10 day trip is now 5… :(

It will be difficult to see what you want to see with the time you have. It will take longer to drive to places than you might think and it appears you haven’t taken into consideration the amount of time you’ll actually spend at the places you want to visit.

Well I sympathize with your dilemma and I know you hate to say goodby to all,the plans you were happy with! But good for you for making the best of it.

Scotland is a beautiful place, so enjoying the places you see and not worrying about trying to see too much is the best idea. :) No matter how much you see (spent a month), there is always more!

I would say that heading on to Glasgow immediately upon arrival is a good use of your time. And Mull is another great choice from there. The 3 island tour from Oban makes sense for you now. If you have a couple of days open while in Glasgow to account for weather, it would be nice. The trip wouldn’t be much fun in pouring rain (light rain would be fine).

I would say no to Glenfinnan - plenty of beauty easier. And Glasgow to Glencoe to Nairn is a LONG day of driving without much time for stopping. And not very relaxing for the one driving. Maybe stay somewhere closer to Glencoe or Fort William instead. From Fort William, you could take the route back to Edinburgh that goes through Pitlochry and Perth. Queen’s View is a beautiful short detour from Pitlochry. Then return your car when you arrive in Edinburgh.

For Thursday, you might look at a day trip with Rabbies. It’s a good compromise. The trip to St. Andrews is good value for short visits.

Most of all, have fun!

From EDI Airport the way to Glasgow is without a doubt the bus- walk out of the Terminal and the bus stop is there. Board and sit back for an hour or so.
Any other route, involving a train, requires a transfer.

And the service is so frequent you totally don't want to book in advance. That will only have you hanging round for a pre-booked time.

As for the rest of the itinerary this is breakneck speed. If you want to do that in that time a car is the only way. Transit is impossible.

Glasgow to Glenfinnan with a photo stop (and little more than that) is a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive. So leave GLA at 9am, that is close to 2pm leaving Glenfinnan.

You then have a 2 hour drive to the ferry at Kilchoan for the last boat to Tobermory at 4.45pm.

You then have one day on Mull- either a boat trip OR Iona OR Island Exploration (1 of 3)- either Iona or Staffa boat trip could be cancelled by weather.

TUESDAY- 1 hour drive to Craignure, 45 minute line up, 1 hour ferry ride, 4 hour drive to Nairn, more with stops.

WEDNESDAY AM- 4 hour drive Nairn to Edinburgh before the work day starts.

This is a near impossible itinerary, even with a car. I would strongly suggest this needs a rethink.

What I would suggest is Bus or Bus/Train to Oban on arrival day SATURDAY (via Glencoe and Fort William or preferably direct if you can lose Glencoe). SUNDAY- Do an Iona or Staffa/Mull Tour from Oban; stay Oban ; MONDAY- Oban to Inverness by BUS, Inv- Nairn by BUS or TRAIN;

If you really want, a side trip Fort William to Glenfinnan by citybus or train can be squeezed in here.

TUESDAY- Nairn to Edinburgh via Aberdeen by Train.

This is still a breakneck pace but at least it works. Either way you do not have time for a jet lag recovery afternoon on arrival day- you have to power through

I agree with TexasTravelmom that Nairn is going to take a bit of time and effort to get there, and while it is a lovely town, I don't think it's worth spending so much effort to get there. As TTM said, there is a lot of beauty to enjoy where you are. Mull is a gorgeous island and Tobermory is well worth the time to visit.

You could take a day trip to St. Andrews (via a day tour or on your own) once you are in Edinburgh. Another option might be Stirling, which has the incredible Stirling Castle and also the town itself, which is very charming and has lots of history. It is easily doable on your own—either a 30 minute train ride from Glasgow or a 45 min ride from Edinburgh.

And I can almost guarantee that you will be back to Scotland, having been there once. So you can save Nairn and that area for another trip.

I get what you're trying to do but as has been mentioned, it takes longer to get from place to place than what Google Maps tells you. Plus, the roads can be twisty and narrow and from experience, I can tell you that the driver does not get to enjoy the views. Personally, I thought Urquhart was underwhelming and the drive there is where the driver needs to watch the road with white knuckles. I loved Mull. We spent 3 nights there and loved it but our day to Iona never happened because the ferry was cancelled due to strong winds.

Your time is so tight that I would either spend all my time in Glasgow/Stirling/Edinburgh or look into a couple of Rabbies tours that get you into the Highlands.

