Driving to Scotland from London

Also - are you wanting to stop along the way in England to visit other things? If so - list it.
Or are you just going from London to Edinburgh without visiting anything else?
You're aware the gas prices in Britain are round $9-10/gallon, right?
Are you driving alone or will you have someone with you to navigate? And most importantly, does your navigator know how to read a map or are you looking at getting a GPS?

It takes me twelve hours to drive from my MIL's in south London to my home in NE Scotland. It is a long and brutal drive. I don't stop overnight anywhere, but that's my choice.

So the drive from England to Scotland can be as long, or a short as you like.

The idea was to stop once along the way. Our destination would most likely be Edinburgh. I was not aware of the gas costs there...thanks for the info.

I'll be driving with a friend. I have a GPS but not sure if it is compatible.

Stacy - what kind of time frame are you looking at? Do you want to do it in a day or are you staying overnight along the way?

Some more info will help us to better answer your question.

Would probably like to do the drive in a day and stay over in Scotland.

Gas (petrol) prices are horendous- close to or over $10.00/gal. Consider the train- you could do London to York -1 night there with afternoon to sightsee. Then York to Edinburgh. it is a nice trip and you can enjoy the beautiful sceanery from your comfortable seat without the hassel of driving, looking for parking, etc.

Stacy: From what you've told us so far, all of us advisors are seeing signs that you'll want to do more planning and research to make the best decision of what's going to be the best experience for you on this part of your trip. You're one of the very few travelers proposing to do this kind of drive in one or even two days. Typically people who do this drive take several days, a minimum of 3 and often 5 or 7 days, so they can fully enjoy the flexibility a car gives you.See Betty's reply, she's a local and does this drive all the time. And all the other replies as well.There's the $10/gal gas, driving on the wrong side challenges, navigational challenges, and--most important--your inability to enjoy the flexibility a car offers of being able to wander around and see the sights because you're trying to do this drive too fast. To have the drive be the kind of experience you'd want it to be, take more days to do this and do more planning. Or, if you want to get there as quickly as you say, do what 90% of experienced travelers would do and take the train. Sometimes we North Americans make the mistake of assuming we should do, over there, the same thing that would make perfect sense here: rent a car. But based on what you've said so far, it's not apparent why driving a car is your best choice versus the train. It's different than here, in ways that are not obvious until you've been there and done that.

Hi there,
We are considering the same trip idea. Car or train to Edinburgh from London.
My local London friends laugh because we are used to bigger American cars. Many rentals in the UK are tiny tiny tiny.
I think we'll get a railpass with flex days. There is a special on right now with one free day. Check out Ricks book regarding train deals.

Hi there,
We are considering the same trip idea. Car or train to Edinburgh from London.
My local London friends laugh because we are used to bigger American cars. Many rentals in the UK are tiny tiny tiny.
I think we'll get a railpass with flex days. There is a special on right now with one free day. Check out Ricks book regarding train deals.

Thank you all for your replies. I think we have decided to do a few day trips given the time period!

Stacy,

One recommendation would be to be sure to ask for an automatic since the default seems to be manual. I can drive both, but having an automatic was nice on our last trip to the UK since it was one less thing to think about--with driving on the "other" side of the road, roundabouts, and some really, really, narrow country roads.

The first roundabout I hit (outiside of Oxford) send my blood pressure way up, but I soon grew to love them! I wish we used them here in the US!

I love the trains in the UK, but having a car was wonderful--we had one for about 1/3 of our trip, which was in Wales. It definitely let us go places we could not have otherwise.

We just returned from 3 weeks in the UK and Ireland.

We bought BritRail Flex passes and used them to travel from London to York and then to Edinburgh. We also used same train passes to travel from from Edinburgh to St Andrews and Inverness. Train travel was painless. Word of caution get reservations at the train station the day b4 your travel. Some trains are very popular and seats without reservations can be a problem.Try to get seats with a table .... much more room.

Train travel in the UK was great . Bus travel in Ireland was great.

Driving rental cars in the Edinburgh area was PAINFUL.The roundabouts are complicated for tourists ...almost destroyed my marriage. The car insurance cost in Scotland was outrageous.

There are a lot of roundabouts in Maryland, but don't know if they compare to the UK!

You may want to check the recent post about gas now costing $20.00 a gallon in parts of the UK. The trains look better and better