Scotland - 6 night Itinerary

I would suggest a minimum of 3 nights on the Isle of Skye. It is absolutely beautiful! We stayed in Carbost at wilmar B&B. We loved it! The community is small but has a great pub just down the road and a little further down the road is the Talisker Distillery. We didn't care for Portree, others may feel different. From the Isle of Skye we went to Oban, beautiful place! We loved Glasgow, wish we had spent more time there! Lots of choices!

Yes, you can get to Glencoe that day. Have you tired Viamichelin? See the time frames.

I think you do Skye or Torridon. Play around with Viamichelin. Here's a routing for a trip up to Ullapool and including the Cairngorms at the end.

I know that it looks like everything is close, but it isn't. The roads are wee and they twist and turn. And some of them are single track. I love them. :)

I think you need to pick either Skye or Applecross/Torridon, you probably don't have time for both.

On day 1, it's a shorter (and arguably more scenic drive) from Glasgow airport to Glencoe, right up the side of Loch Lomond. From Edinburgh airport the first 45mins are a freeway through an industrial area past Grangemouth, one of the largest refineries/chemical plants in the UK. There are a wide range of flights from various places in Ireland to Glasgow.

www.theaa.co.uk has a decent journey planner, but most of these underestimate the journey times on occaisions.

Jennifer be sure to realize your driving times will be longer then planned, the driving is a challenge for US drivers. Get a SMALL car. Based on your description of what you enjoy I would definately suggest you visit the Trotternish area north of Portree and specifically Quiraing for photo ops and intense scenery and hiking on Skye! You might give this web site a look for some guidance. I used it extensively and it is awesome. http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/skye/ We also loved Glen Coe and the Fort William area. If you want a recommend for a B&B on Skye, Ft. William, or Edinburgh hit me up with a private message. We did a similar arrival and we drove through Glen Coe to Ft. William our first day. Jet lag was a bear but a few hours and some white knuckle driving will get you to Glen Coe. My suggestion would be to definately try to arrive at your B&B before it gets dark. The drive through the Rannoch Moor and the Glen Coe area is unreal. Dont worry for things to do on Skye if you like photo and hiking, you will wish for more days out there! Whoops missed that you will have the jet lag thing handled by Scotland!

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Unfortunately I can't find a direct flight from Shannon airport to Glasgow, which is why we are flying into the somewhat less convenient Edinburgh airport. I guess we can use the first non-scenic 45 minutes of the drive to adjust to the new rental car and get ourselves situated for all the beautiful scenery we will be about to see :)

Pamela - I think I will love the tiny, curvy roads as well. Especially since I'm not usually the one driving ;)

So it seems like Fort Williams area would make sense to stay at the end of day 1.

On day 4 would it be recommended to continue to explore Isle of Skye (so 3 nights in Portree) and then drive directly back to Edinburgh on Day 5 OR should we leave Isle of Skye on Day 4 and spend the night somewhere else like Inverness or even Ft Williams again before driving to Edinburgh on Day 5?

And thanks for the for the driving route websites as well!

Jennifer, both these airports are good airports. You'll see slightly different scenery, but it's beautiful no matter which way you go. Use via Michelin to plot some routes. Enter your starting point and your end point and then play around middle points to try out different routes.

Pam

Jennifer,

I didnt have any trouble driving from Skye to Edinburgh, took like 3.5 - 4 hours if I recall correctly. That drive was no big deal and after being in the highlands and on Skye for 10 days the roads going back to Edinburgh were a breeze. We went back via the north route. We went just north of Ft. William on I think A86 east to the A9 and thn tooe the A9 (great interstate type road) down across the bridge to the airport. We dropped our rental at the airport and took the tram into Eburgh for a few days before our flight home. No problems driving Skye to Edinburgh in one morning/afternoon. If you are curious you can look at this site for some live traffic cameras of spots on the trip. http://trafficscotland.org/map/index.aspx?type=26 dj