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Itinerary Advice - England/Scotland May 2019

Posted by (Pennsylvania) on

Hi! My husband and I are counting down the days until our trip to England and Scotland next May. A good portion of our trip is booked (i.e. flights and some lodging) but we are still undecided on some areas of our itinerary and looking for advice.

This is our first trip to Europe. My husband has always wanted to go to Scotland and I've always wanted to go to England so this is our dream trip! We will be flying into Edinburgh and out of London. The trip is for 15 days with 2 days being for travel. We ARE NOT into moving around a lot or trying to see everything. We actually don't want to! We thoroughly plan on coming back. We will not be driving. We don't want the stress for our first time overseas.

Here is the itinerary that we're looking at currently. I want to have plans but have flexibility to move things around as needed.

5/10 - Train from home to PHL to fly out in the evening; Overnight flight
5/11 - Arrive at EDI; Check into Airbnb in New Town & explore to fight jet lag
5/12 to 5/13 - Explore Edinburgh; We don't want to plan this heavily but we would like to see Edinburgh Castle, climb Author's Seat (weather permitting), visit the Royal Mile and more! It's sort of all about what we find while we are there and what we feel like doing at that time.
5/14 to 5/16 - Take a 3 day Isle of Skye tour with Rabbie's. I've seen good reviews about them and with not wanting to drive + wanting to see Skye this is our best route. We have a B&B already booked on Skye. Tour is not booked yet (we were weighing driving this portion only) When we return from the tour we are thinking about taking the train to York (purchasing in advance) and sleeping one night there. This would allow us to spend the following day in York on the way to London. We don't have accommodations booked for this night yet due to the uncertainty of where to stay.
5/17 - Arrive in London either after spending time in York or arriving straight from Edinburgh. I'm assuming we would be arriving at Kings Cross. We have an Airbnb in the South Bank.
5/18 to 5/21 - Explore London; Same deal as Edinburgh, we have things we want to see but haven't planned out what to do and when. I've grouped the things we want to see by area so we aren't jumping all over London. We want to see the British Museum, the Tower of London, the Churchill War Rooms and more. *We were thinking of doing a 1 day tour to Stonehenge, Bath and a Cotswolds Village but I am unsure if I want to cut time from London since it is already limited. *
5/22 - Day trip (independently) to Windsor
5/23 - Day trip (independently) to Harry Potter Studios; Big Harry Potter fan so I plan on taking my time.
5/24 - Fly home!

I've been combing through old posts and it's been extremely helpful with nailing this itinerary down! I hope this all makes sense. I really want this trip to go well. We're both anxious about traveling. Thanks for reading :)

Posted by
4334 posts

You have a great itinerary. I think York and London are far more interesting than Stonehenge/Bath/Cotswolds. If it were me, I would leave the driving in Scotland to Rabbies-we took their Highlands tour this summer and it was great. You can walk on top of the old city wall in York.

Posted by
6522 posts

This is a good plan, you've obviously given it a lot of thought. I haven't done a Rabbies tour but their reputation is good and I'll do one whenever I get back to Scotland. I'd recommend the overnight in York and most of the following day, there's a lot to see there and the train on to London is only a couple of hours. We stayed at the Abbey Guest House, right across the river from the station and a short walk from the Yorkshire Museum, Minster, and the medieval center. It has different owners now but looks pretty much the same on the website.

Depending on when your flight is, where your London hotel is, and how you feel about one-night stays, you could spend your last night in Windsor, closer to LHR. Might be easier than getting out there from London.

Posted by
1125 posts

Your plans look solid to me. Rabbies have a good reputation up here on Skye. Their drivers are courteous to other drivers, and they even come back in the winter and help repair eroded footpaths. I have heard many good reports of their tours, and if you are at all nervous about driving here (and the roads on Skye are challenging with single track stretches where you need to use passing places) then Rabbies is a excellent idea.

Enjoy your trip.

