UK Itinerary...Is this crazy?

Seems doable to me; but why? You will be driving through a lot of interesting places and scenery without being able to appreciate or experience any of them. The joy of places like North Wales, Lake District and (especilly) the Cotswolds is having the time to poke about slowly, taking little side lanes and stopping in villages. May as well take a 10 or 12 day coach tour (with all that entails), you will get the same touch of everything without the exhaustion and headache of doing all the driving

So how would you simplify it? We're tied into going to Edinburgh because we already have tickets there. And we'll be in Stratford for the play. So our options are: 1. Cut out the drive through the Highlands and stay in Edinburgh just two nights, head on to the Lake District or Wales. 2. Go to Stratford a day later, so we could add more time to Wales or some other destination. 3. Add a day to the end of the trip, so we could add time to the Cotswolds and/or Bath. Would you recommend any of those?

On your drive through the Highlands, you could save yourself some time by spending the night around or south of Glasgow. I'd also suggest you skip any detour into the Lake District because you still have a 3 hour plus drive. You also might want to consider skipping the Highlands drive. Have you considered starting in Bath and then ending in London? Other than that, you have a good "highlights" trip.

Thanks Ken. We had intended to take the opposite route you suggested and spend Easter in London, but our host had a change of work plans and had to leave for the States then, so we wouldn't get to hang out with her, which was the original inspiration for the trip. So we switched it. I was very excited about visiting Scotland and perhaps rushed a bit to get our plane tickets. But maybe we'll just do Edinburgh right and go back for a few days deep in the Highlands someday. It will probably not be our last trip to London, so I imagine we'll get to York someday as well. Any other suggestions for our time between Wales and Bath?

May I offer the suggestion of staying nights near Stow on the Wold which is about 20-30 minutes from Stratford and 3 hours or so from Conwy. From Stow you could use that as a base to spend 1 day in Stratford and then the second day exploring around that region of the Cotswolds. Then you could explore a little bit more as you drive to Bath with is about hour and a half from Stow. Just a thought.

Hope I'm not telling you something you know already, but when driving in the UK, you need to allow more time for a journey than you would in the US. In the US I usually think of 60 miles= 60 minutes; here, I allow almost double that (which also compensates for the number of times I get lost!)

Hi Luke, I am doing alot of the same stops as you are, but in the other direction. I also do not have the time constraints for tickets. I sadly sacrifced York for another time, but this is what I set up. Keep in mind I kept the commute from point a to point B, driving close to 2 hours at each leg except in Wales, but we will stop along the way up through Wales. We also live in CA and are quite used to long commutes! 1. 3 Nights and days in London 2. Rent car and then to Cotswolds for 2 nights. See Avon and Warwick one day, and do a quaint village tour the second day. 3. 2 nights in Bath. 1 day to see Bath, and one to see Glastonbury and Wells, scoot out to Avebury and Lacock and back. 4. One night in Cardiff. See Chepstow. See the St Fagams Museum and castle. 5. Drive north through Wales. Stopping along to see Beacon, Betys, and finish in Conwy. See 2 of Edwards other castles and Snowdonia the second day. 2 nights in Conwy. 6. Drive to Keswick, 2 nights in Keswick.
7. Drive north to Edinburgh, via Carlisle to see the wall. Do the Heart of Scotland tour one day to Loch Ness. A drive free day! 3 nights in Edinburgh and home. Good Luck! Let me know if you have questions. I used the AA Trip planner which is an awesome resource! Check it out!