Road Trip - London - Edinburgh - Dublin - Swansea - London
 

Hi there,

We are coming over from Canada to visit the UK.. Our plan is a road trip starting in London up to Scotland across to N.Ireland and Ireland, then over to Wales and back to London to Fly home.

We are looking for must see areas while we are over there, we are starting our research and it is quite overwhelming, so we would like to know your favourite spots. Do you have a favorite place to stay in these cities? We want to know!

Thinking to land in London March 9th and end up back in London the 23rd. The plan is to get to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day.

Let us know your thoughts and ideas! We will greatly appreciate them!

Hope you're not thinking of getting off a transatlantic flight and jumping straight into a hire car, hopefully you're going to spend a day or two in London first.

We did a similar trip some years ago, but we took 5 weeks. You have two weeks. I'd advise you to trim your itinerary unless this is purely a road trip to see only what's along your driving route.

Not bleedin' possible in two weeks -- look at a map. It isn't like a two week road trip across western Canada. You want to see parts of 5 countries (since Wales is there between Dublin and London.

>>so we would like to know your favourite spots. Do you have a favorite place to stay in these cities?<<

There are hundreds but you won't have time for most of them

Driving from London to say Inverness (and not via any scenic roads in England - just boring Motorways and meal stops) will take the best part of full days. And you will have missed everything in between.

W/ 2 weeks pick two countries -- and then select a teensy number of places to visit in each. Like London, Bath/the Cotswolds or London and Your for one week and Scotland for the other Or Scotland one week and Ireland the other.

(and you'll need to fly or take the train one way to make even those work)

Can you book an open jaw ticket? That would help some. Fly into London out of Dublin. London for a couple of night, train or fly to EDI, have a look at the sights in the city and then fly into Dublin. Lots of nice day trips from there and you can even take one to Belfast by bus or train. Book now for Dublin.

>>the best part of full days.<<

oops that should say >>the best part of <B>two</B> full days.<<

Macross' plan would work -- It would be pretty rushed and certainly would not be a road trip. You'd only have time for a maybe 2 or 3 day car rental for a short rural driving tour out of either Edinburgh or Dublin. And to make it work you'd definitely want to fly open jaw.

I sure hope you haven't already purchased R-T tickets in/out of London (I fear you may have since you posted specific dates)

Not only would I use multi-city/open jaw tickets to avoid backtracking, but I would also use the train and flights for at least part of your trip (train between London and Edinburgh, fly between Edinburgh and Dublin, et cetera).

Otherwise I think you'll see nothing but the inside of your hire car and the motorways.

In case you are thinking we are being too harsh: Driving London - Edinburgh - Dublin - Swansea - London via the fastest/least scenic routes possible, this would be a 1200 mile journey requiring fully 30 hours car time. That is w/o a single stop or allowing for traffic, construction, ferry delays due to weather or anything else.

So in 'real life' you are talking about 6 full days behind the wheel - that isn't sightseeing or anything. Just in the car and eating at motorway service areas. Leaving you about one day in each city. If you wanted more than one day each or things other than those 5 cities you'd need to add at least 10 more days.

Really just backing up janisj and other, the Uk and Ireland are packed with interesting stuff and only with a few very heavily used motorways which I use on a daily basis and are as ugly as sin.

The views from the train are better. The train is basically faster and while there are cheep flights between cities they are generally slower than the train.

If I were doing this I'd

Fly into London, get over jet lag there. Visit London as required
Train to say York/Durham/Cambridge going north and hire a car to tour as required.
Train onto Edinb. car hire tour.
Fly out of Edin home.

3 days in London then either coach or train to Edinburgh. 2 days there and then hire a car and travel West to Stirling and then Loch Lomond. Stay 1 or 2 nights and then travel down the west coast via Ayr where you can catch an overnight ferry from Stranraer to Belfast. Day and night in Belfast and then either drive or take a day tour up the Causeway Coast. A really beautiful drive with Amazing scenery. Spend a 2nd night in Belfast and then next day drive down to Dublin for 2 nights. Either fly out of Dublin (if you can) or fly Easy jet to Heathrow (About 30 GBP)and then fly home.
The only problem you may have here is hiring a car in Edinburgh and leaving it in Dublin. Think that could be a problem. In that case you could travel from Loch Lomond to Glasgow and fly to Belfast where you would hire a 2nd car for your Irish section. Good Luck!

>>The only problem you may have here is hiring a car in Edinburgh and leaving it in Dublin. Think that could be a problem.<<

Ya <i>think</i>?!

>> where you would hire a 2nd car for your Irish section. Good Luck!<<

Even that will be expensive since Belfast and Dublin are in different countries. Just like picking a car up in Italy and dropping it in France -- you'll pay big drop off fees.

Otherwise a semi-doable plan. However a coach London to Edinburgh really doesn't make sense -- that would eat up an entire day and see nothing at all.

At Least the train is only 4.5 hours and you see nice stuff between Newcastle and Edinburgh.