Avis locations in Edinburgh
 

Can anyone know about the differences between the 2 airport locations? And if the in-town location convenient to get to and leave? On our upcoming trip in Sept, we would take train from London to Edinburgh, if GNER ever issue the purchasable itinerary for Sept 10! (They are planning engineering work on that weekend and so far no departure is purchasable online). On day 3 we will take a rental from Avis for 4 days, then return the car at Liverpool where we will fly out to Paris the following day. Looking at Avis site, here are the 3 locations they listed for Edinburgh. Not knowing anything I have booked our car for EDI, but there is another airport location at Terminal Building - does that mean that one is more convenient?!
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3 Rental Locations Found for edinburgh, United Kingdom


Edinburg Airport Choice - JL1
Terminal Building, Edinburgh, EH12 9DN , United Kingdom
0131 3443900
Sun 09:00AM-11:30PM; Mon-Fri 07:00AM-11:30PM; Sat 08:00AM-11:30PM

Edinburgh Airport - EDI
Almond Avenue, Edinburgh, EH12 9DN , United Kingdom
(44) 0131 3443900
Sun 09:00AM-11:30PM; Mon-Fri 07:00AM-11:30PM; Sat 08:00AM-11:30PM

Avis - EDD
Dalry Road (5 West Park Place), Edinburgh, EH11 2DP , United Kingdom
(44) 0870 153 9103
Sun 09:00AM-12:00PM; Mon-Fri 08:00AM-06:00PM; Sat 08:00AM-01:00PM

The 2 offices in the airport are actually the same office - the terminal building one is a sub office dealing with people coming off flights, the other one is where you actually pick up the vehicle.

The Dalry Road one is about half a mile west of the west end of Princes Street & takes about 10 minutes on a bus to get to from Waverley station or a few minutes walk from Haymarket rail station

Thank you Alan. Since we need to take a bus to pick up the car anyway, would you suggest the airport location or the in-town location?

We will stay at Holiday Inn Express City Center, if this information helps.

Again, thank you for quick reply.

The HI is beyond the east end of Princes Street and you can get the 25 bus to Dalry Road from there. It'll cost £1.

Going to the airport will probably mean walking to Waverley Station & geting the airport bus at a cost of £3

See www.lothianbuses.com

What would be your suggestion, if after taking the car, we are heading out of Edinburgh for good?

Going North along the coastal route towards Aberdeen area but our first night would stop at Invernesse. (A big loop)

Have you driven in the UK before? If not I <u>definitely</u> recommend picking up the car at the airport. You would avoid having to drive out through a pretty congested Edinburgh road system.

EDI is right off the motorway you'll use to head north across the bridge.

Even if you have driven in the UK before - unless you are pretty familiar w/ Edinburgh roads - you will have an easier time out of the airport.

Edinburgh Express Holiday Inn in Picardy Place is on a major city centre roundabout and is easily accessible by taking the Airport bus into the Waverly Bridge (&pound;5 return ticket) and then a two minute taxi down Leith Street to the Holiday Inn . (Recent review on tripadvisor.com not encouraging)
I would suggest using the return part of yor Airport bus ticket, when you intend departing Edinburgh to take the bus to the Airport and pick up your Avis car there. As janisj states The airport is out of town and on the right side of the city to enable you to travel on dual carriageway roads from there.
Driving in and around Picardy Place is a nightmare if you do not know your car or the layout at that roundabout.
Another alternative to consider would be to use Hertz car rental as they have a depot next door to the Holiday Inn in Picardy Place - the problem with that is driving out of the city because as soon as you leave that car rental you are straight into heavy and busy city centre traffic.

I thought poster was travelling by train, therefore they won't have a return ticket from the airport.

