First Trip - 20 nights

Thirsk is easily reached by train from York. 15 minutes or so, many trains both directions. If you are going to the Alf Wight Museum, I spent about 90 minutes which included watching the film and reading everything. (Trip in April 2025) Many spend less time.

You know you are backtracking from Edinburgh for the Dales/Moores exploration? Edinburgh is also easily reached from Durham - same line as from York. You won’t need a car in Durham. I’ll let others with better car experience further critique that portion of your trip, but I think it can be tweaked….

Thinking “out loud on paper”. - Begin in Edinburgh (plane from LHR assuming that is arrival point or train from Kings Cross), train to Durham, train to York including Thirsk as a day trip, car from York to other sites, return car where? - Bath??, train to London for relaxing final days there. There are other possibilities as well.

Another alternative would be to do Thirsk as a day trip from York. Then train to Durham either for an overnight or just a few hours stopover on the way to Edinburgh.
Then get the car and come south down the west coast. You could divert to see Hawes but you would also have the opportunity to see the Lake District before going south. You could also replace North Wales with the Peak District NP - neither is a bad call

In my view you will spend a lot of time in the car and not see a lot. A few bases would be better and then use the car or public transportation. For example, as mentioned spend another night in York and do a day trip to Thrisk. Do Durham by train on the way to Edinburgh. Unless you want to see things between Edinburgh and Hawes, train back to Newcastle upon Thyme and rent there or in Carlisle. I have done the drive from Edinburgh to Hadrian's wall twice (via Melrose and down east coast) and from Hadrian's Wall to Hawes, Edinburgh to Hawes won't take 4 hours; assume at least 5 without stops and that is a lot of boring interstate level roads. Part of the issue is the roads. The big M roads are double lane divided hwys where you can go fast provided the traffic isn't bad, which it is often. Hawes will require time on very twisty 1 lane or 1 1/2 lane roads (no line in the center because not wide enough). If you can do anything close to the speed limit, you are more confident on the left than I am. I forgot the car had a 5th gear and didn't have to slow down much for each town because that was my normal speed.

I stayed in Hawes for 5 nights and like the town as a base to see and walk the dales. The main site to see in town is the Wensleydale Creamery (Wallace and Grommet). It is fun to see and takes maybe 90 minutes if you have to wait for the tour to start.

Remember as you plan that 2 nights means 1 day to visit the area. Consider that Edinburgh is the outlier in this itinerary. If there is a special reason to go, consider dropping it. If you keep it, then Conwy is the outlier. If you really want to keep both, work your way from London to Edinburgh up the east coast and then fly from Edinburgh to Liverpool or Birmingham and rent your car there and return it in Bath. Add a bit of time in Conwy and then see Wrexham on the day you drive back to Bristol and train to Bath and then London.

Not a bad plan.
Regarding driving in the UK. If you are not used to driving on the left, I recommend sticking with the speed limit. Note, those small English towns tend to have speed cameras. I got a ticket going 35mph in a 30mph zone, cost 40 GBP. I was decelerating down then. In the USA no way would I have gotten a ticket.
Also, you will find that English drivers are generally polite and not aggressive. Just take care when turning at intersections that you stay on the left.
Here are a few suggestions:
1 York, consider the York Minster Hotel, they have parking for cars and the hotel is near the north gate. Love York.
2 Durham, don't miss the amazing cathedral.
3 Conwy, consider stopping in nearby Chester, has a lot of Ancient Roman history.
4 Before Bath, consider stopping in Stratford Upon Avon, visit the ancient house that Will Shakespeare was born in and more. It is a great town.
5 While in Bath, you can do a day trip to Glastonbury and Wells.
6 Try to visit Windsor Castle, you can do that from London.

"You won’t need a car in Durham"

While I would agree you don't NEED a car in Durham, especially for just one night, it can be handy if you want to explore County Durham more generally. The city itself is very walkable, and you can even get to Beamish (definitely worth it by the way) by bus or taxi. But we've enjoyed a few trips by car in the general area and found it handy to have one.

So probably not for this trip, but for anyone who's planning on spending more time in Durham, worth considering having a car. And parking is not a problem.

I agree with those that suggest adjusting the itinerary to make it flow better.

I would take the train from London straight to Edinburgh. Stay there first for your 3 nights, then head south to York by train and spend a few nights there, which would include a day trip to Thirsk. As the others have said, it is a very quick train ride from York, and Thirsk is easy to get around by walking. It's about a 20 minute walk from the station to the center of town, or you can get a taxi if you want. I found Thirsk difficult to drive in, so I do think this would be much easier.

After that, you could take a train from York up to Durham (about a 45-60 minute ride), pick up a rental car and visit the cathedral and the city, which is charming along with the countryside (including Beamish) as Simon suggested. It was very easy to drive in Durham, and there is a HUGE car park right outside the cathedral.

OR if you decide to wait on the car, then switch it up so that you first head to Durham from Edinburgh by train, then take the train down to York for your stay (including a day trip to Thirsk) and from there rent your car, head to Hawes and continue your journey.

