Help with Itinerary please! England/Scotland 12 nights early September

I'd probably fly into Edinburgh or Glasgow (the latter more convenient to Skye) and do the Scotland portion first and work my way south as the days grow shorter and colder. But with 12 nights that's not a huge concern.

I like to spend at least 2 nights at each location to minimize the amount of vacation time spend packing up and settling in.

If I were you I'd read some of the trip reports elsewhere in this website to see what others planned and how much of those plans was able to be accomplished.

For this trip you aren't going to be able to see it all, so you may have to be a little ruthless in your planning. I'd be tempted to reduce the number of places and see them more thoroughly: for example, 2 nights Glasgow, 3 nights Inverary (closer than going all the way to Skye and also wicked scenic), 2-3 nights at Edinburgh, perhaps stay in Windsor 4 nights and day trip to London, Hampton Court Palace, and maybe Stonehenge. Plus a day for Windsor itself. See what appeals to you at each location and maybe we can help you figure out how much time you'll spend doing it.

We planned a four week trip for England, Wales and Scotland back in 2017.

The more that I researched for the trip, including seriously evaluating where I wanted to go and what to see and do, the more it became obvious that four weeks was not enough time for an in-depth trip of all three. I eliminated Scotland and North Wales (we had visited before). We stuck with 5 nights in South Wales, 3 in Bath, 6 in the Cotswolds, 1 in Warwick, 3 in York, 1 in Pickering (Yourshire Moors and Whitby), 2 in Durham, 1 for Hadrian's Wall, 3 for the Lake District, 2 in Winchester, 1 in Southampton prior to our TA cruise back to the USA.

We had been to London before, so we didn't go back, also, we had been to Stonehenge, Salisbury, Avebury, Cambridge in England as well as Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews, Loch Ness and Inverness in Scotland (and Conwy in N. Wales.

If you haven't been to London, 2 nights is way short, 2 nights in Edinburgh is probably OK. I strongly recommend York with a minimum of 2 nights. That is not enough, but you can see a lot with 2 nights.
The Cotswolds have much to see. Just doing the small villages and towns take more than one full day and Cirencester, Oxford, Blenheim Palace and Stratford Upon Avon beckon. You could spend your entire 6 days in England in the Cotswolds.

Wales is too far from London for a day trip. There is a great castle in Cardiff and another a 10 train ride from Cardiff, as well as the Center of Welsh Life Museum that is a few miles west of the city. You would need to rent a car to do more of the castles.

The Lake District in the NW of England has spectacular scenery and hiking is huge there. We stayed in Keswick and very much enjoyed our stay there. The North of England is great with wonderful scenic places and less traffic. The people are very friendly.

Renting a car is great for doing the countryside, but you can see much on day trips from London. Places like Cambridge, Canterbury, Oxford, Winchester, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Stratford Upon Avon, Blenheim Palace, Bath and more.

I strongly recommend for Scotland to go to Loch Ness, it is amazing. Haven't been to the Isle of Skye, but probably will do so when we go back to Scotland. St. Andrews is nice, especially if you are a golfer. The Western Highlands are another good choice.

I suggest that you eliminate either Scotland or England for this trip and come back later for the other.

My husband and I are also going in September but we are going for 3 weeks. We are having issues with it not being enough time to see what we want to see. We have eliminated Stonehenge due to it being highly overrated and overcrowded. There seems to be other similar places that are not so well known that we will see on our travels. We rented a car for one week of our travels so we can explore villages and not be confined to public transportation. Good Luck and enjoy!

Twelve nights is eleven really workable days (one hopes with not too much lingering jetlag by Day 2). It's really not enough for England and Scotland, especially for someone who prefers smaller towns and doesn't just want to go to London, Edinburgh and maybe one rural area. I suggest you rethink this and frame this trip as "the first of our two/three/four trips to Great Britain". That way you won't need to travel so many miles. Getting to Scotland's scenic spots will take more time than you expect from looking at the mileage, even in your own car (which you would want for moving around outside Edinburgh and Glasgow).