Alternative is just to get one of the (many) buses to Princes Street &amp; then onto the airport bus

meks, you beat me to it : I was going to say does it have to be Avis, as Hertz is right next door to the Holiday Inn Express. nho9504, where are you driving to when you leave Edinburgh ? Picardy Place is on a main throughfare through the city; so although the traffic will be busy, it could be quite a convenient starting place for finding your way out of Edinburgh.

For what is worth, we walked to a HERTZ car rental location from the Waverley Train Station in Edinburgh. Really convenient to pick/drop off if using in combination with train travel.

AlanRow thanks for the reminding me that they are arriving by train. As they will have luggage it would be easier to take the taxi the short distance to the Hotel.
Depending if they are sticking by Avis then it would be easier and more convenient to take the Airport bus - &pound;3 single journey ticket to the airport to collect the hire car.

Sorry, just realised you did say where you're going after Edinburgh - I think. &quot;Going North along the coastal route towards Aberdeen area but our first night would stop at Invernesse. (A big loop)&quot;.

Do you mean you're planning on going round the Fife coast, then to Aberdeen, then Inverness - in one go ? That seemed like a long &amp; roundabout drive to me, so I tried a sample route on the AA website (obviously not knowing exactly where you want to go) &amp; got this :-

From: Edinburgh
Via: Crail,Anstruther
Via: City Of Aberdeen
To: Inverness,Highlands
Distance: 245.9 miles
Time: 5 hr 35 min

(www.theaa.com)

I usually find AA driving times too short so I'd add on at least another hour - and that's without stopping. Is that what you are thinking to do ?

Oh - gosh - I totally missed the itinerary. Do you actually mean to drive from Edinburgh along the coast to Aberdeen and then on to Inverness??

The AA routemaster Caroline mentions may say 5.5 hours (and she is right about that being too short) - but for a tourist you would be adding at <u>least</u> 5 or 6 more hours.

Why are you taking the coastal route - presumeably because you want to see coastal scenery. So you will be stopping often along the route - not even counting the castles you'll pass and meal breaks.

Have you worked out your plans? It sounds like you are taking 4 days from Edinburgh to Liverpool by way of Aberdeen and Inverness. Simply not reasonable.

Let me clarify a few things:

1) The initial plan is to take GNER up so we can take in the coastal scenery while riding the train. However, GNER chose the weekend of Sept 9 &amp; 10 to do engineering work between Darlington and New Castle - thus make our Sept 10 travel date extremely inconvenient if going by train. We have 2 options - to move the date to Sept 11, Monday and since GNER published the purchasable fares for Sept 11, presumably the engineering work will be done and Monday Sept 11 will be fine. The other option is to pay 3 times more to take a BA flight from LHR or somewhat cheaper EasyJet flight from Luton - both involved lots of down time to get to airport in London and without the chance to see the coastal scenery. Still weighing the pro and con on these 2 options. Your comments are all welcome.

2) The route between EDI and INV is not crafted in stone - in general we would go up to Aberdeen, then traverse the Highland to INV - if time allows we would even try to go up to Thurso and back, but will overnight at INV.

As for drive - driving at the other side is not an issue for us at all, we are also quite accustom to driving long distance. As for the stopping and sightseeing, this part of the world to us would be mainly the natural beauty - not too much interested in the history, nor shopping, etc so we wont stop too much time for all the ruins, castles, museums, quaint villages etc etc I know it would be different for those who go to Scotland for her rich history. For us, we just want to see the Highland and the rugged terrain, and the Lochs.

3) From INV, the next night will be at GLA.

4) From GLA, the next night will be at Lake District, originally. However, if we are forced to take the Sept 11 train, we may go back to EDI for that night, instead of spending it in Lake District.

5) Then either from EDI, or from Lake District, we drive to LPL for the night. Fly to CDG next day around noon.

6) The schedule is a bit tighter than we would like - but since we most likely wont spend much time for all the castles etc, we probably would just be fine.
The &quot;must see&quot; list is short for us, other than EDI, the other place might be Stirling. Other than that, the drive between Dingwall and Kyle? A832 and A890? and still debating if we should go to Skye.

