road trip through scotland
 

we are planning a roadtrip through scotland and really need advice on how to go about it. we have the following itinerary in mind. can you guys give suggestions on how right it is and where to stay etc..
1- arrive in glasgow. spend two nights there. leave glasgow the third day (early morning) for the roadtrip. (we will rent a car)
2- start with glasgow. go to isle of skye via glencoe and ft.willim. (not planning to take the ferry to mallaig as of now but can anyone suggest what is the cost involved?)
we plan to make a stop in between glasgow and isle of skye (1 night) to break the journey. where to stay? we are thinking of staying at glencoe but not sure. we will than stay 2 nights in isle of skye to explore the island.
3- leave skye and go to edinburgh.
which route shall we take while going back?
want to see inverness and aberdeen. shall we make an overnight stop while going back too?
4- 2 or 3 nights in edinburgh. after exploring edinburgh take train to glasgow to catch our flight.
can we return our rental car in edinburgh?
5- which place in isle of skye should we stay? we are looking into air bnb but dunno which place to stay.
Thanks!

Skye has limited accommodation so you need to sort that out soonest as it may affect the rest of your plans

Ft William is pretty much the middle point of getting to Skye so would be the logical point to do so

Edinburgh is only an hour or so from Glasgow so you could do Edinburgh as a set of day trips from Glasgow with no need to stay in Edinburgh or change hotels in Glasgow if you do it at the start of your trip.

It also means that if your hire company doesn't allow reasonably priced one way hire you can easily get to Edinburgh if you decide to stay there.

Coming back the logical option would be to go further east to Pitlochry / St Andrews / Fife Coast

Not taking the ferry makes no sense unless you are on a very tight budget. The best option is to travel one way via the bridge and one way via the ferry. Otherwise you are doubling back and missing glenfinan among other things.

You should consider the ferry over and bridge back.

Inverness > Aberdeen > Edinburgh would really require 2 or 3 nights if you wanted to do more than just drive and not see any of the castles etc.

Why do you want to see Inverness? It is just a city - nice city but not worth any time on such a short trip. Distances may look short but drive times are long.

Stay in glencoe or Ballachulish . . . Not Ft William.

2 nights on Skye will give you less that 1.5 days for a VERY large island with VERY slow roads.

For anyone planning to drive, I strongly urge you to have a look at the aaroadwatch (journey planner) website www.aaroadwatch.co.uk and even google maps too ( I often use both) to get an idea of driving times and the best routes. You will need to add another 25/35% to their suggested times.

Both dotheboyshalll and janisj have made some good suggestions. BTW, when do you plan to travel and what is your budget ( in $'s or £'s ) for accommodation?

I agree with Janis who helped so much on our trip...Here is our day driving from Callander to Ft. William, then taking the Road To The Isles, the ferry and our drive to Portree on Isle of Skye.

<B>http://travelswithmaitaitom.com/chapter-nine-skyes-limit-drive-callander-portree/</B>

((H))

The ferry was only £20.60 for our car with four persons.

((H))

thanks for ur replies. have few more questions to ask
where in isle should we stay? its so big..which site will be good for exploring the island?
do we require a stay in between somewhere while coming back from isle to edinburgh?
is glencoe worth a stay or should we drive straight to isle ?
inverness to aberdeen to edinburgh..is this the only route while coming back to edinburgh?
we plan to depart for glasgow on 1st sept. also the ferry price looks fine so gonna book it. do we need to book the ferry in advance too?