I've enjoyed reading the various Scotland posts as I'm doing a last-minute plan for our visit to Scotland, leaving in about a week...

We have friends near Edinburgh that we'll be staying with beginning around day 3 or 4 of a 9-day trip. We already have our flights in/out of Heathrow (long story, it was a necessity).

We had originally planned on catching the tube into King's Cross from Heathrow and a train to Edinburgh, then rent a car there... reverse process on the way home. (We arrive into Heathrow in the a.m. and leave in the evening). Now that we're thinking we're going to head to the Northwest first for a few days, I question whether to just rent the car at Heathrow and drive Northwesterly vs. take the train to Edinburgh.

Would appreciate opinions on whether to take the train to/from Edinburgh, as well as any and all advice on "must see's" for a middle-aged couple with a 10 year old.

Maybe it's just an American thing, but I just like the independence of having a car...

...and bicycle touring in Australia, I found the worst part of the left-handed driving was always the roundabouts...

Thanks!!

to follow on from my comments on your other thread - since you want to be in Edinburgh in the middle of your trip - maybe consider this option:

Fly from LHR up to Manchester on your arrival day. Relax that day seeing Manchester and the next morning collect a rental car to drive to the Lake District/Cumbria. Spend a couple of days the Lakes and maybe the Dales or Hadrian's Wall. Then drive to Edinburgh to visit your friends.

At that point you have a choice of either driving south to London (quite a slog) or turning in the car and taking the train south.

You could break your journey in York for 1 day/night. Then down to London for the last couple of days. Or skip York and train straight through and have another day in London.

You trip really isn't long enough to do that much long distance driving - so use planes/trains to bite off the long bits and drive just in NW England and southern Scotland.

I remember the drive from the Lake District up through Cumbria into Scotland to be one of the prettiest of our trip.

psyclist, the distances in the UK do not <i>seem</i> far (coming from the US) but the driving time is often very long. You'll either have tiny, twisty, narrow roads, or a ton of traffic (and sometimes both!)

People often make the mistake of planning aggressive driving routes through Scotland and end up realizing how slow and draining that type of driving is.

For example, if you are going from Edinburgh to London, there's no way that driving is your best option, or even your second best. You won't need or want a car in either city, and the train takes close to half the time a drive would.

9 days is not really that much time to get from London up into Scotland (especially the northwest) and then back - and see things and visit people. (does the 9 days include your travel days to and from London?) One possibility might be an overnight train to Inverness, perhaps, but you'd have to check the schedules.

Once you get to Edinburgh, return the car. It'll be nothing but an expensive ornament

The best suggestion is to travel by plane or train to somewhere in the North West or Scotland then spend a couple of days travelling towards Edinburgh, then take the train to London

One possibility - fly to Manchester, drive to Chester then up to the Lake District, do part of Hadrian's Wall then off to Edinburgh

Yup, I agree with all the advice above, especially the part about the tendancy for us Americans to underestimate driving times. In the US, we have nice, straight, wide roads - not so for most of the UK. Also, we tend not to stop and ogle the charming villages and sheep as we pass in the US - it's all old hat to us there, but new and different in the UK, so there are many more stops and ogles.

Oh - I thought you meant visiting NW England before going on to Edinburgh. But if you meant NW Scotland - flying or taking the train is even MORE important.

Please clarify which you meant.

If you did mean NW Scotland, flying from LHR to Inverness would work. Collapsing in Inverness for a day to get over the travel/jetlag and then spending a couple of days touring around before dashing down the A9 to Edinburgh.

then train to London.

If you mean NW Scotland/the Highlands, your 10-year-old might enjoy the steam train from Ft. William to Mallaig. If you don't want to spend most of a day riding it, the drive to Mallaig is still quite beautiful, or you could just go as far as Glenfinnan and time it so that you are there when the train puffs by. The train was running just on weekdays when we were in Scotland in May, but it might have started running on weekends too:
www.steamtrain.info

You didn't say whether it's a boy or a girl, or whether he/she has any particular interests. My 9-year-old son enjoyed seeing castles, especially if cannons were present.

Will you be in Edinburgh for days 4-9? I agree that you do not need a car there. We had no problems with driving in the country (well, it took me a while to relax on the single-track roads, but they really weren't that bad) but I had absolutely no desire to try to drive in Edinburgh and am glad we did not need to.

Go to where you're going by public transport. Train to Penrith or Oxenholme if you mean NW England; train to Oabn, Fort William or Kyle of Lochalsh if you mean Scotland. Or Fly to Inverness as Janis said.

Hire car when you get there. Drop it off in Edinburgh

Thanks, all...

Our latest plan is now to spend our first day in London, then catch a 9:30 a.m. train to Edinburg, which will get us there around 2-3. We figure we'll get a car there and meander our way over as far as we feel up to towards the Isle of Skye and spend the next day in the vicinity. After that we'll look to head towards Inverness probably and either head back towards Edinburgh directly or take a few days to swing down the eastern coast.

When we get to Edinburgh, we'll spend a few days with friends there and ditch the car asap before taking the train back down to London and spending another day there before flying back home...

Looking forward to a more laid back first day!! LOL