7) The reason we have Avis is Avis price with the AWD is almost 40% less than Hertz. I would search around to see if I can find a decent code to reduce Hertz price.

8) The Holiday Inn Express City Center is used because it would be free for us to use award nights. I haven't thought about the Hertz/HIX location relationship - may worth to investigate. If we do return to EDI after GLA, for one day/night, we would have to stay at Holiday Inn Express Waterfront, as they have free parking.

Hope the above clarify the situation.

Please comment if we should still take the train on Sept 11, or ditch it and take the plane on Sept 10 instead. As that would affect the hotel bookings.

All our 13 nights (the one in Lake District is up in air) are award nights from 3 hotel chains with 2 Hilton nights (GLA &amp; LPL) I cannot change as Hilton has raised the pt requirements by 2 to 3 categories UP since June 1.

Further clarify - we will travel very light - one backpack and one warm outerwear for each of us. No luggage to lug around. We can do a 14day Panama crossing cruise with 4 formal nights and 4 semi-formal nights with only one rolleraboard each. Recently we finished a 14 day Hawaii trip with basically one rolleraboard for both of us - If I did not have to bring snorkel gears, it would be down to 2 backpacks.

Luggage isn't an issue w/ this itinerary. <u>Distance</u> is. Edinburgh to Aberdeen to Inverness to Thurso to Inverness in one day?? It sounds like you are just determined to drive to certain places and use your hotel points w/o any consideration to what is reasonable/possible/sensible.

(It also seems you have your mind fairly set, so don't know what other advice you would use)

You got it wrong, re both the distance and the hotel points.

The distance may seem a lot to others, but not to us - as I have said, driving in UK is not a problem - I doubt many on this board have done a month long camping trip in Europe and UK, and we have done it. Long distance? After you live in Texas for a few years, nothing is long distance. (I am half-joking).

The hotels are chosen based on the stopping points we plotted we would get at the end of each day.

Point being, most people would spend a lot of time on the history part of Scotland, stopping at all the castles and ruins and churches, etc etc shopping also might take up a good chunk of time. Such activities are not in our interest. We go to Scotland because we want to see Highlands and the rugged coast line, not the historical aspect of it. Different approach. Ours just is not the mainstream approach.

After all, the whole UK from North to South is no more than 1000 miles, how big a deal it is?

BTW, never understand why some make driving on the other side such a big deal.

you have no idea -- I am from California and can and do drive hundreds of miles on a weekend. I also lived in the UK for 5 years and gone back more than 25 times - some trips of over 6 weeks. I have driven in every county in England and Scotland and most in Wales. Most many, many times.

1000 miles may be &quot;nothing&quot; in TX or CA - but it is a very big deal in the UK. . . . . .

You intend to drive from Edinburgh to Aberdeen along the coast, then to Inverness then to Thurso then back to Inverness - in one day. That is simply crazy . . . . .

meant to add &quot;<i> I doubt many on this board have done a month long camping trip in Europe and UK</i>&quot;

There are people on this board who have done that and much, MUCH more. You will find them some of the most experienced travelers on any travel forum anywhere . . . . .

&lt;&lt; After all, the whole UK from North to South is no more than 1000 miles, how big a deal it is? &gt;&gt;

Edinburgh to Inverness via Aberdeen &amp; Thurso is the thick end of 500 miles &amp; 12 hours BY THE MOST DIRECT ROUTE &amp; without stopping. Daylight hours in September are around 12 hours - do the math

We're not trying to get at you, nh09504, just trying to help. OK, so you've travelled in the UK before. Have you driven in rural Scotland ? Getting anywhere really does take a long time. Alan says your proposed route is nearly 500 miles. To drive *anywhere* in the UK, even on motorway all the time, you can't average more than 50 mph; so that would be 10 hours evden if you were on motorways - and you're not, you're mostly on narrow, winding roads. Please reconsider !

