Itinerary ideas - England and Scotland
 

We are in our early 60s. We have traveled extensively in all areas of the US. We have been to the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as Paris.

We are about ready to take our first trip to the UK. Our plans are to spend 15 days (not counting transatlantic flights) with multi-city tickets into Heathrow and out of Edinburgh. We are planning on renting a car and touring the southern part of England (Bath, Stonehenge, Dover, etc.) for 4 and a half days, then the next five days in London. We are planning to take the train to Edinburgh for the rest of the trip. That gives us 4 full days in that area. Should we drive down to Hadrian's Wall, or go up to Inverness? We won't have time to explore the outer reaches. We want to spend one day touring Edinburgh.

We can adjust our time in England if there is something we should not miss in Scotland.

We like historic places (castles, cathedrals, etc), and are not much into cross-country hiking.

Many would consider us fast-paced travelers. We think of it as seeing as much as we can in the time we have. However, we are not into touring with groups that cover a lot more in much less time.

May I suggest you spend your time in London first, then go out of town? That way, you can recover from jet lag without having to drive somewhere first.

Plan on spending at least a couple of days in Edinburgh - we didn't and I regret it. That would leave only a couple of days out of Edinburgh. Pick a direction, you can't go wrong. (Except maybe East!)

You really might consider what GoAway says. You could spend the first 4.5-5 days in London, get over jet lag, then pick up rental car and make a loop, going to Dover, Salisbury, Bath (and Oxford?) and then return car. Or the other way round. Not sure what your car-rental ideas are or rail plans so can't advise about those logistics (might necessitate another night in London?). We are taking a 2 week trip this summer; we are flying into LHR and spending 3.5 days, then picking up rental car and driving for 9 days. (We are bringing the car back to LHR and flying out of there.) I decided starting our trip without the car would be less stressful on DH.

One option might be to base yourself in London for over a week and take day trips via train or bus to the places you mentioned. That's what we did in 2008, except we didn't go to Bath but we could have. We got a rail pass so we had flexibility of when we traveled. We got a good discount on London room because we booked for over a week. However, I do know the lure of the flexibility of a car, which is why this time we are driving. But our 2 week stay in London with 5 day trips out was a wonderful way to see what we did. Our trip report is here on Fodors if you're interested. But you may really want to drive and that is perfectly understandable, too. Just throwing out another idea--which might not be a new one to you, anyway.

You'll probably get lots of opinions, some of them pretty decided, here, but lots of great advice. It is in the end your trip. But pretty universally it is recommended that non-UK drivers not begin driving upon arrival.

Just a couple of thoughts. If you want to take the train to Edinburgh it makes sense to do London segment after you'd toured the south. Just make sure that on your first day out of Heathrow you take it easy.

Not sure why you want to go to Dover, since it's in the other direction from Bath and Stonehenge. Consider adding Oxford, for sure, it's one of my favourites. Stratford is nice too, albeit touristy, and then you could spend some time driving around the Cotswolds.

Not sure when your trip is planned, but keep in mind Edinburgh gets awfully crowded during the summer. The drive up to Inverness could be done over a couple of days, with stops in quaint spots or towns. For example St. Andrew's which is also nice, and there are distilleries to visit as well. The Eastern Highlands are very beautiful and perhaps not as touristy as some parts.

Or, you could head right over to the western highlands, to Oban, and tour up that way. The weather varies between east and west, I believe the western highlands are wetter than the east. But they are stunning.

All of the above suggestions are wonderful. Now to throw in another....

Go south toward Hadrian's wall. Actually you will be in Northumberland which means you are back in England. In that area are Bamburgh and Alnwick Castles. Lindisfarne (accessible at low tidee) with a ruined castle and abbey. The wall itself is fascinating. There are several museums with artifacts from Roman times as well as excavated ruins which show what life was like on the outposts of the Roman Empire. You can walk parts of the wall.

Before you get to Northmuberland, the Borders is full of ruined abbeys--Dryburgh, Melrose, Jedburgh. Jedburgh is in the middle of a small town which has some interesting places to visit on its own. Walter Scott's home, Abbotsford(sp ?) is in the area.

Good luck deciding with such rich choices!

