help with planning Scotland trip

Jennifer: Thousands & thousands of tourists, for many, many decades, have been driving in the UK with only maps & good sense to guide them. All the signage is in your language, so that's a plus right there. Buy some detailed maps of the region and you'll be fine. Have a wonderful, adventurous time.

Come to Scotland and have great time - I bet you will!

Have GPS if you like, but I really recommend you buy a road atlas too. I run a B&B and over the years have been amazed when people turn up here with tiny little maps, completely unsuitable to the task. A good road atlas will show you all the things GPS doesn't show - pincic spots, tourist attractions, viewpoints.....

This site will help in planning your route and estimating driving times

http://www.theaa.com/travelwatch/planner_main.jsp

Don't worry about driving - just remember the pasenger is nearest the kerb (sidewalk). Do specify an automatic when organsing the hire car and do this in advance. Manuals (stick shifts) are much more prevalent here, so you need one less thing to worry about.

Hey Jennifer,
I am also planning a trip to Scotland in September and have had a hard, but fun time planning our itinerary. With lots of help from people here, we have decided on this:

coming from an 8 day tour through England, we are spending 1 night in the Trossachs Region, 1 night in Glencoe or Fort William area, 2 nights on the Isle of Skye, 2 nights in Inverness and 2 nights in Edinburgh. You may want to consider a second night on the Isle of Skye depending on what you want to see and what time you are getting there the night of your stay. From what I can gather, the drive from Portree to Inverness is between 2.5-3 hours. We were originally only going to spend one night on Skye, but decided that there is so much that we want to see it will take us a good portion of the day. We decided that after spending the day there we did not want to spend another 3 hours in the car to get to Inverness. I also think the drive from Inverness to Edinburgh is a bit longer than 2 hours. You may want to try some of the travel websites others have listed on here (similar to mapquest). A good one is viamichelin.co.uk. There is another good one, but I can't remember it right off hand and I am not at my home computer. I can email it to you later. Doing this can help you plan your time a bit more acurately. It will probably take you longer to drive than expected because of the smaller roads and different driving system than you are used to. We drove when we were in Ireland and realized about mid-way through the trip that in order to still enjoy our time we needed to relax and stop stressing about driving. Plan to get lost a bit and try to enjoy what you discover. Bring a good atlas and do your homework ahead of time and you should be fine. The more scared and nervous you are the more stressful it will be. Also, I am sure that if the people in Scotland are anything like those in Ireland, they will be happy to help you with directions if you are lost. Hope that helps some,I am no

expert, but I have also been asking a lot of questions. Another thing to do is study this website and go back through old threads of questions. I have learned so much here. Feel free to PM me if I can be of any further help. Happy travels!

Amber

Skye is lovely--so atmospheric. Try to spend an entire day there. If you are fascinated by Scotland's history ( we are), you can stay in Flora MacDonald's cottage which is part of the Flodigarry Hotel. Stay two nights, because you need at least a day to drive around the northwestern part of the island. Portree was fun for a couple of hours, but you should stay somewhere in the countryside. There is a lovely ruined castle on a cliff and a large hill fort (broch) out towards the NW edge of the island.

Near Eileen Doonan Castle, you can drive to Plockton, a beautiful little village. We didn't go into the castle; tour books said it was better from the outside. Go to Urqurth Castle instead on Loch Ness.

Glencoe feels haunted by the ghosts of all those murdered MacDonalds. Try to go there on an overcast day.

Inverness---I liked this town even more than Edinburgh. You can take a tour from there which takes you to Skara Brae for the day. It's a long day, but a nice break from driving. When you go to Culloden, try to also visit the Clava Cairns. more atmosphere.
Place names may not be spelled correctly--I don't have time to get out my AA road atlas (you can buy one there--a very valuable tool.) We did this trip in 2005.

Hello everyone - your responses have been such a help! ive looked at all the websites suggested! Ive come to the realization though that Im squeezing too much in. Here is the new tentative plan...

Arrive in edinburgh early wed am 7/2 - stay two full days.

Friday am - take 8 30 megabus to inverness arriving at 12 30. rent car and use the rest of the day to explore, urquhart, lochness, culloden and maybe black isle. sleep in inverness.

saturday am - drive to eilean donan, spend day in skye, stay for night spend sunday at skye then drive back to invnerness -return car - sleep there and head back to edinburgh that monday. fly out tuesday am.

the thing is - ive cut out cairngorm - thats fine with me. but i REALLY wanted to see glencoe and the harry potter steam train (im a huge fan)!! have no idea how to work that in or if i should even bother? Someone suggested using public transport to skye then glencoe then back to inverness but i think its too much. I think i have to choose between glencoe and skye - what do you think? We are not able to stay longer and are flying out of edinburgh tuesday morning the 8th.

If I just see edinburgh, inverness and either skye or glencoe - thats still a decent amount right?! I feel so much pressure to squeeze as much in as possible but i also want to be able to soak it all in without feeling rushed and wiped at the end of the day. Switching from hotel to hotel is even a lot for me who usually prefers to have ONE hotel as a base. I haven't been there and Im already planning for a return trip to see all i don't see this time. Youre input is so very much appreciated!

What a great bunch you all are.....

Don't worry about driving. You will be fine. I love driving in Scotland! I don't think you'll get to all the places you've listed for Saturday afternoon. I would go see Culloden. then see a bit of the Black Isle. Then leave early Saturday AM and take the A82 (north side of Loch Ness) to Urquhart Castle. It sits right on Loch Ness. Unless you're really into the monster I'd drive right past all the Loch Ness Monster tourist traps that are between you and the castle. Do check on the opening times. Then you can drive straight to Eileen Donan. You pick up the A887 west which joins the A87. Spend you time on Skye. When you go back to Inverness, you could look into taking the Northern route past Plockton.

Have you checked into your drop off charge? Maybe you want to keep driving south. Take the Ferry from Skye to Mallaig. From their you can drive to Fort William. Spend the night and then drive to Edinburgh through Glencoe and Rannoch Moor.

Pam

PS Do get good maps. And remember they don't use route numbers very much. You need to know what the next town is and the follow the signs.

Because of its northern latitude, Scotland in the summer has early sunrises and very late sunsets. You can visit sites with closing times first, and save some of your scenery viewing for the long summer evening. And if you're an early riser, you can be out and about viewing scenery at the crack of dawn, which is very early indeed.