P.S. Have you looks at bmi for flights from LHR to EDI ? Usually cheaper than BA.

I'll give it one more stab - as Caroline says you could average maybe 50-55 mph on the motorways. But there are no motorways where you are going. On those roads you will be <u>lucky</u> to average 35 or at tops 40 mph. And if you get stuck behind farm machinery, or caravans or tour buses (which will happen) you will be tooling along at 20-25 mph.

That 500 miles is the most direct route and is not up the east coast. Just about he only coastal bit you would see is between Dornoch and Latherton on the way to Thurso. Coastal for sure, but far from the most scenic area. And even not stopping at any castles or &quot;history sites&quot; you would need to stop or take detours to to see any coastal scenery, plus for meals.

So unless you just want to sit in the car and not see any of Scotland - that drive will take 18 to 20 hours. or even more.

We really want to take the train, not just the cost, but the train would give us a chance to enjoy the senery north of Newcastle at a leisurely pace.

Thanks guys for the concern about the slow driving. Yes, we know that. We also take into consideration of daylight hours at such northern altitude. Please note the route I posted is NOT a definite final plan - it is a tentative thought, based on how we like the coastal senery from Newcastle up. Thurso was not even in the plan originally, but someone suggested this in the numerous posts about Scotland and mentioned about that is being worth a visit, hence we threw it in there for a possibility.

We knew about the narrow country roads in UK and we got stuck behind farm machines, sheeps, moo moo, you name it.

As for our driving experiences and whatnot - let me say the FIRST month long camping trip done was when the Eastern Block was not liberated and Berlin Wall still existed - that is how ancient it is. PC was not even invented - the tools we relied upon were the good old printed maps and camping guides from RAC. And we were from Asia at the time, not even drove a single mile in N.America. We did it just fine, covered the whole Europe from Sweden to Spain.

I have not done much research on the locals in Scotland - need to see some pix on web then to decide which parts we would like to spend more time and which parts we can just skip. We just returned from Hawaii and would go to Pacific NW for 14days 3K miles trip in August, the UK/Paris trip is 10 days after our return from Portland. Currently we are finalizing the Pacific NW trip and then work on this Scotland stuff, because we need to book either train or air when the advance purchases are still available.

Again, thanks a lot for your valuable inputs. FWIW, I posted similar timeframe on FT BMI board and folks overthere all agreed the schedule is tight, but can be done. The one-way drop off of our car was suggestion from them - as our original idea was to return the car at EDI then fly to CDG from EDI - it turns out all flights from EDI to CDG would be via LHR or Gatwick ... not a good solution.

Just exactly the MOST SCENIC AREAS are?

So far all I can deduce is the loop between Dingwall and Fort William, and then Stirling.

Experts comments most welcome.

&quot;<i>Experts comments most welcome.</i>&quot;

You seem to be the only &quot;expert&quot; on this thread. Best just keep your own counsel since nothing we say seems to make an impression.

We're only the locals, how the hell would we know anything

Some thoughts:

As far as daylight is concerned, September is not June. You've pretty much lost the northern daylight advantage by that time of year. Sunrise on Sept. 11 in Edinburgh is 6:36. Sunset is 7:42, 13 hours later.

An example of driving time: On afternoon last summer, we drove from Inverness to Glasgow. Took us 4 1/2 hours, by the fastest route possible, with no stops for scenery (but one stop for a truck that fell off the side of the road and traffic was blocked both ways).

If your focus is the Highlands, I'd say to skip the east coastline. Go from Edinburgh to Stirling then up the middle. If you took the A9 the scenery would not be as beautiful as smaller roads, but you'd get north a whole lot faster. Then you might have some time to explore above Inverness. Inverness is not much recommended as a destination of itself.

