First time traveller to London, Scotland, and Ireland

And you'll need a guidebook for Ireland, since the Great Britain book doesn't cover there.

Yes, do check the guidebooks and determine exactly what you want to see rather than simply assign "a day or so" to a given city. I just returned from two weeks in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and other English cities. Read up and ask us about specific sites in the places you want to go and you'll get many more responses. (My personal recommendation --don't short change your time in London and Edinburgh).

I recommend that you either do London and Scotland or do Ireland. Trying to do all shortchanges eveyone and eveything. Personally I prefer London and Scotland. Here's a possible trip:
Fly Boston to London- then 5 nights London with day trips to 2 or maybe 3 of the following: Windsor (could do 1/2 day), Canterburry, Dover, Stratford-upon-Avon, Cardiff Wales, Bath, Brighton. Train to York- 1 or 2 nights. Train to Edinburgh-2 or 3 nights. Train to Aviemore- 2 or 3 nights. Train to Inverness-3-5 nigths. Train to Glasgow, 2 nights. Fly Galsgow to Boston or skip Glasgow and train back to London and fly home from there. We've done similar trips many times. Feel free to private message me.

Darrin, Do you and your girlfriend like to hike? There are some great walks in Scotland. For example, you can take the train north from Edinburgh and stop off in Birnam / Dunkeld in Perthshire. There are some very nice walks that are immediately accessible. The TI has maps. Also, in the evening you can stop at the music bar for a pub meal, some ale and some Scottish Music. There's also a wee bit of history--there's a very old cathedral. There's B&B's in town that are nice and not that expensive.

Do look at the tourism site from Scotland www.visitscotland.com. There is a lot of good information on them. Rick doesn't have as much info on Scotland in his books, so do check out Rough Guide and Lonely Planet. Also, online look for Undiscovered Scotland.

Pam

I agree with Toni. Do the UK or do Ireland. You will find more than you can possibly do in two weeks. Because you are going to love your trip and want to do another, next year you can do the other part. Further, you will achieve some small economy by curtailing your travel to a smaller area.

The end of May is a fine time for your trip. You will be a little ahead of the season and may find some good values.

To plan a trip, study, study, study. Visit the library and the bookstores for guides. In Boston I've used the Globe Corner Bookstore. I've never been there but I order using their website.

Also study the airline websites. February/March is the time to be looking for airfares. Visit sites like kayak.com to learn the possibilities. Study open jaw plans such as into London and home from Edinburgh.

As your plans develop, return here for more details.

I did a quick look on IcelandAir because I see you are in Boston and they fly out from there to the UK for a lower price than many of the big carriers (usually).

I picked 5/22-6/12 as dates and got $737 for London round trip, and $727 for an open jaw to London/from Glasgow option.

IcelandAir does stop briefly in Iceland to change planes, but it is painless, interesting and quick.

I would do some research and see what interests you besides the big cities and then find a route that starts in London and ends in Glasgow. Like the others, I would save Ireland for another time. You'll want 3-4 days in London and 2-3 days in Edinbourgh so that's almost a week right there. Spend at least a week in rural England and a few days in the Scottish highlands and there's your 2 1/2 weeks. Subtract a week for Ireland (not enough time, really) and you really shortchange the UK experience.

When we were first there in our mid-20's there were so many B&B's in small towns that we didn't even reserve lodgings anywhere except London.

Don't be afraid to rent a car for the rural portion. Driving on the left is fun (or at least something you won't forget :-).

You'll have a great time. Congratulations!

Darrin,

With careful planning, it should be possible to arrange your trip. Is there any possibility you could get 3 weeks for the trip?

You might consider something like this:

Flight to London (you'll lose the first day in flight times, normally arriving the day after you depart (flight times will be shorter from Boston of course - my flights from the west coast are usually 9-12H). If possible use LGW as it's much easier to navigate than LHR. Take the Gatwick Express into London Victoria station.

London - touring (a day trip to Bath?)

Train to Scotland (you could stop in York for one night if you're interested - it's a wonderful town with lots of history).

