I will be arriving London May 12 at 11:30 am and leaving London May 26 at 10:30 am. I am trying to decide if I am jamming too much in. Tentative itinerary

5/12: train to Lake District (have friend there)
5/13-15 Lake District
5/16 - get rental car in Kendal
5/16-5/17 stop somewhere mid-point in Scotland (Oban?? Fort William??)
5/18-5/20 Isle of Skye
5/21 - stop somewhere between Iverness + Edinburg, enjoy the drive
5/22- turn in car in Edinburg
5/23 - Edinburg
5/24 - train back down to London, enjoy 5/24-5/25 in London, leave 5/26 in am??

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Your Scotland leg isn't really focused on anything much except for Skye so its hard to give advice. What sorts of things do you want to see and do while in Scotland? Is Skye a must? But in any case I might do everything in a different order. Getting to Kendal after an overnight flight will be a slog so I wouldn't try to go there first thing.

Two better options might be 1) Arrive LHR and immediately fly up to Inverness. Stay one night (5/12) there, collect rental car and drive to Skye, stay two nights (5/13-14), drive to somewhere like Callander and stay two nights (5/15-16) seeing Glencoe, Falls of Dochart, Stirling Castle, the Trossachs, Inchmahome. Drive to Edinburgh visiting Falkirk and/or Culross en route and drop the car. Stay 2 nights (5/17-18). Take train to Kendal, visit friend (5/19-20). Train to London/visit/fly home (5/21-25).

**** Something just came up, I'll be back in a few minutes with some ideas for another option ****

back . . . Or you could do the trip in reverse . . do London first - say 3-4 nights; Then train to the Lake District, stay two-ish nights; Train to Edinburgh and stay 2 or 3 nights; Collect car out at EDI, drive to Glencoe, stay one night; Drive to Skye, stay 2 or 3 nights; Drive to GLA with a one night stop over such as in Callander or along Loch Lomond; Drop car at GLA and fly down to LHR the afternoon of the 25th and stay in an airport hotel, fly home. Number nights at each stop can be massaged but this general itinerary works.

BUT as I asked -- is Skye a 'must'?

Why not fly open jaw, saving one trip between Scotland and LHR?

I was going to suggest that but assumed the tickets are already booked so suggested a 'sorta similar result' to open jaw by flying up to Inverness straightaway, or flying from EDI to LHR.

Or take the Caledonian Sleeper and save a flight and all that pollution.

All well and good, but getting from Euston station to LHR is a pain . . . and since the plane is going to fly anyway, the pollution would be the same whichever.

Bus to King's Cross, Piccadilly line to Heathrow. Not that bad. Or bus to Paddington and train to Heathrow. Or, for that matter, taxi to either station. I would do bus and tube, but that's three options.

If people stop flying, the planes will stop too. Plus taking a night train saves day time for sightseeing.

*** Kendal to Kyle of Lochalsh, on the mainland side of the Skye Bridge, is est by Google to be a 6.5 hour / 320 mile / 516 km drive.
I would study Google maps to see the locations of castles, museums etc you might want to see on route, that would help you plan where your overnight stops are to be.

I take it Skye is a priority ?

Minor point, Edinburgh has an 'h' at the end. Well, maybe not to a Scot LOL. 'Edin Burg' sounds more German.

Do you want to take time to see the museum at Culloden which is near Inverness? (famous battle site there between Scots and English.) Also, are you a MacBeth fan? There are sites near Inverness that supposedly inspired some of the 'locations' in the play.

The train back to London will take most of the day, just so you know.

"Minor point, Edinburgh has an 'h' at the end. Well, maybe not to a Scot LOL. 'Edin Burg' sounds more German."

Um . . . Edinburgh . . . is pronounced absolutely nothing like 'Edin Burg'. Just sayin'.

"Kendal to Kyle of Lochalsh, on the mainland side of the Skye Bridge, is est by Google to be a 6.5 hour / 320 mile / 516 km drive"

GoogleMap is a pretty unreliable source for drive times in rural Scotland (decent-ish for routes / bad for drive times). At the very best of times that is a 7.5 hour drive, and that's without hitting any traffic around Glasgow nor any construction or caravans or livestock in the road along the route. It could easily take 8+ hours. And that is only to Kyle -- to Portree or elsewhere ON Skye will add another hour. But in any case I wouldn't drive it, I'd rearrange the order of things.

Scottish traffic!

@jane - lol. But that is a nice two lane road, with passing, and fairly flat. Are you sure it is in Scotland? 😉

Janisj, that was sort of my point. You need the 'h' to cue to how it is pronounced. Perhaps I should have said, otherwise it 'looks' German.

Google maps may not be accurate to the minute for travel time but it does measure the distances. And, on the maps are marked various intriguing sites. Anyway, that is all for now from this quarter.

LOL yes it was, but I can't remember where exactly. I know, I made it look too easy.

Then there are always these situations (Mull)

Me, too, thursdays.

When I see “Edinburg” I think of Edinburg in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Definitely nothing like the Edinburgh in Scotland. 😉

As others have noted, your Scotland bit seems unfocused, other than Skye. So I thought I’d share my blog of our 2018 trip, in case it may give you any ideas:

https://stricklandia.wordpress.com/

Side note: Google Maps worked very well for me (including drive times), single-track or not (offline maps FTW). And I found the passing places to be very plentiful and efficient! I only had to go in reverse once, and that was on a dirt road.