FWIW, the most beatiful routes that I've seen:
1. the A82 through Glen Coe rates at the top.
2. the Road to the Isles (Glenfinnan-Mallaig)
3. the A87 along the Five Sisters.

Thanks a lot, Noe847 - your reply is very constructive, as you kindly provided the answer to the question asked, the scenic routes and areas, instead of going way off to the tangent ...

Your specific information is very helpful for me to pinpoint the locations on the map and refine the plan. Unlike other detailed plans I saw posted here, ours is a very basic, very fluid sketch, subj to lots of refinement.

1) I dont have a detailed map now, plan to get one when we are in London - since RAC should provide reciprocal services to AAA members, I figure that is where we go for detailed driving maps. Looking at my basic map now, how about A93 and A939/A938 then back to A9? for the Highlands?

2) The road to the Isles - you mean A830 from Ft.William, correct?

3) I am trying to pinpoint the section of A82 over Glen Coe, can't tell. Could you give me more info?

4) A87 along Five Sisters - that is the road to Isle of Skye - but on which section is the Five Sisters located?

13 hours daylight is good enough, as long as we dont have to try to find a B&amp;B in a small town on B road, it does not matter to arrive our lodging after dark. Part of the reasons all our lodgings are booked in &quot;boring&quot; towns with chain hotels - that way we can arrive as late as 9pm and would not have much of an issue. Invernese is just for overnight.

Also thanks to some posters suggested Hertz. I did not know Hertz have a town location. After searching an hour on FT, I found a discount code that cuts the rate by 20% and makes Hertz competitive with Avis. I also like Hertz gives me a quote in UKL instead of Avis in USD. So now I also make a reservation with Hertz. 4 days rental for a manual Ford Fusion 2 (2 litre?) pick up at Edinburgh and drop off at Liverpool, estimated total 94BP, not bad.

If anyone wants to know about the discount codes for Hertz or Avis, just ask.

Your car hire with Hertz should be advantageous as they are immediately next door to the HI.

As it is so close make sure that you go in to see them the day before you are due to get the hired car, just to ensure that they have your car when you want it. Being in the city centre they can be busy and I am sure that they have previously hired out all the cars on their premises and then had to scramble round the next day to try to get replacements. It can be a long wait if your car is not on the premises.

Since you appear to not be listening to anyone but noe - I'll leave it to her to help you out. Hoewever you do need to know that the A939 over Tomintoul is a gorgeous/slow road. (one of those 30-35 mph sort of routes we tried to tell you about . . . . .)

Well, if nho9504 is listening only to me, we all know that he'll be in BIG trouble ;)

My knowledge of Scotland is patchy, and I view my advice as supplementary. I totally defer to those on this board who have far superior knowledge (and you have had the heavyweights - in the metaphorical not the literal sense - contribute to this thread.) I happen to agree with the replies above from all of the Scotland experts.

I think you could do the three bits of road that I mentioned on your Inverness to Glasgow day - You would drive south from Inverness to the A87 (the Five Sisters are mountains located north of A87 about halfway to Skye - your map should have them labelled) and take the bridge at Kyle of Lochalsh to Skye. You wouldn't have very much time to drive on Skye itself, although there is some stunning scenery there also. You'd take the ferry from Skye to Mallaig, and follow the Road to the Isles (A830) to Fort William. You'd then pick up the A82 which will bring you through Glen Coe - which will be marked on your map - as part of your drive to Glasgow. If you are only going to LOOK at the scenery I think this is do-able. If photography is going to happen, it will add considerably to your day.

noe847: I meant that in the nicest possible way ;) You seem to have the patience of Job.

Since nho is relying on you to help sort out his itinerary, you have a heavy burden indeed . . . . . .

Thanks for the reminder for dropping by Hertz the day before taking the car out. Will sure do that.

Noe, I would look at your routing more carefully - I did find the Glen Coe but not spotting the Five Sisters. Granted, it was like 3:30am our time and I was looking at an Interactive Map online.

