I was doing much the same thing in the late 1970's - choosing four uni's from prospectuses, then going for interviews to three of them in the end.
But, to underline the importance of actually visiting the places & institutions, my preconceived notions about which ones I preferred at the start got blown out of the water after the interview visits. Although I got offers from all four in the end, I decided to put what was probably initially my least preferred as first choice on UCCA (and spent 3 happy years there studying - no regrets at all), mostly because it felt like the 'right place to be' when I visited it (and some of the others didn't).
(Bradford was my eventual choice, and due to the 'Peak' on the train from Birmingham failing at Sheffield, I arrived quite late so instead of a leisurely stroll around the city centre beforehand to see what it was like, I had to rush straight to the university instead. Over the course of the next few years, it wasn't the only time a Peak failed on me on the way to Bradford either...).
Same here - and when I started at uni, I just took a large suitcase on the train on my own and basically started my adult 'life training' along with all the other not-quite-sure-what-to-do-next freshers...the most useful first day info was probably where the nearest supermarket was, and which curry houses to avoid (this being Bradford
).