Greetings, Fodorites - My husband and I will be in Surrey, England for work April 20- 23 and hope to drive to Manchester and then on to Scotland from the 23rd to the 28th, maybe going over to Northern Ireland? Is this too ambitious? How long does it take to drive from Surrey to say, Glasgow or Edinborough? Or should we fly a low-cost airline (which one do you recommend)? What kind of weather should we expect?

Also, my husband is a big guy. Can you recommend hotels/motels where we have a shot at getting a larger bed? Thank in advance for your always sage advise and counsel.

Is Manchester there for a particular reason?

My instinct is to look for a train, especially if you are having to stop in Manchester en route:

www.nationalrail.co.uk

If you really have to drive, I'd allow a good 8 hours to go direct, obviously extra if you're stopping in Manchester.

Flights would only make sense if you went from Gatwick direct to Scotland:

www.skyscanner.net or www.whichbudget.com

OK - need some more details. Like Patrick asks is there a reason for Manchester?? Where do you have to be on/after the 28th? Are you flying home then (from where) or on to somewhere else?

Give more info and we can help more. But in general - if Scotland is your aim it makes almost no sense to drive. You can be in Edinburgh the same morning w/o the 400 miles of long and often slow driving.

Also - trying to squeeze in NI - is there a particular reason you want to go ther? Nothing wrong w/ it at all -- some glorious scenery. But unless you fly, you would have to drive to far SW Scotland to catch a ferry to Belfast. Not really practical w/ only 5 days total.

Where in Surrey? One useful and overlooked train service is a one which runs direct from Brighton to Manchester, with a stop at Guildford which might be useful for you. It leaves at about 6am and arrives late morning, and is run by Virgin. And it's one that you should be able to book a decent price ticket on.

Thank you all for your gracious replies. To answer some of the questions:
- In Surrey, am teaching a seminar at Selsdon Park (not sure of hotel name)
- Reason for Manchester is my deceased Grandmum was from Manchester. I've never been, and want to see Piccadilly, which she spoke of often. Would like to maybe spend one night at the most in Manchester, but really don't even need to spend the night as time is tight.
- Have to be back to Gatwick on April 29 from which our flight leaves back to JFK.
- Owain mentions a train from Brighton to Manchester. How long does it take the Virgin train to get from Guildford area to Manchester
- We could take a plane from Manchester into Scotland and when the question is where to go to make the most of 3 days?
- We'd like to go to Donegal in Ireland. I thought it best to go through Northern Ireland, but may be easiest to simply fly.
All thoughts and recommendations are welcome! Thank you again for your counsel.

OK now we have more information. Unless you are really set on going to see Manchester I would not bother.Picadilly is a squre with nothing really to make it worh the trip, loads of bus stopsand not a lot else.
Look at flying from Gatwick to Scotland is best option to allow time there. BA do it as well as. Easyjet , bmibaby and BA all do it

To look at British trains, go to www.nationalrail.co.uk.

Surrey is fairly big. Worse, though, it's a commuter area, with sometimes excellent connection to central London, but lousy links elsewhere - including elsewhere in Surrey.

From Selsdon Park (look it up at Google Maps or multimap.co.uk) it's a nightmare to get to Guildford, but a doddle to get to Gatwick. Either fly to Manchester (flight availability at the Gatwick site) or get the (very good, though crowded early morning) trains into London, Victoria Line tube to Euston then half-hourly train to Manchester.

There are now direct flights to Donegal from a number of British airports, including Manchester and Glasgow. Google Donegal airport. Don't go through Northern Ireland: the bus journey from Belfast takes forever, and though the bus from Derry's a lot shorter, there aren't many flights from Britain to Derry.

From most of Britain, the easiesat way to Donegal is a plane to Dublin (there's hardly a disused tennis pitch in Britain that doesn't have several daily flights to Dublin) then bus. See the Bus Eireann site.

"There are now direct flights to Donegal from a number of British airports, including Manchester and Glasgow."

Really? I thought the only services at all to Donegal (CFN) were from Dublin & Glasgow Prestwick. And they're the only ones listed on http://www.donegalairport.ie/Timetables.htm

Derry airport is much better served (Stansted, Liverpool, East Midlands, Glasgow) and if you're hiring a car, is no further from northern Donegal than it takes to drive from CFN.

I'd strongly recommend not getting a bus from Dublin. I took a vow several years ago never to do this again, because it was so tedious.


"Either fly to Manchester (flight availability at the Gatwick site) or get the (very good, though crowded early morning) trains into London, Victoria Line tube to Euston then half-hourly train to Manchester"

Or get the direct train from East Croydon instead of Guildford http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/travel...s/default.aspx

Either fly straight to Scotland, get a train straight to Scotland, or get a train to Manchester and continue by train to Scotland. Book your train tickets in advance to get the cheapest fares. Either train or plane would be better than driving, it is a very long drive.

Carolena

Owain:

Well spotted.

I could have sworn I found flights to Donegal from MCR for my mother in law a few months ago. Good job she decided not to go anyway.

And yes, the once a day train from East Croydon to Manchester is very handy for Selsdon Park.

The flights from Manchester weren't connecting ones, were they? It's sometimes possible to get decent prices from the UK via Dublin.

Apart from not being very interesting, the Piccadilly area of Manchester has been hugely redeveloped in recent years and will be nothing like it was in your grandmother's day.

From Selsdon Park you could get a train to Gatwick and fly to Edinburgh with Easyjet.