UK holiday
 

We have 16 nights in the UK. We plan to have 4 nights in London. Then 6 nights in England , west of London and then 6 nights in Scotland. Is it better to spend the 6 nights outside London visiting the Cotwolds, Bath, Oxford etc then drive up to Scotland staying at York on the way up or loop back to London and get the train to Edinburgh and a new rental car. We have no set itinerary yet. This is our first time, advice appreciated.

I think it all depends on your itinerary.

We have enjoyed at least 6 road trips in the UK - picking up the car on leaving London and dropping it at the last large city we visit (and fly home or on to the continent from).

This assumes you want to spend most of that time in the countryside and smaller towns/cities. Typically you can find hotels with free or low cost parking in larger cities (York, Edinburgh) you want to visit.

Caveat: We always rent an automatic to take one more complication out of driving on the opposite side of the street and dealing with traffic circles (which we really don;t have in the US since there are so many accidents).

If there are 4 of you I might drive but if only 2 I might dump the car in Oxford and take the train to York (one night) and then train onto Edinburgh (you don't want a car in York, London or Edinburgh)

If you drop the car in York you miss the opportunity to see the incredible roman ruins/museum at Housesteads - and the entire Hadrian's wall. Plus there are a lot of interesting places to see in between - IF that's where you will be spending days.

Even for things that are reachable by train car is way more convenient for many places - it really depends on exactly where you are going/what you want to see.

If you want to see what we were able to do in a 13 day road trip making a loop from London, through Wales, to Hadrian's Wall area and York and then south, here's our trip report:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-and-wales.cfm

For us our priorities and time meant we had to forego Scotland; if we'd had 2-3 extra days, we would have added a taste of Scotland, so....

I'd urge you to include Hadrian's Wall (my fave section was Housestead's although we didn't make it to all the possible spots).

We LOVED York.

I got to go to Scotland just a wee bit last year with students and LOVED Edinburgh, but people are correct--you won't want a car there to mess with.

We did not have the option of open-jaw when we went, because of our airline tickets, but if you have the option, you might look into it, getting car when you leave London, see all except Edinburgh, turn in car in Edinburgh and fly from there.

Here's a link to my trip report from 2007. We spent 12 days in England and Wales, so bits of this may be helpful.
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...b-may-2007.cfm

Lee Ann

Are you planning to have a rental car IN Edinburgh? If so, why? It's like London only compressed into a smaller space. If for traveling outside Edinburgh, that's a different issue.

Have you set your flights so you don't have to revert to London to fly home? If so, do that (home-London, Edinburgh-home).

I'd say from the Cotswolds/Bath area drive up to Scotland rather than going back to London to take the train.

You can hit several neat places en route via the West Coast - the fabled Lake District - then bop over to Hadrian's Wall - short stop enough - then go up thru the Borders Abbeys region - Melrose is a nice base - to see the ruined abbeys like Jedburgh, Melrose and bucolic countryside - then into Edinburgh, which IME is very driveable as opposed to London.

Thanks for the comments. We will be dropping the car off when we reach Edinburgh. We then fly out to Nice. We will drive up to Glasgow after visiting the Cotswold/Bath area. We will spend 2/3 nights further up in SCotland then drive 2 nights in Edinburgh.