Posted by
1326 posts

I'd cut any idea of Stonehenge, Bath, or the Cotswolds. You've already got a lot of moving around on the trip, it'll feel good to be planted in one place for a few days.

Posted by
13955 posts

I love Stonehenge and Bath (and Salisbury, too even though you didn't list it!) but I, too, would skip it this trip. To me the 1 day tours of Stonehenge/Bath/Cotswolds is just too fast to enjoy.

I'd save this for the next trip when you could go out to Salisbury for 2 nights (take the local shuttle bus out to the Stones on the full day), then on to Bath for 3 nights (one of your full days you could do a day trip on Mad Max to the Cotswolds). See, we're already working on getting your next trip planned, lol!!

You may have your day trips listed the way they are just to sort them out in your mind, but I would separate them with a day in London in between. It's just a hassle to get to the train station for a day's excursion. I'd also plan your HP trip for earlier in your London time. I have not been but it will be a full day, I think, so you may want to have your day before departure with less rushed activities so you can get your cases repacked, have a leisurely dinner, etc.

With your forum reading, you may have realized you will want to get your tickets for the Churchill War Rooms ahead of time. You'll need to do HP ahead as well, I think. British Museum is free but also sign up for their emails to see if there is any kind of special exhibition going on when you are there. They usually have timed entry and a paid admission to them. Plus it's really fun to get emails from them. Makes my "InBox" seem so much interesting, lol!!

Also take a look at London Walks. This company has a wide variety of walks given daily. Usually around 10£ (8 for seniors), no reservations needed, just show up. Very interesting way to see some smaller nooks and crannies of London!

www.walks.com

Posted by
1450 posts

When you are in York allow some time to go to Castle Howard; used many times in Movies and Television as a location. If you like the Churchill War rooms; check out the Imperial War Museum which has several interaction exhibits including London Bombing in WWII. Your second trip could the be the S & SW with Portsmouth with the wreck of the Mary Rose, Bath, Lacock (for Harry Potter Fans), and the Cotswolds and then Wales with Edward's Castles. A day trip to this area would be like opening a box of chocolates and looking but not eating any.

Posted by
6 posts

Wow!!! Thank you all for the replies!!! I will get back to everyone once I get home but I really appreciate everyone's insight :)

Edit: I had a chance to read everyone's replies! I'm not sure how to directly reply to anyone but there are some wonderful suggestions.

I'm going to move the HP day to that Sunday plus completely scrapping the 1 day tour (Felt guilty about that originally but not anymore!). I love the idea of doing that area our next trip. We want to do 2 weeks in England one year and 2 weeks in Scotland. This is just the taste!

I appreciate the affirmation about our itinerary. It really means a lot.

I love the idea of staying in Windsor but we are getting a nice discount on the flat for being there for 7 days. Our flight is at 10 am so its not super horrible but we'll be doing that next time for sure. I didn't realize how close it was.

Thanks for the tip about the Churchill War Rooms tickets needing to be in advance! I want to get as much done ahead of time as possible. I've been trying to really understand the 241 deal and decoy tickets so I'm hoping I understand it by the time we go.

Thanks again! This forum is so awesome!!

Posted by
22 posts

Hello, I found this thread very interesting and informative. My son and I are taking a much dreamed of trip to England and Scotland in less than a month now (he's 16 and has worked really hard and saved $ for this)! A couple questions I have: he is going to the Harry Potter Studios and since I'm not a fan (not opposed, just never got into it) he is very happy to enjoy it on his own so I wonder if anyone could give a suggestion or two for me for that area. I know we take the train up to Watford Junction so maybe there is a grand house or castle or even a nice tea shop that I could visit while he is enjoying HP.

I'd also like help on figuring what we should purchase for travel in London. We are there for 6 days and staying in an AirBnB outside of London (on a budget) which our closest tube station is Honor Oak Park. I'm confused about the oyster card versus travel card, etc.

Thank you for any help!

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