Need help with 22-day itinerary (England, Scotland, Ireland)

Planning an itinerary is a very personal thing - what is a "must see" for one is a total pass for another since it is all about what YOU want to see!

Your kids are old enough to provide valuable input - if they are happy - Mom and Dad will be too! So, I suggest you get some guidebooks (Rick Steve's are excellent, btw:-)) and have everyone go through them making a list of what interests them. Then look for commonalities - this will help you start putting together a rough itinerary and help you determine whether you want to focus the trip on Ireland or include England and/or Scotland.
A couple of things to keep in mind:
Since you plan to go in February you will be dealing with shorter days and colder/wetter conditions so not ideal for hiking/outdoor exploring (such as the Burren in Ireland).
Are you comfortable driving overseas? While you can see quite a bit using public transportation, some routes require a car - so, if renting a car isn't in the cards, that will help you narrow it down.
Every change of location will eat up anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4's of a day.

Once you've come up with a "rough" plan, post it here for help and feedback on feasibility and logistics.

Happy planning!!!

Is this for Feb of 2020? It’s great to brainstorm but if you’re going in a few weeks, it’s time to start booking.

A few comments: February is an absolutely lousy time for a scenic trip and the short days don’t help with seeing the countryside. I doubt you’ll even be able to see the cliffs of Dover from the water that time of year. I do love the castle.

You’re going to get conflicting advice about renting a car. Have you ever driven on the left? Some people will say it’s easy as cake. I’d say it’s about as easy as asking me to conjure up a wedding cake. Plus, there’s the annoyance of parking the thing plus dealing with pick up and drop off and all the insurance questions. Plus, I always think while a delayed train can be an annoyance, a car accident, even a fender bender, abroad can be a major pain.

As far as planning, I’d probably cut the trip to two areas. I’m not too familiar with Ireland outside of Dublin so I’ll leave that to those experts. I’d say pick two. Fly into DUB and then to LHR and do London with a day trip or two. I’m sure the Stonehenge tours run year round. Dover might be a bit iffy and if your goal was to see the White Cliffs then skip it.

You could also do Dublin and then fly to Scotland or the north of England. I looked at getting to Hadrian’s Wall from Newcastle when I was there this year and it was just too hard via public transit. It may be easier from Scotland.

If you arrange the trip to have Dublin at the end, you do get the advantage of preclearing USA Immigration and Customs at the Dublin airport, this can be great as you don’t have to deal with it when you get off the plane after a long flight.

This is way too generic and too much distance for me to be of much real help. But I would say that if the trip “started with Ireland”, then that’s what you might do.

The days will be short and some things closed off-season, so you can’t pack as much in. But you could:
fly in to Dublin (3 nights);
rent a car when leaving, spend 1 night (maybe Kilkenny) along the way to
Killarney (3-4 nights) using it as a base;
drive to Limerick (3 nights) - I say Limerick because you have some options for indoor things if the weather is bad but places like the Cliffs are still drivable in a day if it’s nice;
turn the car in & fly from Shannon to Edinburgh (3-4 nights);
drive or train or combination to Hadrian’s Wall (2 nights) to have a full day - or maybe take a tour and not use any nights.
If you had a tour returning to Edinburgh (I don’t know if these exist), you could train on to London for your last nights.

Or do it all the other way around.

This doesn’t sound particularly fun, so I am not recommending it - just trying to show you how quickly your time will go. You are talking about locations that only seem close. I would definitely do the Ireland part with kids! And instead of Scotland and England, you could add in Northern Ireland, looping back to Dublin to fly home. I have been to Ireland twice this year and definitely still need a lot more time there!

Just food for thought.

We only visited Ireland one time, and did that with a tour company,mostly because they do not have the public transportation infrastructure that is available in England and Scotland. We DO NOT drive in Europe. But the added difficulty of driving on the 'other' side of the road in the UK is an additional deterrent for us. Also, petrol (gasoline) is more expensive and parking is VERY scarce and expensive. We found that we really love using the trains in England and Scotland. If you do include Scotland, there are lots of stone circles to see there, so you could easily skip Stonehenge (it is less 'accessible' now that you can't walk up to or among the stones.

Here is a possible itinerary (based on our personal preferences mostly):
Day 1- fly to Dublin
Days 2- tour Dublin
Day 3- fly to Inverness,
Days 3-6 Inverness and surrounds- possible day trips include Culloden and Clava Cairns, cruise up Loch Ness and see Urquhart Castle, LONG day trip to Orkney, day trip to Isle of Sky and see Glencoe, cruise on firth for bird and dolphin/whale watching,etc. (NOTE_ Inverness has one of the best Tourist Information Offices I've seen)
Day 7- train to Aviemore in the Cairngorm Mts.

Day 7-9 tour Aviemore and surrounds
Day 10 train to Edinburgh
Day 10-14 tour Edinburgh and surrounds
Day 15 train to York
Day 15-16 tour York
Day 17 train to London-
Day 17-end of stay- tour London and do day trips
possible day trips (I'd suggest one about every third day or so) Windsor, Bath, Cardiff Wales, Cambridge or Oxford, Canterbury and possibly Dover, Stratford-upon-Avon (could do an overnight here and possibly see a Shakespeare play if you don't want/get to 'do' the Globe Theatre, Winchester, and lots of others....
Fly home from Heathrow
We've visited England/Scotland/ and parts of Wales more than 40 times, so feel free to let me know if you have other questions.

You might want to check out the itinerary for Rick Steves England, Scotland, and Whales tours to see where he thinks is important to see.

We love all the countries in the British Isles, but GEEZE, I would never do this in February. For most of Northern England and Scotland the temps will probably never go over 45 degrees F.

Also, days will be very short.
I would recommend staying the England. Visit the countryside instead of just the bigger cities like York and London.

If you still do this itinerary, the I do recommend a couple of days in Dublin, the HoHo bus there is a great option. Don't miss the Guinness Brewery. The Giant's Causeway is worth a visit, but that is north of Belfast. Are you going to Belfast?

York is fabulous, don't miss the famous Cathedral, walk the walls and see some museums there, including the National Railway Museum.

Take day trips from London to places like Stonehenge, Salisbury, Oxford, Cotswolds, Blenheim Palace, Winchester, Cambridge and Canterbury. If you love Shakespeare, don't miss Stratford Upon Avon.

I did a England/Scotland/Ireland trip in three weeks about 40 years ago. It was exhausting and huge parts of it were a blur. Too much transit time, and not enough quality time anywhere. And I was alone, and with a rail pass - not driving (or parking). But definitely look into open-jaw (aka multi-city) air fares to save some time. For example US>London: Dublin>US.

If it were me, I'd skip Scotland this trip, since it will likely be colder and darker than England and Ireland, which will be cold and dark enough.

February - yikes. Well, I've visited Hadrian's Wall twice, once in July and once in mid-September. I was pretty cold tolerant by the September visit (years ago on the July visit I lived in FL so was not cold-hardy) but I thought I was going to freeze my a$$ off both times. On the July visit the wind was so strong we had to picnic in the car and could hardly get the doors open.

If you still feel like this is a must do for you to include Hadrian's Wall, I'd spend 3 nights in York and see if you can do a day trip to Vindolanda or some place along the wall depending on the weather.