Might be worth staying on the mainland driving over to to Oban an getting to Mull will take close to 3 hours out of your day from Tyndrum.
I think Glenfinnan is doable and staying out in that area feels like true Scotland.
The Arisaig hotel/ bar has live music sessions on Sunday afternoon the food is excellent too.
Monday ,return to Fort William and the great glen or ,Mallaig, Armadale, Glenelg,Eilean Donan castle ,Strathcarron..then Inverness area.
That packs a lot of landscale and seascapes into a day.
I dont envy you hitting the perfect answer

Good for you making the best of things. I would say your main objective should be to maximize sightseeing time and minimize transit time. So I do not recommend long drives into the highlands. Save that when you have more time.

Edinburgh is beautiful and there’s a ton to do there. In addition, as others have noted, there are some great day trips such as Sterling (super easy to get to by train) and St Andrew’s. If you want to see some of the highlands, try to find a Rabbies tour. It will be so much less stressful and you’ll cover more ground. Going to Oban by train would also be easy. Oban itself is fine, nothing spectacular, but the three isles trip is fantastic. It makes for a long day, but you see a lot with no stress.

As I think you realize, you will enjoy the trip more if you don’t try to squeeze in too much. Have fun!

I agree that the least stressful option is to forget about driving, base yourself in one place, and take a couple of day trips from there. That’s what I did on my first visit to Scotland last year, when I had 6 days total. I stayed in Edinburgh and took one day trip to Glencoe and Glenfinnan with Discover Scotland, and another one to St. Andrews, Anstruther, and Falkland with Rabbie’s. For an intro trip, I found my limited itinerary ideal. It showed me a good bit of Scotland and whetted my appetite to see the rest on future trips.

There is indeed plenty to see and do in Edinburgh itself—so much, in fact, that I nixed my original plan to spend a day in Glasgow and decided to save that for a return visit. This May I’ll be going back and spending 4 days in Glasgow and then 5 days in Edinburgh, with one day trip from each city.

Follow Rick Steves’ advice and assume that you will return! 😊
Whatever you decide, I hope you’ll have a marvelous time.

I will chime in and add my vote for staying in one place, personally, I would stay in Edinburgh. I don’t think you will enjoy a trip where you have to learn to drive on the other side of the road, plus are under pressure to cover a lot of ground in a short time frame. There is no room in your itinerary for anything to go wrong such as road construction or a missed ferry. From Edinburgh you can do many guided day trips, plus take the train to Glasgow for the day. I spent six days in Edinburgh the last time I was there, and wished I had more time.

Thank you all so much for the input!
I think I wasn’t clear that I didn’t want to do all that I had listed in the 3 day window because I do agree that would be a lot. We certainly don’t want to spend the entire time in a car (incidentally also the thing that put me off some of the guided tours, especially the day trips which seem mostly van/bus time)
And yes, I anticipate we’ll be back at some point.
One last question - if there were ONE place to go for one or two nights from Edinburgh, what would it be?

Thanks!

My favourite day of my 2 weeks in 2022 was a daytrip to Stirling Castle. We enjoyed it much more than Edinburgh Castle. Stirling focuses more on Royal history while Edinburgh focuses on military history.

Glasgow is worth a couple days, even though it isn’t far from Edinburgh it’s a very different city, and you could take the train to Stirling from there. If you want to go further afield then maybe take the train to Oban, though that’s a bit of a long ride. St. Andrews isn’t too far east, or maybe north to some place like Pitlochry. I hear what you are saying about the guided tours, but if you pick the right one they will make several stops, and the guide will be a wealth of knowledge you won’t get going on your own. Look for companies that use small vans instead of large buses. I did a day trip out of Dublin 20 years ago that I remember to this day because the guide was so good.

It’s a hard question! And again I say no wrong answers. We are all different so what is best for one might not be best for another. Since you will start with Glasgow and end with Edinburgh, I might still say Oban or Tobermory on Mull. But there are other islands you might choose that could give you the island experience.

If you are wanting a closer in Island you could visit the Isle of Arran, or the Isle of Gigha- an island few overseas visitors get to- see this video.-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Y9-M9qiDY

She drove there, but there is also a bus from Glasgow

From the same person this may inspire you about Islay, mentioned above- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9IQXLRrujo (fly one way, ferry and bus the other way)

Thanks again to all who made suggestions!

Will definitely look into those islands - certainly off the standard tourist spots, but beautiful and the kind of thing we would love.

Much appreciated!