United Kingdom - The Planning Stage

Like I mentioned in the previous post, we will be visiting Iceland and the UK on the same trip. Each trip could easily be taken on it's own though, and for the sake of simplicity I'll be posting about them separately.
So. The United Kingdom. Again, a bit daunting. There's just SO SO much. Deciding where to fly in and out of helped us narrow down the options significantly.  As mentioned in the Iceland Planning Stage post we used the Icelandair stopover program to get over there. That was a one way flight from Orlando to Reykjavik and then 5 days later from Reykjavik to Glasgow. Originally we were looking into flying in and out of London, but changing up the airport in the UK gave us the ability to easily see more of the countryside and also ended up being more cost effective. Bonus. We knew we'd want to see at least a bit of London though, and I also happen to have a sister who's living with her husband and three daughters in Oxford who we wanted to meet up with. This helped us make the decision to buy a separate flight from London back to Orlando.
Using services like the Hopper App, Kayak flight tracker, and other websites helped us find flights that fit our dates without breaking the bank too badly. It does take quite a bit of work though. We spent a good few weeks researching flight options to find the best bang for our buck and then waited to purchase said options until the flight prices dropped to what we hoped (Hopper is awesome for this!) would be the cheapest price. Is this a lot of work? Yes. Is it somewhat annoying? Totally. Did we think about hiring a travel agent at one point? Yup. But I think overall we did a pretty good job.
We decided to rent a car for all 8 days in the UK. I know this isn't absolutely necessary since there is pretty good public transportation throughout the country. We did it mostly out of convenience and so we wouldn't be limited in what we could see and do. I'm really hoping the horrible UK traffic won't make us wish we had decided otherwise. The company we went with is Europecar because it was so dang cheap! Only ~$150 for the full week, picking up in Glasgow and dropping off in London. Not bad. I'll be honest, the reviews for the company are pretty poor... we're hoping we're savvy enough to bypass any issues though.
On to the fun stuff. Deciding what to do. Talk about intimidating, and I thought planning for Iceland was difficult. The UK is a whole different animal. So much history, so many different sites and attractions, so many different parts of the country to see. The one good thing is that the island isn't too large. I knew I wanted to spend a chunk of time up in Scotland, we wanted to see a few castles, and what we were most interested in was the countryside. With these guidelines in mind I began researching. Here are a few blogs/websites that really helped me along.
  1. Zigzagonearth - I really like this lady. This blog post in particular sealed the deal on deciding to drive this scenic route to Glen Coe. Her other posts about Loch Leven and Edinburgh were very helpful as well.
  2. Findingtheuniverse - This was another really helpful post particularly when it came to planning our drive from Edinburgh to the Peak District; referred to by us as "The Day of Castles" haha.
  3. Telegraph - This post is a bit hard to follow if you don't know the countryside or have a map to look at as you read. But it did what it's supposed to do and made us want to A.) visit the Peak District and B.) take this scenic drive.
As mentioned before, there are MILLIONS of sites and blog posts about anything you could possibly imagine to do in the UK. Between reading lots of those, and using google maps I was able to nail down an ambitious, yet awesome 8 day itinerary if I do say so myself. You're welcome:
Day 1: Thursday June 15th
  • Glasgow to Callander - Campground
    • Summit Ben Venue - 1:10 min drive
      • 5 mile hike from Loch Achray Hotel
    • Callander - 20 min drive
      • Bracklin Falls Circuit - 3.5 miles
      • Falls of Leny
    • Camp at Immervoulin - reserved
      • $20
Day 2: Friday June 16th
  • Callander to Fort William - Campground
    • Buachaille Etive More - 1:20 min drive
    • Glen Etive - 30 min drive
      • Skyfall area, adds on 2-3 hour drive
    • Glencoe - 45 min drive
      • The Meeting of the Three Waters
      • Three Sisters Falls
    • Old Inverlochy Castle - 30 min drive
    • Glen and Ben Nevis - hike with waterfalls
    • Camp at Glen Nevis Caravan & Camping
      • $33 - no reservation needed
Day 3: Saturday June 17th
  • Fort William to Edinburgh: Roads A82 - A86 - A889 - A9
    • Queens View - 2 hr drive
      • view of Loch Tummel
    • Moulin Hotel for Lunch - 15 min drive
    • Edinburgh Castle - 1:30 min drive
      • $22, open 9:30-5pm (~3 hours to go through)
    • Calton Hill
      • Good view of city at sunset
    • Civerinos - Nutella Calzone
    • Apex Haymarket Hotel
      • 90 Haymarket Terrace, Edinburgh
Day 4: Sunday June 18th
  • Edinburgh
    • Arthur’s Seat
      • 30 min hike straight to top, good at sunrise
    • Walk Royal Mile
      • Palace of Holyroodhouse
        • $16, open 9:30-6pm
      • Scottish Parliament
      • Edinburgh Castle
    • Elephant Cafe - JK Rowling
      • Greyfriars Kirkyard
    • Royal Botanic Garden
Day 5: Monday June 19th
  • Edinburgh to Peak District
    • Lindisfarne Castle - 1:35 min drive
      • Garden
    • Bamburgh Castle - 30 min drive
      • $14, open 11-4:30pm
    • Dunstanburgh Castle - 25 min drive
    • Alnwick Castle - 20 min drive
      • $18
    • New Castle Upon Tyne - 45 min drive
      • Hadrian’s Wall Sites
        • Benwell Vallum Crossing, Denton Hall Turret, Prudhoe Castle #5.00
  • Fountain’s Abbey - 1.5 hr drive
    • $18 open 10-6pm
    • Ripley Caravan Park - $24
  • Peak District - 1.5 hr drive
    • Rising Sun Farm campground - $30
Day 6: Tuesday June 20th
  • Peak District to Oxford
    • Great British Drives - Peak District
    • Stanage Edge - Hike
    • Chatsworth House: House and Garden $25, Garden $17
    • Haddon Hall
  • Oxford - 2.5 hr drive
Day 7: Wednesday June 21th
  • Oxford - My sister and her husband will be showing us around their city, so I left the planning to them.
Day 8: Thursday June 22h
  • Oxford to London
    • Return Rental car 11 am at Heathrow
    • Prince William Hotel: 42-44 Gloucester Terrace, London
    • London Sites:
      • Tower of London
      • Tower Bridge
      • Big Ben
      • London Eye
      • Parliament Building (Palace of Westminster) - close
      • Westminster Abbey - $26
      • The Mall road/St. James Park
      • Buckingham Palace
      • Changing of the Guard
      • Kensington Garden/Hyde Park
Day 9: Friday June 23rd
  • Fly London to Orlando
UK Itinerary Map - again, for you visual people, each day is color coordinated.
A few notes: Since we'll have our camping gear with us anyways, we decided to take advantage, save some money, and experience more of the countryside by camping for a few nights in the UK as well. There are also a lot of things on the itinerary that we're not sure we'll get to or haven't decided whether or not we want to do (tours in particular). We like to have a bit of flexibility when we travel (and lets be honest, when does everything go completely as planned anyways?). So, having a rough itinerary of things we can potentially do suits us best. In subsequent posts I'll let ya know what we actually end up doing each day. Until then... cheers?

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