I will be in London for 5 days the first week in November and plan to do a day trip to Edinburgh .Should I book this in advance with a formal Tour company or is it advisable to go the independent route if so :Should I purchase Train tickets in advance ?
and which train line is the best to take to Edinburgh?There will be 4 adults in our party .
Thanks ,
It’s an 8hr round trip from London to Edinburgh. I say don’t bother or accept a very, very long day.
Here's the best way to search for train schedules. You can save a lot on the fare by purchasing well in advance, but the tickets will be non-changeable and non-refundable.
That said, I agree that Edinburgh is way too far from London for a day trip. Most of your day will be spent on trains. I can't imagine any tour company offering this as a day trip.
If you want to do this I'd advise flying from London City Airport to Edinburgh. Flybe and BA offer good prices and you won't have luggage to check so you would need to be at the airport more than 1 hr before the flight. This will give you about 6 hours of sightseeing time.
Lot of hassle, expense and travel time for a couple of hours in a cold, windy and most likely raining November Edinburgh.
Not worth the hassle - especially as daylight hours in Edinburgh will be very short at that time of year. Sounds to me that you think the UK is smaller than it is in reality. If you want to do a daytrip by train - I would suggest Bath (from London Paddington) or York (from London Kings Cross). Fares & schedules at www.nationalrail.co.uk Pre-book about 11 weeks ahead for the cheapest fares on specific trains.
https://visitbath.co.uk
https://www.visityork.org
I have travelled from London to Edinburgh several times on business and the only way to do this in a day is to fly, getting a very early flight. I use Gatwick as it’s the closest to where I live, but it’s a long, unpleasant day. Getting to an airport by public transport will make it an even longer day as I always drive and park right next to the terminal.
Unless you can overnight in Edinburgh, I would say it’s not worth the hassle.
Sunrise/Sunset in Edinburgh on Nov 1 is 7:19AM and 4:32 PM. That's nine hours of daylight.
The earliest flight from London City which is your best choice if staying in London since it is in town and leaves at 7 AM. It arrives at 8:15. You have to be at the airport no less than 60 - 90 minutes ahead of time plus travel time to the airport. You can figure on leaving your hotel no later than 5 am.
For your return, the latest flight back to LCY leaves EDI at 7:55 pm and arrives at 9:20 pm. You would need to leave Edinburgh no later than 5:30 pm to get back to the airport.
So, you would probably have been up and traveling for 18 hours before you returned to your hotel.
And how exhausted would you be the next day?
Save Edinburgh, and Scotland, for another trip when you can give it the time it deserves.
I think the OP has had one of those "gee but it looks so close on the map" moments.:-)
Geeze, I suppose you could consider a day trip to Jerusalem as well!
Sorry for the bad sarcasm, but travel is more than just taking in the sights, it is savoring a city like Edinburgh. Yes, you can eat a six course meal in 15 minutes, but better to take 2.5 hours and enjoy the meal.
This summer we flew into Edinburgh and out of London. We took a train from Edinburgh to Durham and then to York and eventually to London after going to Bath. I can't imagine Edinburgh as a day trip from London but highly recommend doing a day trip to York from London. There's lots to see in York and it feels different from London.
I agree. A day trip from London to Edinburgh is an awful idea. Just out of curiosity I looked to see if any companies offer such a tour, and found this offered by Golden Tours: day trip to Edinburgh by rail.
For £184, you meet at King's Cross rail station at 6:30 AM, ride the train to Edinburgh, get on a double decker bus for a ride around Edinburgh, get off the bus to walk around Edinburgh Castle, get back on the bus and ride to the train station, and ride the train back to London, arriving at King's Cross at 10:18 PM. That's a lot of riding and sitting, and you get to be out of a bus/train to visit ONE attraction.
London offers a huge robust menu of opportunities to consider for fulfilling your journey and I encourage your party to consider "growing" the scope of the with short side trips (Windsor, Bath, Hampton Court...).
I suspect someone in your party has said, "Geez, we are going so far that it would be a shame to not take advantage of being so close to Edinburgh." As a day trip it is not a wise investment of time and money.
Is this your first visit to London?
I'm not big on the idea of people taking the Eurostar from London to Paris for a day trip but that would be a better plan than Edinburgh. Paris is also closer at about 300 miles away whereas Edinburgh is about 400.
I KNOW it doesn't happen often but when I took the train from Kings Cross to Edinburgh in June there was a line down on the track and the train was delayed. Got in to Edinburgh about 3 hours late.
