Same day travel from Edinburgh to Skye: car rental/flight/other?

Take the train to Inverness or Kyle of Lochalsh and rent a car there. There are no flights to Skye so flying is not an option.

I cannot imagine which website would suggest you should fly to Skye! There is a tiny airfield here but absolutely no commercial flights. Maybe Rome 2 Rio, which is always inaccurate for the remote parts of Scotland!?

Anyhow best and shortest are not necessarily the same. There is no direct train from Edinburgh to Skye. You'd need a train from Edinburgh to Inverness and then a train from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh and then rent a car. However, there are limited car hire option in what is effectively a village! So I would suggest renting a car at Edinburgh airport and driving to Skye, which will take you about 6 hours if you don't stop to often on the way here.

Jacqui (Skyegirl)

However, there are limited car hire option in what is effectively a
village!

Is it Kyle or Inverness that is effectively a village? 😀

I'd still suggest taking the train to Inverness. Saves a lot driving, and if you catch an LNER departure a much nicer trip.

The single LNER train to Inverness each day arrives at 8pm long after the last connection to the Kyle has left and long after any car rental agency in town has closed.
You would likely have to go the wrong way to the Airport at that time of night to pick up a car and would not get into Portree until close to midnight.

Far better to take one of the ScotRail Inter7City trains which use shortened 4 car trains of old HST carriages- very comfortable. The 0839 and the 1329 from Edinburgh are the best- arriving at Inverness at 1203 and 1706 respectively (and the Kyle at 1616 and 2034) so the 0839 train is by a long way the better rail option.

You could always pick up a car straight off the train in Inverness, saving the 90 minute wait for the train to the Kyle.

But the shortest route in time terms is always going to be to rent a car from Edinburgh Airport and drive from there. The airport is west of the city so you are straight out onto the highway.

But please don't drive if you are arriving on an overnight flight from North America !

Thanks everyone! And we will be in Edinburgh for several days before going to Skye, and so not arriving from North America and immediately renting a car 😁.

I have done the drive from Edinburgh and from Inverness. Both are really beautiful drives. It just depends where you want to spend your time and money. A train ride up to Inverness allows you to sit back and relax. There are car hire places right near the train station, so that is easy.
But if you have the time, the drive from Edinburgh is really a lovely way to see a lot of the Scottish countryside.