First trip to Scotland

Any chance you can change your tickets to fly into London and home from Edinburgh? Would save a lot of time going from England to Scotland and back to England to go home.

Hi, robbbg,

What you really need to do is get copies of the Rick Steves Scotland guidebook, and the Rough Guide to Scotland. Those guides combined will provide with more than enough information for your travels.

How many days do you actually plan to spend in Scotland? If you're planning to start and end the Scottish portion of your holiday in Edinburgh, you'll probably spend two days there at the beginning, and maybe a day at the end.

Does your ten days travel time include your arrival and departure days? If the ten days include your departure day, then you actually have only nine days.

The tourist hotspots in Scotland are Edinburgh and Skye, as you've probably surmised. Edinburgh is number one in tourist visitation; Skye is number two. As your time in Scotland is limited, you need to determine what is most important to you as far as what you want to see and experience. You need at least two full days for Edinburgh, and at least two full days for Skye. And that will give you barely enough time to scratch the surface. In both cases, two full days would translate to three nights per location.

Again, you need to determine what it is you want to see. There is much to see outwith your two choices, but if you don't like rushing, then you need to plan your holiday very carefully.

Some of our forum contributors prefer Stirling Castle to Edinburgh Castle. You may want to spend part of a day in Stirling, which is easily reached by train from Edinburgh. Given your brief amount of time, you'll probably want to give Loch Lomond and Loch Ness a miss.

The possibilities are limitless. What you see and experience will be determined by your time constraints.

Please keep asking questions. The folks here are only too happy to help!

Best wishes for your travels!

Mike (Auchterless)

We were in the UK in Sept. 2023, our first time in Scotland & north England. We were in Edinburgh 4 days, Inverness 5 days, & York 5 days. We used public transportation the entire time, with a couple of taxi/Uber rides & a few day trips via tour operators (mostly Rabbie's, I think).
We took the train from London to Edinburgh, train to Inverness, train to York, train back to London. We're in our 60's, "slow travelers", & had no problem navigating public transportation.
Edinburgh is a great city & has a wonderful national museum, free admission. We purchased a 2 day "Hop On Hop Off" bus pass which took us to Edinburgh Castle (you'll need to purchase tickets ahead of time, as visitors are limited to try to reduce crowds), Leith, Botanic Gardens, Royal Mile, Haymarket area, etc.

Inverness is another lovely city & very walkable. If you're able to fit in a couple of days in Inverness, it will be worth your time. There is a beautiful river walk that is is a great place to unwind & relax. From Inverness, we did a day trip to Loch Ness & Urquhart Castle.
York - loved that city, too! We saw York Minster, rambled all over the city & along the River Ouse, walked along the ancient city walls, went to the York museum, & a day trip to the Yorkshire Dales.

Hope this helps you with your planning!

First, let me say that Scotland was roughly ten times groovier than I thought it was going to be. My wife and I had been to England and Ireland many times, only once years ago taking the train from London to Edinburg and back for a pin-in-the-map day trip that I can't recommend.

Our recent trip to eastern Scotland began with a flight from Philadelphia to Dublin, where we hopped on a little prop plane for Edinburgh. Dublin has the advantage of a special deal with US customs and the UK. Look into it. Once in the UK, we never rent a car, and we have only taken a taxi once. It's all trains and buses and feet, which are better than a car because you don't have to drive them or park them. We walked around Edinburgh, did the castle, high tea at Holyrood, etc. Then we went up to Inverness for a night (have the Cullen skink at Hootananny) and took a bus all along Loch Ness to Fort Augustus with its bijou Clansman Center, a terrific little museum all about, well, you guessed it. Back up the Loch to Urquhart Castle, hiked to Drumnadrochit, bus back to town. Train back to Edinburgh.

My wife and I found out long ago that jet lag hits some people harder than others. With us, third day on the ground, I turn into Homer Simpson, and she turns into Satan. So, we instituted "ditch day". We each pick a different place and do a day trip alone that third day. It has been a huge success. This time, I went to the Borders for the Mining Museum, where they actually take you underground and all. had lunch at the Dean Tavern, one of only four remaining Gothenburg pubs, and strolled along the Tweed to Scott's Abbotsford. Boy, I'm making that sound almost as much fun as it was. She went to Perth and Dundee.

We bounced around some. I'm not going to try to remember the exact sequence of events, but Stirling and Castle, up Abbey Craig to the Wallace Monument, the Falkirk Wheel, Linlithgow Palace, and finally sunset at the astonishingly magical Kelpies.

I have restrained my urge to comment on these places as I mentioned them because I could run to maximum length raving about each and every one. I can't wait to do western Scotland and the deep Highlands, not to mention Skara Brae and the Orkneys and ... somebody stop me. I'll leave you with one bit of advice: have a single-malt.

Thank you to each one for your response, some great suggestions!

I'm going to check on flying back to the US from Edinburgh instead to London.

I'll be back with more questions in a few a days

Gayle.

If looking at changing your air tickets to be open jaw you could look at flying back from Inverness connecting at either Heathrow or Amsterdam Schiphol.

Inverness is a lot closer to Skye than Edinburgh, and you will be visiting Edinburgh on the way north from York.

If on a through ticketed connection from Inverness you have a side benefit of avoiding paying UK air passenger duty! Hardly a deciding factor in airport choice but a nice perk.

You might find my trip report helpful for the York and Edinburgh part of your trip.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/solo-in-the-uk-my-york-and-edinburgh-trip-report