Thinking about doing 14 days in England/Scotland by car

For a first time traveler, 3 days in London will barely scratch the surface, and you will likely suffer with jetlag for the first 24-36 hours.

Driving on the left with a right-hand drive car will likely take a bit of getting used to, as will the roundabuts and manual transmission with the left hand. Driving in the UK is slow, even with the national speed limit on dual carriageways and motorways at 70. Driving in the countryside is even slower; and driving in the countryside in Scotland can be quite slow.

It can be quite a long drive up to Scotland, an easy half day train trip. York is on the way, and other places you can see.

I'm sure that you have read through the guidebooks by now - what "out of the city" stuff caught your eye?

Realistic? Yes, but you need to plan some of it out.

When is the trip?

Thanks for the reply!

Planning my trip for the first couple weeks in May...So I've got some time.

My interests lie in everything from Neolithic Britain through the Romans and Anglo-Saxons up until the Norman Conquest. So everything from Bath, the Lake District, Oxford, Cambridge, all the way up to Orkney. I love cathedrals, architecture, ruins, little villages and rolling hills. I'm a photographer at heart and I love to capture the off-the-beaten path places, like I do here in the States. I know the rail system in the UK is fantastic, but the idea of speeding past something and thinking, "I'd love to spend some time there" just kills me. I don't like traveling by schedule. If I want to stand in front of a painting at the Tate for 30 minutes, I'll do it. The idea that I have to move quickly because a tour bus is leaving, or my train leaves in 30 minutes makes travel stressful. And I don't like stress on vacations. The idea of taking a good book and sitting on a hill with a great view for a few hours is what I like to do.

In London, I had planned on doing a couple of days at the various museums, and maybe a show. I really don't have much interest in the super-touristy things (London Eye, Buckingham Palace) but I'd like to see the British Museum and the Tate for sure.

I know it's a lot...that's why I'm asking.

Thanks again.

Nigel's advice is perfect. You need to rationalise down what you need to see. You say you are interested in Orkney, who would not be?, but in this trip you are probably going to say no. In the time scale the central belt, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, is probably the furthest.

It should be noted each of the nations of the UK probably has enough history for your interests, less time on the road is more time enjoying the sites. As much as I'd like to say you must visit Scotland, it is your time and if the time is tight I'd say leave it.

You will have more reason to come back.

Don't left driving on the 'wrong side' worry you. You get used to it quickly, especially if you first at first on the Motorway. Just keep reminding yourself to keep left!

Off beat places that you mght enjoy as I did:
Threave Castle - a castle ruin on the middle of a river
Amesbury - a stone circle much larger than Stonehenge and nearby West Kennet Long Barrow, a passage grave that you have to take a walk thru a field to get to. ,You will probably be the only ne there.

Newmarket, center of British horse racing. Fun to see the jockeys riding the horses thru the town to the training area -very colorful

Make that AVEBURY, not Amesbury

BuckeyeTraveller,

life if full of compromises.

If you know whats the is to do/see/experience you can plan for it. If you dont, you will be bouncing around alot and may not do/see some important things until its too late. Having a plan doesnt have to tie you down, i think it makes you more informed as to whats to do/see and to maximize your time there. YOu say you dont mind spending 30 minutes waiting in line, but there maybe a better way to spend that 30 minutes, maybe in the museum itself?

doing your homework (research) now wont cost you alot. Over there, you are on the clock. If you want to waste your time overthere, you can do that too. But just be aware of what you are doing or not.

You can also use places as a "base camp" ,stay locally and then do day trips from that "base camp" .

with regards to driving, thats subjective. for some its like falling off a horse. for others its like crashing into a brick wall. You wont know until you do it.

As you know, they have a great train system over there. I suggest you look into using it as much as you can and do the driving when you need to.

good luck and happy trails.

As emma suggests, some compromising is necessary for any travel, unless one has unlimited time and finances! If you're determined to see a bit of England and Scotland it's certainly doable. Our first trip (2 of us) years ago included starting in London, taking a train to Edinburgh for a couple of days, then stopping in York for 3 nights on the way back to London. I'm not sure we even had 12 days total, but you go when you can and for how long you can. This past August, we'd initally thought about seeing more of England and Scotland on a 2 1/2 week trip, but decided we'd limit it to just locations in Scotland.

After flying from Denver to London Heathrow, we transferred immediately to another terminal to catch a flight to Edinburgh. If you're already at the airport, that saves getting into London to catch a train at some point, and the flight to Edinburgh was quick, comfortable, and well-priced. You could fly to Glasgow instead, but check the flight times and availability.

After a week in Edinburgh without having rented a car yet, we flew to Shetland, then ferried to Orkney. A flight on flybe Air to Kirkwall, Orkney is worth considering to maximize your time, but you could also drive if that met your needs. Getting the hang of deliberately driving On The Left took some time, and it was extremely helpful having a second person to help the driver keep the car from going too far either left or right. Except for the Motorway, the roads in Scotland all seemed narrower than we're used to in the USA. While the secondary highways are wide enough for cars and even big trucks, there's not a lot of excess elbow room, and you have to focus on stying inside your lane and not drifting off the left edge. We were there at the height of tourist season, and traffic was likely heavier than you'd experience in May. Not all the other drivers were adept at staying on thier side of the center line, and in the countryside, you might be sharing the road with wandering sheep, too.

