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England/Scotland Itinerary - Assistance

Posted by (Sudbury, Ontario, Canada) on

I'm new to this forum. My husband and I (in our early 40s) are planning our first Europe trip in May 2025. We are planning to visit both England and Scotland, and have approx. 2 weeks (including travel days from Canada). I'm a little overwhelmed with the options available. I feel comfortable with our London days, however the rest of the trip is still quite rough.

I have roughly drafted our itinerary:
- May 19 - travel day
- May 20 - arrive at 9am in London
- May 20-24 - explore London
- May 24-27 - rent a car and explore Cotswolds, Oxford, etc (stay near Cotswolds for 2 nights)
- May 27 - fly into Edinburgh
- May 28 - explore Edinburgh
- May 29 - June 1? - will rent a car, but not sure how I should organize this time (Glasgow, St. Andrews, Aberdeen, etc. We aren't interested in Loch Ness)
- June 2nd - travel home

A few questions - Is this a good start to our itinerary? Is it doable? Should we drive from Cotswolds area to Scotland, or would it be better to drive back to London and fly into Edinburgh?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Posted by
4 posts

We are also heading to the UK. I have been to London but my wife has never been anywhere over there. We are in the UK for 11 days and 10 nights early May 2025. I am thinking of an itinerary similar to:

London
Bath/Cotswolds
York
Edinburgh

My biggest questions are do I rent a car and drive the portions not in London? Do I travel by rail and figure out how to get around areas like Bath, Cotswolds, etc. once I get there? In my itinerary, I have 2 large geographic gaps - from Cotswolds to York and then from Edinburgh to London. Both would require about 5 hour train rides.

I will follow your string here and would love to get any input from seasoned UK travelers.

Thanks!

Posted by
8188 posts

Assuming flying to Edinburgh, rather than fly from Heathrow you could fly from Birmingham International or Bristol. Or return the car at Oxford and train to Edinburgh. By the time you have gone to any of the three airports, gone through airport rigmarole, flown then transport back into Edinburgh there is little or no time saving over the train. And the train in turn is as fast, if not faster, than driving.

May 24 to May 26 as well as being US Memorial Day is also the late spring UK public (bank) holiday- so popular tourist areas are going to be very busy.

Glasgow, St Andrew's and Aberdeen are all very easy train rides from Edinburgh (St Andrew's train to Leuchars or Leven then bus to St Andrew's- from Leven the bus goes via the East Neuk of Fife fishing villages; or St Andrew's is a frequent direct bus from Edinburgh).

Presumably you will open jaw/multi city back home from EDI.

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