Scotland - I'd suggest Edinburgh over Glasgow, but your choice.

budget flight to Ireland (I haven't checked but I believe EasyJet has flights to Belfast - you might have to use RyanAir to Dublin)

Ireland - touring (you won't have a lot of time, so you'll have to be a bit "selective" in which places to visit. Some of my favorites are Kinsale, Galway and especially Dingle. Transportation in Irerland is not as "developed" as other parts of Europe, so you may have to use a combination of train and Bus to get to some locations.

Flight home - you might check flights from Shannon as well as Dublin.

Regarding accommodations, you might find that budget Hotels are in the same range as Hostels (for a double room). Some Hostels are co-ed, some are segregated by gender. The Guidebooks have listings in all the places you'll be. You could also check the HI Hostels website. These usually include breakfast (the HI in York had awesome breakfasts, but tell them to "hold" the Black Pudding!).

The end of May is a good time to travel, but it's in the spring shoulder season so it could be busy. Pre-booking accommodations and budget flights would be a good idea.

Be sure to pack light if taking budget flights, or you'll PAY!

Happy travels!

I've had very good results in London with 2 different B&B networks - London Home to Home, and At Home in London. They both have homes all over London, with prices ranging from about 96 GBP per night for a double in Central London to 60-65 GBP farther out in areas like Chiswick. We found our hosts helpful and interesting and the breakfasts were yummy!
If you're fans of the theater, I highly recommend checking out the half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square; daughter & I spent a week in London in 2007 and got great seats several times for excellent shows at 25-50% off. It helps if you're flexible about what to see; you can visit the website The Official London Theatre Guide and click on the Tkts link to see what's on sale during the weeks before your trip.
For your airline tickets, start now by signing up for some email alerts - SmarterTravel.com has an email newsletter that highlights good sales, and you can also sign up with some airlines that go between Boston and London or Ireland [depending on where you want to spend your time]. Think about flying into one city and home from another [called open jaw] - it saves both time and money when you don't have to go back to a place you've already been just to fly home. If you start looking at ticket prices now, you'll have a sense when a good price comes along. Also check sites like yapta.com and farecast.com to get a feel for prices. Then when you find a price/itinerary you like, buy it and STOP CHECKING or you'll torture yourself with fears of better deals you could have gotten...
Have a great trip!

You may want to check out the Let's Go books, too. They're written by college students for college students or young adults. Lots of good practical info.

I'd suggest going to a good bookstore, sitting down with different guidebooks for UK and Ireland, and seeing which seems to have the information you want. Buy that one.

And sometimes B&B's are around the same cost as hostels, so use the guidebooks to do your research.

Darrin,
Our family went to London in October. We found it a good time because rates are a little lower in this season than in summer. We stayed at the Lancaster Hall Hotel. There is a youth hostel on one side and a regular hotel on the other side. We chose the hotel. If you don't mind a small room with twin beds ( you can scoot them together), we found this a great value! It's located in the Bayswater area, just north of Hyde Park. It's not real close to the major attraction, but you're just a short tube stop away from anything you'll want to see. We flew in to Heathrow and took the Heathrow Connect straight to Paddington Station. This was a 25 minute trip. Lancaster was a short 5 minute walk from there. For travel to city attractions, we took the Lancaster Gate Tube which was another 5 minute walk except south of our hote. More about our room - it was modest, but clean comfortable with lots of hot water! We had an amazing buffet breakfast (included in the price) every morning with a variety of meats, cheeses, fruit, pastries, and bread with tea and coffee. Hotel staff were friendly and helpful. All of this was 85 pounds per night, which at the time equalled to about $140.00. We figured we were in London to see things, not to stay in our room, so as long as we felt it was a safe area and clean and comfortable, why spend the extra monty? We loved London and want to go back soon. We will definitely stay at Lancaster Hall Hotel again!

I would skip Glasgow. Go to London, around England and Edinburgh. Ireland is beautiful too. But if you haven't been to any of these places. I would visit
Ireland on a separate trip, otherwise you are cramming too much into one trip.

One other place in England that is just fantastic and one of my favorites (i was born in England) Cornwall. It's in the south west corner of England. I think because it's so tucked away, people never seem to mention it. You would not be disappointed. I have driven there with no problems.