13 Days in UK - Edinburgh and London

If you fly into Manchester, I would consider taking a train to York that same day. Be sure to set the alarms on your phones in case you fall asleep on the train. York would be a quieter, more compact place to start your trip and there's lots to see there. From York you could go to Edinburgh and then take train to London and see what it would cost to fly back from London.

One of our first trips, more than 20 years ago, involved flying in to London for several days, then taking a train to Edinburgh, then returning towards London by train, with a stop of a couple fabulous days and nights in York. Didn’t have time for a longer stay, and we’ve not been back, but want to. More than 2 nights would’ve been nice.

Along the way is Newcastle, a city we enjoyed on a trip a few years ago.

Our Highlands adventure was a different trip, 10 years ago. This was all Scotland.

Yet another trip involved flying in to Glasgow, and flying home from London. As you noted, pricing can affect the decisions.

Hi! You're describing the trip I initially was planning (London to York to Edinburgh) for our first international trip (Oct '24), but we ran into the same flight/cost/layover issues as well as time constraints.

In the end, for our 12 nights, we settled on: 3 nights in York (flying into Manchester and then taking the 2h train straight there); train down for 7 nights London, and then train for 2 nights Windsor (flying home out of Heathrow). Our flights were slightly cheaper doing a multi-city ticket than roundtrip in/out of Heathrow.

We'll definitely do Edinburgh in a future trip (expanding it to include Glasgow and additional day trips).

If you're set on doing all three cities, you could fly into Manchester and head straight to York for 2-3 nights, then take the train up to Edinburgh and stay another ~4 nights, then train down to London for the remaining nights.

The train goes right through York between London and Edinburgh, and is about 4ish hours between Edinburgh and London. If you were going to fly into Heathrow and out of Edinburgh (or reverse), then doing York in the middle of the two cities makes the most sense.

I think you definitely have time for York but the Highlands would be a stretch in only <2 weeks time, unless it was just a day trip from Edinburgh (lots of people post about Rabbies day trips).

I'm sure you'll get lots more information and advice, and happy planning!

We went from Philadelphia to Edinburgh to London and then home from.Paris.flying multi city and cost difference was minimal. Tnis was in September and October. Took train from Edinburgh to London which I think was about four hours. Took our lunch and drinks with us. Super easy. We had five days in Edinburgh and six in London We had been to London before so we explored outside London by taking early train to York spending the day most of which was at the railroad museum. Then we had another day trip to a WWII US air force site. Train travel in UK is fantastic, Super clean and very enjoyable. Be sure when searching air fare you get multi city and always book direct with airline. If you need any changes they will work with you and third party doesn't usually. Enjoy.

I've done the trip between London and Edinburgh numerous times with stops along the way.

Check using the Multi-City option for into London and out of Edinburgh or vice-versa. This will save you some time backtracking and don't forget to include the saving of the train back to London or reverse when checking out the price of air tickets.

You're worried about losing time on a flight with transfers into or out of Edinburgh but aren't you also losing time backtracking to London?

There are things to do in Manchester but if you want London-York-Edinburgh then it doesn't make sense. (And I spend time in Manchester.)

Personally, I would use London and Edinburgh as your base cities with a stop in York. There are many day trips that can be taken from either of the two main cities besides exploring locally.

From Edinburgh, look into taking one day tours with Rabbies

York is an easy stop between London and Edinburgh and can be done in a day or a day and a half. Figure two nights minimum.

Don't forget there is the Caledonian Sleeper service between Edinburgh and Euston Station in London.

It would be perfectly possible to spend your entire 13 day trip in and around Manchester and Liverpool if you wanted to and I could help with an itinerary.

But then you can say that about pretty much anywhere in the UK. there is so much to see almost anywhere in the country that you can just stick a ;pin in the map and go and stay there and have an enjoyable holiday.

If what you want to do is to visit Edinburgh, York and London, then you need to book an open-jaw flight into Edinburgh and home from London and take the train in between via York (or vice-versa). You can price this up on any airline site. You might find it called multi-city rather than open-jaw.

Heading back to the UK in March 2022 with similar plans to visit Edinburgh and London, for various reasons logistically and financially it made sense to fly round-trip to London. I wasn't in a hurry and rather than worrying about the coordination of getting from LHR to London and onto a train to Edinburgh in the hours after landing, I just stayed in London that first night. I'd booked a room at a hotel at Kings Cross Station and planned my journey the next morning for the four hours between my 11am check-out in London and the 3pm check-in in Edinburgh, so after a good night's sleep and breakfast I walked across the street and boarded the train.

Visited sites in Edinburgh, took a couple day trips from the city and after a week I returned to London on the Caledonian Sleeper for the second half of the trip.

I agree that if you fly into Manchester continue on to York on your arrival day. It's very easy as the train station is in the airport.

Here's my recent York and Edinburgh trip report that you might find helpful https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-york-and-edinburgh-aug-sept-2023

(note: there are direct Manchester Airport to York trains, but there weren't on the day I got there, a Sunday)

Whilst I still think the open-jaw into EDI and back from London or vice-versa is the most logical option, if you did decide to fly into Manchester it would make more sense to get the train to Edinburgh from the airport. There is a train every two hours direct or more options with an easy change in Preston, usually from the same platform. If you go to York you then go up to Edinburgh and back to London through York again.

I would forget flying into Manchester.

Flying into Manchester can be cheaper for some people. No need to spend time there - I didn't.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'll continue checking prices for various flight options for round-trip to London vs. multi-city to Edinburgh or Manchester. That really is the main driver. An appeal of Manchester is there are direct flights from Atlanta while Edinburgh requires a layover somewhere. Wouldn't spend any time there, just a place to land to get to first stop be that York or Edinburgh.

I already looked at Rabbies and liked their offerings. Thanks for that suggestion!

Appreciate the Rick Steve's suggested tour, but while I like his overall advise, I think the pace would be too much for my wife. Looking for a bit slower pace and I enjoy planning trips and finding rare gems on my own.

Keep us posted! My own similar trip isn't until Oct 2024, so I'd love to hear what gems you find and, after you get back, all about your experience!