I do agree with geovagriffith that adding Chester to your trip is definitely worth it. It's a very charming place. You could easily make a stop as you are driving from Hawes to Conwy and have lunch there.

There are no flights from Edinburgh to either Liverpool or Manchester - there is no demand as the train service is so good and fast. By the time you have taken all the rigmarole of flying into account then on an average day even driving will be almost as fast as flying.
Likewise flying to Birmingham, then driving back up to Conwy makes little sense to me in time terms versus either the train or driving.
There is also an hourly bus from York to the centre of Thirsk.

If you've not already booked flights, fly into Edinburgh or Glasgow and home from London. When booking, look for multicity options rather than 2 one-way flights. Then re-arrange your itinerary. If your flights are already booked, then consider going by train to York on your arrival day. Depending on the time of your arrival flight, you probably can't access your hotel room until much later in the day, and sight-seeing on arrival day is sort of a bleary-eyed waste of time. So, get your tired selves onto the train and just sit back and relax (or sleep) until you arrive in York. Add those 4 nights in London to the end of the trip, or spread them around some of your other destinations.

I agree with others that there are too many stops. Perhaps some of your destinations could be accomplished as day trips. Edinburgh, Conwy, and Bath are all sort of out of the way, so you might consider eliminating one of those.

I'd also recommend using trains rather than driving. The rail system is very efficient. Explore the various cards like 2-together, family travel together, etc., to get reduced fares. Driving in an unfamiliar car (with a standard "stick" transmission), on the left of unfamiliar roads is tiring and you'll find some roads in England to be quite narrow.

We just returned from a trip that included the Yorkshire Dales and north Wales. Recommend both! We did not rent a car. We flew into Manchester, and Rabbie’s has a good day tour from there that will show you a lot of the Dales. From there, to Llandudno in Wales where we spent four nights. Conwy is lovely but I think Llandudno is a better base, although I expect neither will be very lively in October. Two nights in Conwy is just not enough IMO — it is for just Conwy town but there’s so much more in that area. Either spend more time in Wales, or streamline to focus on other areas — although we did again take a day tour here that packed Conwy, Snowdonia and Caernarfon into a full day. Bodnant Garden near Conwy is great but again, not so sure about that in October. Agree that Chester is well worth a visit but you’ve already got so much. No comment on Wrexham as that holds no interest for me, but to each his own. Basically, I think you’re overstretched trying to do England, Scotland and Wales in that amount of time, I would pick either Scotland or Wales with England but not all three, and I think you’d have a great trip.

Thank you for the replies and all of the information. Taking it all into consideration, we have decided to fly to Edinburgh (via LHR as we had already booked the TA flight). We will get there at 15:15 after a 4 hour layover at LHR. We'll take the train from Edinburgh to Durham for a full day there and get to York in the early evening. We'll do the day trip to Thirsk from there and pick up the rental car to drive across Yorkshire to the Dales and Hawes and beyond. Those suggested changes give us two nights to add elsewhere which we appreciate.

Colleen expressed concern about the amount of driving. Fear not, I love to drive. And, I love the freedom it affords to pull off the road whenever we want to explore, take photos, eat, etc. In a foreign country (not so much at home), I am very cautious about driving and observe the speed limits carefully. I don't need any extra attention from the local police. Good advice though Geovagriffith! Friends who have been to England and Ireland tell me I'll adjust to driving on the "wrong side" just fine.

Thank you all again for the suggestions.

Enjoy the journey! The Dales and Moors are stunning!!

From Hawes to Conwy there are at least 4 routes. The obvious is the A684 to junction 37 of the M6.
However in scenery terms I would suggest the B6255 to Ingleton then down to Junction 34.
The other arguably even better route would be to turn off the 6255 at Ribblehead (after visiting the station visitor centre) to take the B6479 down through Settle, then the B6478 through the Forest of Bowland to Clitheroe then pick up the M6 at junction 32.
That will be a full day journey, but to me is what a road trip is all about.
Wensleydale and Swaledale is much more where "James Herriot" really worked, as opposed to Grassington where the most recent adaptation was filmed.
The original TV series used the village of Askrigg for filming, including the village church for the "wedding".
I actually suggest coming into Hawes up Swaledale and over the Buttertubs pass. Possibly actually adding a night in Hawes. Rather than doing Thirsk as a day of its own you could route to Hawes via Rievaulx, Sutton Bank and Thirsk.

Remember the classic driving advice from well-dressed aging liberals:

STAY LEFT, LOOK RIGHT

Thanks for the Dales route suggestions isn31c. I will get on Google Earth and do some research. I did add a night in Hawes and will have two full days to explore the area. We'll take your suggestion and enter Hawes from Buttertubs Pass. This leg is quickly becoming the most anticipated for me. Phred, I almost met my end in London because I stepped off a curb after looking left but not right. My wife grabbed and pulled me back as I felt the breeze of a car as it passed. It's the closest I've ever come to death. Cheers all!