Hey everyone,

I am new to the Fodor's site. I figured I would give it a try and ask some of you veterans out there about train travel in the UK and Europe.

How expensive is it to hope on a train in Scotland and travel around to Skye, the Loch Ness, Aberdeen, etc.? Would it be cheaper/easier to fly from Edinburgh to London or take the train down? I am under 26, so I would qualify for the young person's pass, but I am not quite sure how this works either.

I plan on flying from Glasgow to Rome and then taking a train through Italy. Would any of you recommend flying from Venice to Berlin, or taking the train? Which would be cheaper.

I plan on having a four month stay in Scotland (study abroad, first time) and hope on seeing as many sites as possible. However, I also have a budget to keep in mind and the fact that I will have no income for four months.

Any advice on train travel, air travel, hostels, great sites to see, etc. would be much appreciated for this poor college student.

Welcome to Fodors. Just one quick comment - that really won't help you much There is no one best/cheapest way to travel. Some budget airlines have REALLY cheap fares - but you must book as afr ahead as possible. the cheapest seats go early and walk up fares can be VERY expensive. Same goes for point to point train tickets - early birds can get really discounted tix, but booking last minute can send fares sky high.

So the father ahead you can firm up plans the better.

Where are you studying? You will LOVE Scotland.

for the poor college student approach, i also encourage you to use the Thorn Tree forum over at Lonely Planet, to get info for your style of travel.

I am studying at the University of Stirling in Scotland. I have been to Scotland before on a ten day trip, however, we spend 7 days in the London area and only three around the Edinburgh area. I went away from the trip disappointed. Not because of what I had seen, but because of the shortness of time! So, I decided to go back and really explore, hence, why I am studying abroad there now.

I hope on getting up to the island of Skye and of course, the Loch Ness.

Do any of you have high recommendations of what to see/do.

Hi,

The bad news is that some of the places you want to visit don't have railways. Isle of Skye - railway to Mallaig on the west coast of the mainland, then ferry to the extreme south of the island; or railway to Kyle of Lochalsh then cross the Skye Bridge bytaxi, bus, foot, bike or anything other than railway. To see enough of Skye you'll need several days and some careful planning of bus times.
There are no trains along Loch Ness. The busier west side of the loch has the main A82 road fromo Glasgow to Inverness which is a bus route. The quieter east side is IMHO more scenic but is monir roads where there is no frequent bus service.
Why Loch Ness? You won't see the monster (she's shy!) and scenically there are hundreds of better lochs in Scotland.
Good news is that Aberdeen has good rail inkes to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Ooooops

Typos galore in the last post, yell if any of them are unintelligible.