Trip to Scotland ideas

In 10 days you can do a fantastic trip to London and Scotland. I'd suggest something like the following: London- 2 or 3 days with day trip to Windsor and at least one theatre night. Train to York- 1 night. Train to Edinburgh- 1 or 2 nights. Train to Aviemore- 3 or more days- do microbrewery tour, go to Dalwhinnie and Strathala distilleries (also do others if desired - Bellvinnie) The Caringorm hotel is just across the street from the train station and is exactly what you want. They have great food and it looks like a mini-castle! Do the funicular up Mt. Caringorm and the restored steam train roundtrip. Train to Inverness for rest of trip. Day trips to consider- Isle of Skye with Eliean Donnan castle and ride through some beautiful glens, Orkneys (a long, long day, but beautiful), a cruise on the firth, a cruise up Loch Ness and stop at Urquart castle ruins. Inverness also has access to some distilleries via tours. Fly home from Inverness or train back to Edinburh or Glasgow. If you want more time in Scotland, skip London this go round. If you prefer to "stay put" and do day trips, I'd go for Inverness and/or Aviemore. We have done variations of this trip many times (40+ trips to the UK in 20 years). Feel free to private message me and ENJOY SCOTLAND!

Personally, I would save London for another trip. It's easy to get to London and 10 is not that long. You can fly directly to Glasgow from some east coast cities--Philadelphia to Glasgow and I think from Newark to Edinburgh. Canadian airlines have lots of flights directly to Scotland! I've made ten trips to Scotland and just got back last night from my most recent trip. I agree with a lot of what Toni recommends, but I do some things differently.

I adore driving in Scotland. I find the wee roads and countryside addictive. I recommend spending a couple of days in Edinburgh. You definitely want to make contact with your family connections. Inverness is a very vital city. It's very much a working city and the market place for most of the highlands. You can stay there or in some of the smaller towns that surround it. I've stayed in Strathpeffer and most recently spent the week in Fortrose.

Speyside is very close to Inverness and that might be a good place to spend a night or two. There's a wonderful book by Iain Banks Raw Spirit which talks about his search for the perfect dram. Look for it on Amazon.co.uk. IT might help pick out what distillery that you want to visit.

I have other favorite spots. I love Dunkeld for the Music Bar, the wee houses, and the walks. Pitlochry has a nice distillery, a playhouse, nice walks and the Explorers' Garden--also it's not far from Blair Castle. Then there is the west--so many beautiful places. We walked near Torridon last week and saw 400 cyclist struggling in the rain near Applecross. Mull is a wonderful island.

I would recommend spending some time at these websites. http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/ and http://www.visitscotland.com/. Both of them will help with your planning. As Toni said please PM either or both of us and we can give you some more ideas. I've tons of book suggestions! It's a wonderful country with wonderful people. Pam

I just adore Scotland, so if it were me, I would skip London in order to see as much of Scotland as possible. Just to be clear, I love London to, but there is so much to do there, I would save it for a trip when you have more time to spend there. However, if you really want to do both, Toni's itinerary is ideal.

You need to start with a good guidebook. I'd suggest Rick Steves' Great Britain Book is you are going to include London, or his soon to be released Scotland book if you're only doing Scotland. (The Scotland book is the exact same info on Scotland you find in his GB book, but cheaper since it's just Scotland and not all of Great Britain.)

The 2010 Great Britain book and the Scotland book will be availabe in December. If youdon't want to wait, the 2009 Great Britain book is available now.

I like Rick's advice, but I find his information on Scotland to be limiting. He's picked his favorite spots, but I have some different ones. So, I recommend that you look for the Scotland Handbook which is a Footprint guide. I've found this to be a more comprehensive guidebook. Pam

Try the undiscoveredscotland.com website. Tons of great information on Scotland, way better than any I have found in a guidebook. However, my recommended guidebook is Scotland the best, available from Amazon. Also, check the tripadvisor forum for Scotland.

Katy, Consider just doing Scotland and seeing as much as possible. It is spectacular and may just change you life. Our big trip of scotland england and wales has been in my excel spread sheet for 3 years now due to one scheduling problem or Terrible dollar to pound rate and this June we were suppose to go but my husbands office decided to hold of on the london office until October. So I have tons of info I can share with you that may help with budgeting and timing. Since we went in 2001 our trip is much different. Two of my most favorite place were Iona Abbey and Melrose Abbey and I am not particularly one to search out abbeys but they are beautiful, one is a ruin and the other is in tact. Both are really old but spectacular in their own ways.
http://www.funcompanies.com/images/images/1223_scottish_highlands.html

http://home.comcast.net/~chezinwap/scotland98/gj0718/

The second web pages is the same tour someone took. We had the same driver, he is the shorter of the two in the pictures and he is from Stratford upon Avon and a spectacular driver and very funny.