forget any notion of going to Durham. Have a potter round Berwick instead. Sinner's Coffee shop is truely fantastic, and the only coffee shop I could ever envisage spending a whole day in and enjoying. It's well-hidden, but that's part of the fun and joy in discovering it.

Kinder Scout: Kinder on a winter's day is the sort of territory that lets you know in your heart, if not in your head, that parts of the UK are in fact at the same latitude as bits of Siberia. Kinder Scout is a big lump of land in the middle of the Peak District. Bleak and Beautiful. Hags and Groughs. Yin and Yang. Go there and restore your balance, and retire to a log fire at a pub by one of the edges at the end of the day. Try not to spend the night on Kinder unless you planned to do so. Local hostelries may be warm and welcoming. Kinder is not.

York: Heck, if you don't know why you should go to York, you really need to go there. There is a fantastic pub which serves very good beer and an excellent range of tapas (and does all those traditional log fire things as well), but that's not the primary reason why you should visit York, though. History - that's why. They have it in spades up there, with a couple of millenia worth of the stuff on display. They also have Betty's tea room, a visit to which for the purposes of consuming a fat rascal is nigh-on compulsory.

There - five good reasons to head north of Watford, without recourse to the Lake District, Northumberland, Newcastle, Snowdonia, Norwich, Stratford upon Avon, Whitby, an abundance of Morrisons, the birthplace of Warburton's, Henderson's relish, Pontefract cakes, and so on. Plenty reasons to visit and spend your hard-earned cash, but don't ever think of moving there. It's grim up north...