London/Scotland Trip w/Infant

Not sure how long the trip is. Would you elaborate?

If you want to stay on the Isle of Skye, find out what accommodations are available first before locking down an itinerary. Skye will be the hardest to obtain suitable accommodation, even in September.

We don't necessarily feel the need to stay on Skye, but would like to take a day trip if we can. Our trip is scheduled for 8 days.

Is that 8 full days or 8 nights? You don’t really have all that much time even with 8 full days.

Day 1 - arrive
2- London
3-London
4- travel to Scotland
5- Scotland
6-Scotland
7- Scotland
8- travel back to London for flight home
9- home

So really only 3 full days in Scotland. I’d just choose I accommodation. I don’t know Scotland well but I had a lovely holiday in Plockton a few years ago. You can get Skye for the day easily.

We are not going back to London. We fly back out of Inverness. We get to London midday of the 9th then leave Inverness early on the 17th

Depending on whether you arrive in Edinburgh OR Glasgow from London, you could do either trip 1 or Trip 2.

Trip 1 to Edinburgh
9/9 London, check in hotel, walk neighborhood, maybe London Walks & Westminster Abbey
9/10 London - British Museum
9/11 London - St Paul’s Cathedral, train to Edinburgh
9/12 Edinburgh - pick up rental car, drive to Glencoe stopping in Stirling
9/13 Glencoe
9/14 Glencoe, explore Ft William
9/15 Isle of Skye, stay in Broadford or Kyle of Lochalsh
9/16 Isle of Skye, drive to Inverness
9/17 Inverness, flight home

Trip 2 to Glasgow
9/9 London, check in hotel, walk neighborhood, maybe London Walks & Westminster Abbey
9/10 London - British Museum
9/11 London - St Paul’s Cathedral, train to Glasgow
9/12 Glasgow, pick up rental car, drive to Oban
9/13 Oban
9/14 Oban, Island of Mull
9/15 Oban, drive to Inverness stopping in Glencoe & Ft William
9/16 Inverness, Culloden and Clava Cairns
9/17 Inverness, flight home

To me, this is a lot of driving but you want to cover a fairly wide area of Scotland in a short amount of time. Jet lag may or may not be an issue for your little one but something to think about too. Assuming you are coming from someplace in the USA and I don’t know your tolerance or experience for driving in the UK (left side) that might also be a challenge.

That’s good that you’re flying out of Inverness, but actually you only have 7 full days so 2 of those in London, 1 travel day and 4 in Scotland. I would avoid moving around too much, especially with a baby.

In mid September my thought is that sunset is at about 7.30pm. If you leave London at lunchtime it will be around 5pm arriving in GLA or EDI, say 6pm by the time you have picked up the car. Do you want to be driving 2 hours from GLA, 3 from EDI, to Glencoe in the evening peak, in the gathering darkness., in a rented car?
Might it be better to do the rest of that day in London, a train at say 8am next day from London? That has you out of Glasgow around 2pm. Drive to Mallaig for 2 nights via Glencoe (enough daylight for a stop there and still get to Mallaig before nightfall). Next day Skye return by ferry.

It should be about 4 hours from Glasgow to Mallaig so that gives you an hour or so in Glencoe.

Then the day after drive Mallaig to Fort William to Inverness.

Agree with Stuart to spend night of 9/11 in London and the next morning take the train to either Edinburgh or Glasgow and rent the car from either of those cities for your journey West. Perhaps you could fit both the British Museum and St Paul’s Cathedral in one day.

Edited to add: I encourage you to give the museum website some attention before your trip and narrow down what you want to see.

The rental company may provide a infant car seat/cot (required by law) but would you really want one that has been who knows where for the mini-munchkin?

If you get one that will be compatible with the ISO-Fix system used on this side of the Atlantic then you can probably use it on the plane too.

But you may have this all figured out....