I have tried telling DH that driving in Britain is not like the US and will take longer than he thinks. I would like your opinion.

We will rent a car for one day in Inverness. Drive to Ullapool and circle around Northern Scotland. Lunch at Ullapool and stopping at the Castle of Mey and John O'Groats, and returning to Inverness. DH says it will be easy to do in one day. Doable or crazy? Will I be able to stop driving and see some of the sites?

Well according to the RAC, Inverness to Ullapool will take you just over 1 1/2 hours.
Ullapool to John o Groats will take about 4 1/2 hours.
Why John o Groats? There's hardly anything there.
John o Groats to Inverness will take about 3 hours.

The roads will be narrower than you are accustomed to and you will be driving on the left.

Has your DH factored in 1 lane roads (I do not mean 1 lane each way but only 1 lane) and the sheep? On the 1 lane roads some has to give way by pulling over into small side areas of the road and waiting for the car coming from the other direction to pass, then continuing on (I'm sure there's some official Scottish word for these pull off areas but don't know it).

Then there's the sheep! They think they own the road and put their cute little butts on the macadam to keep warm. LOL You have to steer around them as you do not want to be killing a sheep and paying for it! Then there's the wrong turns and getting lost. I remember driving 7 miles through a tiny road encroached by lots of ferns and coming out the other end to a large road that would have been much more direct. Somewhere I missed the sign. All part of the fun of driving in Scotland!

It will take longer because of the 1 lane roads and as stated above the sheep. We also had the Hairy cattle in the roads at times. Plus you are going to want to pull over and look at the fantastic scenery and check out some things. One day would be pushing it and a very long day at that. I had never driven on the left hand side before. Got to the airport - they gave me a brand new Mercedes and I took off. Never had one problem, other than my son having fits at times sitting on the left hand side of the car watching how close I was getting to mailboxes!

GBbabe; I'm looking at my huge Collins Road Atlas that we used last year for our travels around Britain to see if you or your husband is right.
The road from Inverness to Ullapool is pretty straight forward( green) but from Ullapool around the coastline I see red lines and worse still, broken red lines which when we travelled in Scotland meant only one car can travel in any direction with pullover places to let the other car pass.
This is slow going IF you encounter traffic all the time, otherwise could be twisty and undulating.

From John O' Groats to Wick - not too bad and then green road all the way back to Inverness.
My husband who did the driving says NO, you won't do it COMFORTABLY in a day.

<u>Single track roads</u>!!

No it can't be done in one day -- well in a 24 hour day it could. Tell your DH he is nuts - and blame the Fodorites for saying so.

To Josser's times you need to add between 30% and 50% to account for 1) driving on the "wrong" side of the road, 2) sheep, 3) cattle, 4) <u>single tracks roads</u>, 5) scenery, 6) Did I mention single tracks??

Plus there are many places you'd want to stop and see - some for a few minutes and some for an hour or more. For visitors, you are talking about approx 12-15 hours just driving time w/o meals, rest breaks or photo ops. I'd personally take 3 days for that drive (and I've driven in N Scotland a lot)

Well, I have driven parts of your proposed route. It "ain't" worth trying. You both will nervous wrecks. I am not kidding. This is something I wouldn't try in two days. Single track roads are "fun" for the first few miles but after that? Plus there are some beautiful sites that you will want to see from outside your car.

To plan drives I usually use the AA website (www.theaa.com) then add on at least a third to their timings. An average 35 miles per hour is a good rule of thumb too. Mind you, I find both of these rules (add 1/3 to AA times or 35mph) work for driving anywhere in the UK, including motorways - using exclusively small highland roads, partly single-track, will likely add a lot more.

Play around with the AA site for different combinations - click on 'Classic Route Planner' then keeping adding as many 'vias' as you need. I just did it for Inverness to Inverness via Ullapool, KW14 8XH (the Castle of Mey postcode) & John O'Groats - it came up with 341 miles & 7 hrs 38 mins. Adding 1/3 on to that time gives 10 hrs - which is almost exactly 35mph ! This will be the *minimum* amount of time it would take, without stopping.

"I'm sure there's some official Scottish word for these pull off areas but don't know it" - they are called passing places

I've never driven in Northern Scotland but will do so this June. I was concerned about the Scottish "single tract roads of death" as they have become known in our household but have accumulated quite a bit of "passed along" wisdom, much of which has already been posted here. When calculating travel times on these I will use 25 to 30 miles per hour PLUS sightseeing stops. This is due to the likelihood of stopping for the sheep/coos, etc. as above as well as yielding way for the locals (who drive like they are determined to make them the "roads of death!!"). Anyway, set your itinerary to make this a leisurely trip and consider the driving like an "adventure vacation!!"

Oh - don't worry about <i>"single tract roads of death"</i>. They are actually quite safe - just slow . . . . .

Skip John O'Groats and go to Dunrobin Castle. No connection to the Queen Mum, but it's excellent and north of Inverness.

"<i>Skip John O'Groats and go to Dunrobin Castle</i>" Yep - Dunrobin is nice. But they won't have time to stop and see it . . . . even if they skip J O'Groats and cut across from Thurso to Wick.

You're right. Don't do it. Ullapool's fine, and you could loop down through Torridon on the way back

Anywhere north of Inverness, if a decent road atlas shows a solid line work on an average of about 40 miles per hour. Even locals who are familiar with the roads will struggle to average more than 50 mph without going over the legal limit. A broken red / white line on the map means there's only room for one car at a time and you have to stop every time you meet someone coming the other way. Don't expect to average more than 30 miles per hour on these roads even if the legal limit is 60. Then allow for the fact that it's not fair on the driver to expect him / her to drive you through all this stunning scenery and never allow them time to stop and see it for themselves, and you'll understand why so many posters are saying you shouldn't try to do all this in one day. You can't leave too much time to drive in the far north of Scotland. You're guaranteed to see something that you want to stop and look at. When you go back home the memories will be of the times you stopped in places, not the number of places you went through.