Thank you all for your wonderful ideas. Irishface, we were already planning on going to Hadrian's Wall from Edinburgh! We will continue to work on our itinerary.

IMO - going from London to Edinburgh to Northumberland is out of logical order and doesn't make much sense. The trip down and back would take a full day w/o leaving any time for the sites irishface mentions in the Borders.

You can take the train from London to Newcastle and then westwards and spend the night somewhere along the Wall. Either Hexham or Haltwhistle would be a good base for seeing the Wall. Spend your arrival afternoon and the next morning seeing parts of the wall and then continue on to Edinburgh after lunch. If you want to see the Border Abbeys/Abbotsford/etc -- you can do them as a day trip from Edinburgh.

If you are going to do the Borders/ Hadrian's Wall out of a 4 day period in the north, forget about going to Inverness or indeed north of Edinburgh. If you decide to go north of Edinburgh, don't go as far as Inverness; aim for the Central highlands- Loch Tay, Glen Lyon, Loch Earn. It's just as beautiful and you won't kill yourselves with packing in too much driving. Think about staying somewhere like Kenmore, Killin or Fortingall

You might want to look at the last part of my trip report on Scotland. Just click on my name to find it.

Agree to start the tip in London - so you don;t have to get off an overnight flight jet-lagged and sleepy and immediately take off on roads driving on the wrong side. (I find in London it takes me a couple of days just getting used to looking the right way before crossing the street. I've driven in both England and Ireland - but not right off a plane.)

Edinburgh is worth more than one day. And Hadrian;s Wall is a must see if you're rally interested in either Roman history or the history of ancient Britain. (We drove from London up to Edinburgh - taking a week and stopping near Oxford and in York on the way.)

I agree with ealier comment about using London as a base and doing day trips by train, but beware of the price! Look at the Network Rail web site and you may find that multi-day passes are available though. For sheer convenience (and the ability to have a drink or two) I would choose the trains every time. Most train stations are centrally located in towns and cities and if you are used to American roads you will be horified at the amount of road works and the amount that it slows you down. Parking in most towns is difficult and expensive with the worst being Oxford, Cambridge and Canterbury although most will be crowded at weekends and on market days.

I have no idea why you would want to go out of your way to go to Dover, apart from the castle it is a very grim port with no attractions. If you want a castle and cathedral you could do a lot worse than going to Arundel in West Sussex. Its a beautiful town, it has a Cathedral and a Castle, with the river arun running through the town. You can take trips on the river, the second fastest running river in the UK. You are also near Chichester and the small villages around, i.e. Bosham, Pagham harbour the sandy beaches off the witterings etc. Dover really has no attractions DO NOT GO!!

I respectively disagree with mrgrumpy about Dover, in that it does have attractions for me--the castle was way cool and we spent time in the National Trust Park walking along the cliffs. We did this as a day trip via train from our base in London in 2008; we're going back this summer with DD to return to the castle, which we didn't get to spend enough time in, and to return to the cliffside walk. I've read that the most impressive views of the cliffs are from a boat/ferry out in the channel, but we truly loved the walk from the park entrance to the South Foreland Lighthouse. We did have a beautiful day with ability to see to Calais, so that made it great. Dover itself, yes, was...well, pretty much unpretty, shall we say, but the castle and the cliffs were worth it for us. It's not the only castle, and it's not the only place to see the cliffs, but I wouldn't toss out the idea of spending time there.

texasbookworm 'respectively disagrees' w/ mrgrumpy. Well - being a brave soul, I'll go farther and say mrgrumpy's is one of the goofiest posts I've read on Fodors in many years. He discounts one of the most amazing historic sites in southern England w/ >><i>apart from the castle . . </i><<

The castle is truly amazing, w/ everything from a Roman Lighthouse, to medieval fortifications, all the way up to the fascinating WWII tunnels/hospital. It has played a major role in British history since the Iron Age. Who cares what the rest of Dover is like (yes - a lot of dreck) when the castle alone takes most of a day. Then adding visits to Deal and Walmer castles nearby -- Just sooooo much tosee.

Arundel is nice for sure -- Dover is unique. One doesn't have to go there -- but to tell someone to avoid it is just nutty IMO . . .