Jan, not to worry - we are far more flexible than you think - we will do slow drive, fast drive, any kind of drive, is not an issue. One thing we wouldn't do is &quot;to wing it&quot; - we normally have a pretty good idea of how much time it would take, including consideration of pit stops, meals, photographing time, etc.

About photographing though, we do not take hundreds and hundreds of pix - could not understand why people have the need to do so, with their digital cameras. We do take lots of videos, and most of the time, I would say 90% of the time, we ourselves are not in the video, only sceneries. After we go home, we edit the video on a DVD recorder which has a hard drive built in. About 20% of the &quot;footage&quot; would be left on the floor, so to speak. Then we print DVDs from that. We prefer that, it has both sound and motion.

Noe,

What you describe was what I had in mind last night after I notice there is a Ferry Service at Mallaig.

I would check out the ferry schedule to know our options.

The next things I need to do are to find maps for the Stirling and Perth areas. I actually found Stirling government's official site but there is no link or email service that I can send a request for brochures etc. What a bummer.

nho9504, you will need more than just maps from the internet. Buy or order a big fold out map for your overview - something like the Michelin 501 Regional Scotland map. It will help so much with laying it all out. Then you will NEED a book atlas map for the actual fine tuning and the driving. Here is a current thread about maps in Scotland for you to check out:
http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34820830

Thanks for the link. I actually went to theaa.com site to see whether I can order maps from them (I guess these days there is no more reciprocal services - those good old days are forever gone). The link on their site led me to Amazon's UK site! After browsing 3 pages long of offering, there is only 1 Scotland map, truly amazing.

I do have a full map of GB, just not the detailed driving map that we would need. I then found another Scotland map on Amazon's US site and that is the only offering.

After spend sometime on VisitScotland.com site (the official guide from Scotland Tourism Board, I suppose), I realize the most scenic parts are all concentrate on the west side of the land. East coastal area really is not very interesting. Even the North part, the Maritimes part is not too interesting either, especially when compare it to Canadian Maritimes. I almost thought I was looking at New England towns and villages when I click open picture after picture. LOL.

Again, thanks for the above link, will check it out.

P.S.

I just went to the Fodors forum you refer me to - good luck for finding stuff on Amazon UK. It is pretty much useless from what I searched last night.

A UK based flyer on FT site advised me to get the maps when we are in London, either from gas stations or from discount bookstores. Think that is what we will do, especially now we basically know where we would go and chop off lots of areas that we now see a waste of time.

Both BA &amp; Air France fly direct between Edinburgh &amp; Paris.

&quot;After browsing 3 pages long of offering, there is only 1 Scotland map, truly amazing.&quot; We would normally buy a road atlas for the whole of Britain - I don't think I've ever seen one for just Scotland.

Good grief, nho.

Several points in response:

1. Where are you living now? If you are near any decent sized bookstore you should be able to find a map of Scotland - either Michelin or the Ordinance Survey - and take it home with you right away.

2. If you live within an area that amazon.com will ship to, there are tons of maps there - I have no idea how you are searching. Go to amazon.com and type &quot;map Scotland&quot; in the search box. Voila, lots of &quot;driving&quot; maps and &quot;touring&quot; maps listed. Then type in &quot;atlas Great Britain&quot; and you will get 3 pages worth. You could order the atlas and have it as you plan your trip, or you could wait and buy the atlas just about anywhere when you get to the UK.

3. Most people would do a bit of investigation about whether someplace is actually what they WANT before posting detailed questions/itinerary. The scenery of Scotland is one of subtle almost aching beauty. Scotland is not Canada. The Highlands are not the Rockies. Nor the Alps. My advice is to look at LOTS of pictures before you go. Would be a pity for you to knock yourself out driving all over the country to end up declaring that it was all a &quot;waste of time&quot;.

4. Stick a fork in me. I'm done. No, janisj, the patience of Job I do not have.