A couple of nights in London doesn't really get you much of anything. It's a costly city and large; it you really don't care for places that size, there's no shame in skipping it entirely. I love it myself, but you don't have much time. If I could spend 88 or 89 days in France and not go to Paris except to change trains, you can certainly go to Great Britain for 12 nights and skip London.

You have, in practice, 11 days. IMO to cover London plus day trips, the Cotswolds, north Wales, York, villages, Edinburgh/Glasgow, Skye and the Highlands or Oban and Mull is more than a 3 week trip at a busier pace than I would want.

I would suggest that you focus on England and Wales OR London plus Scotland. You may struggle to find accommodation on Skye for September, as many places get booked a year ahead.

Thanks so much everyone. I'm going to rethink this whole thing. We want to see so much, but not enough time.

Don't despair. I think you can fulfill many of your wishes if you let the geography work with you. Since you prefer the smaller towns & villages, a rental car would probably be your best bet. For example:

Arrive Edinburgh, stay 2 nights & see the city using public transportation. Add 1 more night in the same lodging if you want to take a day trip by bus to Roslin Chapel or Linlithgow or similar.

Train or rental car to Pitlochry, stay 2 nights, opportunities to hike & see highland countryside.

Train or drive to Durham (pretty much an all-day travel day), 1 or 2 nights (2 if you want to branch off to Hadrian's Wall).

York 2 nights, opportunities to hike, see smaller towns/villages especially if you choose to have a car.

London for remainder of your stay. Obviously turn in your car when you reach London.

That's just an example; obviously there are countless other choices. With your limited time you won't see everything, but you can get a very good taste of the things that most interest you.

Following on Acraven's idea, consider skipping London entirely on this trip, and just staying in an airport hotel the night before your flight out. You can always seen London on another trip, and not only one to the UK, but to anywhere (it's easy to book a London layover of a few days, particularly on your way back from Europe when you won't be jet-lagged and so can enjoy each minute of it).

With London out of the picture, that will give you more time to see the rural areas and places far from London that are more of interest to you. I agree that seeing these places (such as the Cotswolds or Welsh castles) as day trips from London doesn't work well in any case.

I like the idea of landing in Scotland, spending 1-2 days in Edinburgh, picking up a rental car, and working your way down to Heathrow. I haven't driven in the UK, but two things everyone emphasizes: a car is really really useful for seeing places outside the cities, and getting anywhere takes MUCH longer than you think it will, coming from a US perspective. You will have to be ruthless in cutting out places, so you can enjoy the ones you do see. As Acraven says, just think of think of this as your first of several trips to the UK, and it will go much better than if you try to see "everything."

I like eplpd's itinerary except I would stay in Edinburgh longer and take a Rabbies Day Tour to the Highlands instead of driving there. I would minimize changes in hotel locations, but I did feel it was worth it to spend one night in Durham. We didn't have time to do Hadrian's Wall. I loved Durham-a nice break from bigger cities. It is a small college town and our room at the Marriott had a view of the river, which has a nice walking path. Personally, I would forget driving and just take trains everywhere unless you decide to go to the Cotswolds-which again have some nice day tours from London. If you have not driven in the UK before, you may find it more stressfull than you expect. Of course, if you decide to take the train you will need to seriously limit the size and amount luggage you take. Just another option for you to consider.

Wow! Thanks so much everyone for all of the helpful responses. I'm going to get another guidebook and keep reading these forums for ideas. I will definitely scale back the itinerary and repost when I do.

Thank you all once again!

If the countryside and smaller places are what you prefer I suggest cutting out London altogether. Fly into Scotland and maybe out of Leeds and concentrate on Edinburgh south to York and then over to Leeds to fly out?

Make a second trip for Southern England and Wales?

I envy your 11 days. All we can ever manage is 5 full days (not including flight days). So far we've done two trips to London. On the first trip we made day trips to Hampton Court Palace and Eastbourne/Beachy Head, and on the second trip we made a day trip to York. I would have preferred two days in York.

Are you interested more in hills or coast?

I'm currently trying to plan/pair down a similar trip.