Hello all,
Hubby and I are planning a 2-week trip to England and Scotland in June. We will only be visiting York and the Dales for the England portion and will then head to Scotland. We fly into London, where we will rent a car. From there, we have tentatively planned 1 week for England and 1 week for Scotland. We then must drive back to London to return the car and catch our flight home. Our dilemma is that we want to see Holy Island and Isle of Skye, which I don't think is possible if we want two spend time in Edinburgh and Glasgow. We are trying to decide which one to cut. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Don't drive on your arrival day for a start.
Take the train to York and then rent a car. You could visit Lindisfarne on your way to Scotland.
Apart from Edinburgh and Glasgow what else are you visiting in Scotland? Perhaps instead of going all the way up to Skye visit Argyll, which is less touristy and beautiful, and less midge prone too. But honestly with only one week in Scotland I would decide what it is you really want to see in the southern part if Edinburgh and Glasgow are musts.
Drop the car at either of those cities, or return it to York, and train back south.

Why are you driving back down to London?? That makes no sense. yu really don't have time for a round trip drive, you'll want to fly or take the train one direction to fit all this in. And 'two weeks' is sort of nebulous. Is it precisely 14 days home to home, 14 days on the ground in the UK not counting travel days, OR if it is 'about 2 weeks' -- how many days exactly?

Have you already booked flights in / out of LHR? LHR really isn't the best option for a Yorkshire/Scotland trip. I'd fly into MAN and take the train to York. Then a day or two later collect a car and tour the Dales, Northumberland including Hadrian's Wall and Lindesfarne, tour through the Borders, then drop the car in Edinburgh, spend 2 or 3 days Exploring Edinburgh with maybe a day trip to Stirling. Fly home from EDI.

BUT -- if you've aleady booked in/out of LHR and don't want to visit London at all -- then I'd book a same day flight up to EDI spend a few days car-less in the Capital, then collect a car and drive down through the Borders, Lindesfarne, Northumberland including Alnwick and Hadrian's Wall, on to the Dales and York. Then either drive to LHR - or drop the car in York and take the train down to London staying your last night either in the city or at an LHR area hotel.

Skye simply doesn't fit -- from Edinburgh even the most cursory visit would eat up 4 full days. -- a day to get to Skye, 2 days on the isle, and a day to get back to either EDI or GLA.

Thanks for the input, Janis. Flights are booked, so London it is, but we are certainly open to dumping the car and taking the train back to London. Do you know anything about Avant West Coast rail? I read that is has a direct train from Glasgow Central to London Euston, or would Edinburgh to King's Cross via LNER be a better choice?
Thanks again for your help!

Thank you hetismij2 Edinburgh and Holy Island are musts, and my godson is from Glasgow so I wanted to go there. Apart from that, we're open to suggestions. What are some of your favorites spots in southern Scotland?

IMO/IME Edinburgh to Kings Cross is better because KC is on the main tube line out to LHR.

Got it! Thanks so much!

We're visiting the UK for the first time this June/July and will be visiting both but we're on a longer trip (we're there for 4 weeks). In addition to the difficulty of fitting in Skye with the time you have as Janis has pointed out, you'd be hard pressed to find accommodation this close to June and I expect there would be slim pickings, and of those, they'd be costly.

It may be worth seeing if you can fit in Holy Island between your time in York and Edinburgh. If it helps, we're going to make use of that journey ourselves and are planning to take the train to Berwick-upon-Tweed (directly connected to both Edinburgh and York) in the morning and have organised a local taxi company to chauffeur us for the day to Holy Island and then return us to the station in the late afternoon to continue our journey.

There are also guided day trips you can take from Edinburgh to Holy Island (such as with Heart of Scotland or Timberbush) but we chose the above option as it would give us more time on Holy Island. Whatever option you pick, be mindful that the tide will determine what time Holy Island is accessible in.

Thank you, victoriainwanderland I think you are right about the accommodations in Skye---I had not thought about that. We've scratched it from our itinerary and will investigate the possibility of making Holy Island a day trip from Edinburgh. Once I have the full itinerary planned, I intend to post it for recommendations and would love to hear yours!

Happy for you to message me and I can share our itinerary to the extent it overlaps with the places you're going to

One thing to consider is dropping the rental car at Edinburgh airport and flying down to Heathrow on the way home. The airfare is reasonable (often cheaper than the train) and it saves time, money and a LOT of hassle by not having to get to LHR from central London.

Thank you Gardyloo I am definitely interested in investigating this idea. My question at this point is can we rent a car in York and return it in Edinburgh???

Yes -- as long as you rent through one of the national chains. EuropCar, Hertz, Thrifty, Arnold Clark -- not sure if Enterprise does one way's. EuropCar is right next to the train station. Plug your dates into Autoeurope with pick-up in York and drop off at EDI (best to drop the car at the airport rather than the city centre) and see what you get.

janisj That's a great help. Thank you!!!