The UK has enough to occupy a traveler that you could easily fill every day with no actual agenda and would come across serendipitous finds. And you'd have a minimal, if any, language barrier :-) You may be well aware of this, but London has both the Tate Britain and Tate Modern museums.

As emma suggests, some compromising is necessary for any travel, unless one has unlimited time and finances! If you're determined to see a bit of England and Scotland it's certainly doable. Our first trip (2 of us) years ago included starting in London, taking a train to Edinburgh for a couple of days, then stopping in York for 3 nights on the way back to London. I'm not sure we even had 12 days total, but you go when you can and for how long you can. This past August, we'd initially thought about seeing more of England and Scotland on a 2 1/2 week trip, but decided we'd limit it to just locations in Scotland.

After flying from Denver to London Heathrow, we transferred immediately to another terminal to catch a flight to Edinburgh. If you're already at the airport, that saves getting into London to catch a train at some point, and the flight to Edinburgh was quick, comfortable, and well-priced. You could fly to Glasgow instead, but check the flight times and availability.

After a week in Edinburgh without having rented a car yet, we flew to Shetland, then ferried to Orkney. A flight on flybe Air to Kirkwall, Orkney is worth considering to maximize your time, but you could also drive if that met your needs. After arriving, getting the hang of deliberately driving On The Left took some time, and it was extremely helpful having a second person to help remind the driver to keep the car from going too far to the left. Except for the Motorway, the roads in Scotland all seemed narrower than we're used to in the USA. While the secondary highways are wide enough for cars and even big trucks, there's not a lot of excess elbow room, and you have to focus on staying inside your lane and not drifting off the left edge. We were there at the height of tourist season, and traffic was likely heavier than you'd experience in May. Not all the other drivers were adept at staying on their side of the center line, and in the countryside, you might be sharing the road with wandering sheep, too.

The UK has enough to occupy a traveler that you could easily fill every day with no actual agenda and would come across serendipitous finds. And you'd have a minimal, if any, language barrier :-) You may be well aware of this, but London has both the Tate Britain and Tate Modern museums.

With just 14 days, you could have a great trip pursuing your interests and not venture out of the south of England. London definitely calls for more than 3 days. Then there are Bath, Stonehenge and/or Avebury, maybe Canterbury and Cambridge, Wells (nice cathedral there), Devon, and Cornwall. If you are set on seeing some further north places, York and Durham have beautiful cathedrals and positively ooze history. There are also several ruined abbeys worth visiting; Fountains and Rievaulx (sp?) in the north and Tintern in the southwest. There are plenty of picturesque villages all over. So, what I'm saying is save Scotland for another time. In May, there should be no problem about securing lodgings. If you rough out an itinerary, you can better determine what you'll want to see in each locale, without sacrificing spontaneity.

At the risk of piling on, let me agree that you want to cover more ground than you'll be able to, enjoyably or realistically, in just two weeks. I'd suggest choosing between north and south for this trip. May weather is likely to be better in the south. Consider enough time in London to see the Museum of London as well as the sights you mentioned, and take a train to an outlying place (Bath? York?) to rent the car. Then make your drive from there, ending back at Heathrow.

Or the northern option: Fly into Glasgow or Edinburgh, spend a few days, rent the car and head either south or north. Explore Scotland and maybe far northern England by car, return to your Scottish airport to fly home.

Driving is great for flexibility, which you obviously prefer, and for rural areas, where you'll find much of what you're looking for. Left-side driving seems to be easy for some Americans and a challenge for others (like me). I'd suggest an automatic shift to eliminate one distraction, you'll need to put your whole mind to staying left and looking right at roundabouts! It's harder without a co-pilot. But you may find it easier than I do.

As another poster, said, to cover all the ground you want in the time you have, you'll be flying on motorways a lot, passing scenery that contains a lot of worthwhile stops. Better to limit your orbit and get deeper into your journey. FWIW.

"Spontaneity is my favorite kind of travel. I hate traveling by itinerary."

Yes, but you may at least want to do some research and make a list of things you want to see between London and Edinburgh. Or between Edinburgh and Glasgow. You need a rough plan of some sort, rather than wandering around.

When I did a similar British driving route as my first trip to Europe, I had three weeks for it (and reached Skye, but not Orkney). No matter how much time you have, there will always be more to see. If you have a car, give priority to places that you can only get to by car. Big cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh require more city navigation and possibly parking fees but would be easy to reach by train or plane on another trip. Compared to the USA, distances are short. B&B hosts exclaimed if I had driven as far as 200 miles in a day. But sticking to the smaller roads to reach out-of-the-way places does take much more time than driving the motorway (which would be mostly paralleled by train options). www.viamichelin.com can help plan driving times.