England and Scotland for 14 days

We love to travel around the UK by train. It is not difficult. Since you are too close to travel dates to get the cheaper advance purchase fares, you will want to do the math on point-to-point tickets vs a BritRail pass. Basing in London you can easily do day trips to Windsor, Bath, Cardiff, Brighton, Canterburry, Dover, and many other places. Since you want some time in Scotland, too, I'd suggest something like the following (based strictly on personal experience - more than 40 trips- and preference) London- 3-5 days with day trip(s) to Windsor and maybe one other train to York- 1-2 nights train to Edinburgh- 1-3 nights train to Aviemore- 1-3 nights (lots to do here- it is in the Caringorm Mts. funciuclar up Mt. Caringorm, restored steam train, walks, hikes, microbrewery gives tours and samples, distilleries, canoeing, horseback riding, reindeer preserve, Heather center...) train to Inverness- 4-7 nights- again lots to see and do and lots of great day trips- even a long one up to Orkney You could then train to Glasgow for a night or two and fly home from there or Edinburgh or fly back to London to then fly home.
I wrote an article for AAA Carolina's "Go!" magazine several years ago- unfortunately it is no longer archived. If you'd like an article, send me your email in a private message.

I calculate this is only 11 days as you won't arrive until the 19th and the 30th is the day you leave. Are you leaving and arriving in London or can you arrive in London and maybe leave from say Edinburgh? If not, you can still have about 6 days in London and 5 in Edinburgh going by train both ways. Since you don't do tours, you can still take day trips by public transportation, say a day to Bath and a day to Windsor, etc. Suggest you get RS book on GB and see what ideas he has for day trips, etc. Can't help with non-tourist places as we did go to all the tourist sites, Tower, Palace, etc. You will enjoy both places.

Scotland! Don't miss out on Edinburgh Castle (Rosslyn Chapel is close by), Stirling Castle/William Wallace Monument, and St. Andrews.

We plan to spend 14 days in London and Scotland next May. It will be my wife's first visit. Many flights are overnight, so check to be sure you don't arrive the next day and get charged for the hotel reservation anyway. We will stay in Bloomsbury, at the Jesmond Hotel or the Morgan Hotel. We plan to buy an Oyster card for Tube travel, which allows us to ride a red bus too. The bus is actually more fun because you can see how connected the various sights are to each other. We will stop at St Martins in Trafalgar Sq to partake of their buffet lunch and make a wax rubbing to add to those already on our walls. The remaining itinerary will be determined as the mood strikes. There is too much to see in just one visit. Likely we will take day trips via train to Oxford and Bath (perhaps Salisbury) during that week. Then its off on the train to Scotland. We will check online advance tickets at http://www.eastcoast.co.uk and go first to Carnoustie to visit friends. While there we plan to see St Andrews, perhaps Glen Doll if good weather, perhaps eat an Abroath smokey. Then the train to Inverness, and a boat ride on Loch Ness, a bus ride to Culloden. Then the train to Kyle, where we rent a car for Dunvegan on Skye. We plan to take the Caledonian sleeper train back from Mallaig to London.

I love Blackpool! While you won't run into a lot on American tourists you will meet a lot of English ones. I love watching the dancing in the tower. Nearly everyplace in England these days is a tourist site to one degree or another. Whitby is one of those places where you won't find a lot of foreigh visitors. It's on the sea and is the home of Captain Cook. It has a lovely abbey ruin and is famous for Whitby Jet. I'm not much into public transportation so I'm no help there. ..too restricting for me. Robin Hoods Bay between York and Whitby is also a fun place to stop especially when the tide is out. If you were spending enough time in England I'd suggest Ironbridge Gorge and Blists Hill. Again mostly English tourists. It wasn't until my 12th trip to the UK that we decided to see Stratford Upon Avon. We were there in a Sept and really enjoyed our two days ..plus..there were no crowds to speak of. Gosh, Sandra there is so much to choose from. Others may know better, but it seems to me that a lot of the lesser touristed places are a little more off the frequently beaten track..that is to say good public transportation. Since you ask, the place in Edinburgh I forgot to visit but have on my list for next time is Greyfriers cemetery.

Thanks so much for the info, I haven't been on the computer with my mom having surgery and cleaning up from Eileen so it was nice to see responses. I am getting nervous that we didn't plan trip at all yet. Sorry I didn't explain a bit better but I have a day on the front and back end of the trip for travel to and from the US. We may also have a few extra days in October but we won't know until hubby gets his October schedule. We obviously plan on doing touristy things, but they seem to wear me out and my favorite things are to go to a local eatery and have a beer and some good food and sit with locals. We traveled to Italy last year and our favorite part was going to my family's hometown (Civitanova Marche) and visiting with internet friends. They took us to local attractions-- some churches and old mountain top villages. My son will be already in England and he plans on meeting up with us for part of the trip. He is doing a semester abroad at the University of York and will start in the beginning of October. I have a list for London area with lots to do there. Any ideas for something off the beaten path or interesting restaurants in London or the area that we would visit based out of London? We haven't booked any rooms yet so if anyone has a suggestion for London accommodations please suggest away. I haven't gotten Rick's England travel guides yet. What is better, London or the UK or both? I think I may download them on my Kindle as that would be much easier than carrying the books. We carried our book all over Italy and it got to heavy!) Has anyone been through the Lake region and Lancashire? Any good ideas for those places that you really loved. Thanks again. I hope I can get things moving and get some hotels to use as home base.

Has anyone used any Kindle travel guides. I will buy Ricks books for using in hotels and but thought that it might be easier to use the kindle for walking around as the books are so large. Has anyone done this?