My husband and I are going to Scotland & England with a visit to a granddaughter in St. Andrews. We will be driving.

The first 5 days, we plan to fly into Edinburgh, 2 days in Edinburgh, 3rd night at Saint Andrews, then spending the next two days driving through Dundee, staying at Stirling, Glasgow with night 6 back in Edinburgh.

On night 6 we fly into London & rent a car. We've been to London, so I was thinking to the west of London, including stone henge, bath, the lake district and maybe the south area of wales. & I do want to see Kensington Gardens. We will have 3 days to travel the area with 1 night in london on both ends.

Any thoughts?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Susan

If you have a look at a map the Lake District is just south of Scotland so you could choose to do your driving into the far north of England, eliminating the second half of your proposed itinerary, so just Scotland & the Lakes. Actually not a bad idea.

Otherwise, with just 3 days, time for a Bath, Salisbury/Stonehenge loop before departure with a night for London.

Hello,

Just looking at your itinerary, for what you want to do you could easily base yourself in or around Stirling after St Andrews. There's not really much in Dundee (yet - I'm from near there originally!) so unless there's a particular reason to visit I wouldn't bother. You could also consider staying longer in St Andrews and taking trips to the East Neuk villages, and Stirling itself is less than an hour's drive along the A91.

Lake District and South Wales cannot realistically be done from a London base - they are too far unless you are planning on at last one night there and with your limit of three days are just not practicable.

I would second MmePerdues suggestion of a Bath, salisbury and Stonehenge loop for the three days. Throw in places like Wells, Sherbourne, Laycock Abbey, Shaftesbury and you could have a really good trip....

I might just check if there is an easy flight from Glasgow or Edin down to say Bristol, so that you save one trip in and out of London.

I would suggest you count travel time separately and then see how much of your total time that actually means you will have left to spend IN places and seeing/doing things.

For example, you will not spend 2 days in Edinburgh at the beginning of your trip. You will arrive in the morning jet-lagged. By the time you get to your hotel, check-in, unpack, etc. You will be left with a half day at best to spend walking around in Edinburgh jet-lagged. You will really only have one full day, on day 2, in Edinburgh. Most people would not consider that enough time to do Edinburgh justice at all. Most people consider the arrival day and departure day on any trip, as total write-offs.

On day 3, you drive up the cost to St. Andrews. If you drive right past all the East Neuk coastal villages, you will probably get to St. Andrews for lunch with your grandaughter or for dinner if you stop enroute in a village or two like Anstruther, Crail, Pittenweem. So you won't have even one day in St. Andrews at all. Pity.

Every time you move, you lose time to making that move. It may be only a half day, it may be most of the day but you can't count it as time IN a place. The more you move, the less time you actually spend doing and seeing things. In travel as in many things, less is more. The less you move, the more you see and do.

Figure out your travel time realistically and then see what percentage of your time you are going to lose moving. Then decide if you think that is a percentage you are willing to lose.

As I read it, you plan to stay in 6 places perhaps. That means 5 moves. I would count that with your arrival day and departure day as 7 days more or less lost. If your entire time is 14 days, that is 50% of your time lost. You can argue you will only lost a half day on one move or another but the fact remains you will spend a large percentage of your time moving rather than being in a place seeing and doing things. That to me is not best use of your time.

Oops, I just noticed your title says 10 days. Even worse!

Thank you for all the insite.

I think the lake district is out and will rework our plans to spend less time moving. planning on taking the stonehenge loop.

We fly in to edinburgh and out of London.