With your interests can you add a few more days?

We can't - my husband has to be back to teach summer school and we already booked the flights (SUPER AMAZINGLY CHEAP RIGHT NOW!). We know we cannot do it all, and wish we could do more, but as teachers and with a 9 year old on his first trip, we figured that's all we can afford, emotionally, and financially, haha.

Also - I have NO idea how that formatting did that. Not intentional at all.

I would limit the Edinburgh part to 3 nights and spend more time in London. Trains and tours are easier than driving. Sorry but there's no way you can cover all your interests(I'm thinking about Liverpool and Hadrian's Wall and country gardens/cliffs and Wales-you mentioned them but I don't see them in your itinerary) in your allotted time. You can take a day tour from Edinburgh to Loch Ness and highlands with Rabbies tours. National Museum of Scotland is really interesting. You could do Glasgow as a day trip from Edinburgh-it gets really tiring really quickly when you change hotels
In London and environs:
Harry Potter exhibit in Leavesden will be a must for you-get tickets 6 months in advance
Natural History Museum in London is really good and of course the British Museum
Tower of London
I have never been to Stonehenge because it's too touristy and the stones are roped off-I went to Avebury instead-it requires car or tour to get there-we took a Mad Max tour from Bath that went there and also to Lacock(Harry Potter) and Castle Combe to see Cotswold cottages. It was a morning tour so you would need to spend the previous night in Bath.
I don't know what beach you're going to, but if it's Brighton, it's composed of pebbles not sand.

Hi Nicole -

I'm going to offer my thoughts on a more east coast based itinerary. Do London then hop on the east coast train to Edinburgh but get off at Alnmouth (locals pronounce it Alan-mouth). You may need to change trains at Newcastle or Morpeth as I'm unsure whether the express trains stop at Alnmouth.

Here you'll find miles of almost deserted beaches, more castles than you can shake a stick at - Alnwick Castle (a Harry Potter must-do if my most recent visit is anything to go by), and nearby Warkworth, Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh castles. Alnwick and Bamburgh are still 'whole' and lived in, while Warkworth and Dunstanburgh are ruins. Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh are literally on the beach. All can be visited/toured. Offshore, the Farne Islands, accessed from Seahouses by boat are a sea birders paradise.

You could try Janice at Westwinds in Alnmouth for B&B accommodation, (I've stayed there - it's a tad eccentric, but there's cake on tap and one room has a balcony overlooking the sea and shore line. Other hotels and guest houses are available). The Red Lion is good for food (there are a couple of other options in town too, while if you can get in (advance booking required) the Tree House in the grounds of the Alnwick Castle Gardens looks an amazing place to eat (Google it!) and incidentally, The Poisoned Garden, full of potentially lethal plants, also in the grounds of Alnwick Castle appealed to the nine year old in me!.

There's no railway station in Alnwick - there used to be but the former railway station now houses Barter Books a huge rare and second hand book shop, worth half an hour or so on a dull day! - but at the end of your stay Alnmouth does have a station and from there it's not too far up to Edinburgh (again you may need to transfer from local train to express at Berwick on Tweed). You also may need a short taxi ride to and from Alnmouth as the town is not exactly on the railway line.

If you don't want to head quite so far north immediately, then you could break the trip at York and access the east coast seaside towns, either by bus or hire car. Whitby, Staithes and Robin Hoods Bay and the almost unknown Runswick Bay are all good although there's almost nothing at Runswick Bay other than a pub, a beach cafe and the beach and sea to entertain you! The more southerly beach resorts - Bridlington and Scarborough for instance - are a bit tired run down and tacky in my view.

Hope this gives you some food for thought at any rate! Hope your planning goes well and whatever you end up doing and wherever you end up staying you have a great trip.

Ian

P.S. Forgot Holy Island (Lindisfarne) off the coast of Northumbria, although you'd need some sort of transport and cooperating tide timetables to get there and Hadrians Wall is south of Alnmouth (the fort of Segadunum in Newcastle is based in the appropriately named Wallsend). However I'd recommend trying to see the wall in its wilder mid sections, and for this a car or tour may be best options. (There is the AD122 - see what they did there? - bus service that travels the wall, which might be of use).

Do the 10 days include the arrival day in London and departure day in Edinburgh?

I think you only have time for four days in London and four days in Edinburgh, with one of the days in Edinburgh being a Rabbie's trip to Loch Ness. You could subtract one of the days from Edinburgh and stay in York on the way up there. Definitely take the train between London and Edinburgh, reserve your tickets early for best prices. Anyway you are going to lose the best part of a third day checking out of your London lodgings, training up to Edinburgh, and finding and checking into your hotel in Edinburgh.

(This is based on day 1 being arrival day and day 10 being departure day -- if you have more days than that, I would add them on to London as there are SO many things to see there.)

I agree with Kim that if you want to add a third city it could be York. There is a wall you can walk. However, I believe Hadrian's Wall is more easily accessed from Durham and it is a lovely little town. Both are on the way to Edinburgh.