Looking for travel tips - Scotland (with a little bit of London thrown in)

[dreamshark]

I have now booked airfare for a mother-daughter trip to Scotland in July. So it's official - we're going! Now I have the basic dates I'm trying to fill in the rest of the details. I'm looking for tips on:

* Car rental overseas (specifically UK). I'm particularly baffled by the constantly changing information regarding insurance, collision damage waivers, and credit cards. I have several credit cards to choose from: which should I use? Do I need to pay the exorbitant rental car insurance? Should I rent from someplace familiar like Hertz, or can someone recommend a reliable European car rental agency? How hard is it to drive a stick shift with the gearshift on the wrong side?

* Someplace affordable to stay in London for 2 days. We won't have much time there, so we'll need someplace centrally located. But I don't want to pay $200/night. It doesn't have to be fancy, just relatively safe. Has anyone ever used Priceline to find hotels? Does it work?

* Trains. We'll be taking the train from London to Scotland and back again. I see that Britain no longer has a national rail system, and there are a bewildering number of choices. Yikes! Where do you start?

* If you only had two days in London and wanted to be leisurely about it, what would you see? I'm leaning towards the Tower, the Eye, and the British Museum.

* How about Edinburgh?

* Have you been to Scotland? If so, what was the best part?

Comments

[pameladean]

I have used Priceline to find hotels in the U.S., and it works fine. I haven't used it in Europe.

If I were in London again I would go to Kew Gardens and as many plays as I could cram in, but that doesn't mean you want to.

I remember loving Edinburgh madly and wishing I could stay more than a night, but I don't recall much more than Edinburgh Castle and the Walter Scott monument. It was a long time ago.

P.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

You might try asking in the world_travel community.

If I were staying in London for two days, I would probably look at hostels first. Another possibility is renting a room in someone's home.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I managed driving a stick shift on the wrong side well enough (in three countries, I think). What I found surprisingly important was that the shift and clutch are BOTH on the left over there; changing what had been a cross-body activity into something happening all on one side made a surprisingly big difference. (And then pushing the shift AWAY from me to get into first was kind of weird, too.)

I'm a big fan of Kew Gardens also. I also like Greenwich, and the maritime museum there.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"I managed driving a stick shift on the wrong side well enough (in three countries, I think). What I found surprisingly important was that the shift and clutch are BOTH on the left over there; changing what had been a cross-body activity into something happening all on one side made a surprisingly big difference. "

Interesting point. I think I would notice that too. I seem to be very aware of laterality (and not in a good way). I have a terrible time transferring learned skills from one side to the other.

The more I think about it, the more I think it would be worth paying extra for an automatic.

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

At least one of your credit cards probably has some kind of rental vehicle policy included for free; you can look up the details online and if the coverage is sufficient, waive the expensive rental agency stuff.

I had no trouble driving a car in Britain, although when you get into the singletrack roads in Scotland, it can be hard to remember to veer LEFT to let people pass!

Eric & I spent about the same amount of time in London as you will, and those are the things we saw. No complaints, but I don't think I have enough perspective to be utterly helpful. I would recommend booking the Eye in advance (you can do it online) and I really liked the fact that we timed our ride so that we saw the sunset.

I liked the inn we found in London; it was very close to and Underground stop and quite reasonable. I'll see if I can find the details and send them your way.

Edinburgh was delightful, though I spent most of trip to Scotland riding around the countryside and visiting castles and distilleries. Definitely take a stroll down High Street between the Castle and Holyrood, and plan on spending some time in the castle. I had a very good tour guide there.

As we cull books, I think that I have some travel guides to Scotland. It's been 8 years since I was there, so I don't promise that they're completely up-to-date, but they might be useful nonetheless. If you're interested I'll pull them out for you.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"At least one of your credit cards probably has some kind of rental vehicle policy included for free; you can look up the details online and if the coverage is sufficient, waive the expensive rental agency stuff."

That's exactly the problem. All of them vaguely claim to have rental vehicle coverage, but it is impossible to tell from their websites what they actually cover. A little googling on travel sites reveals that the coverage varies quite a bit from card to card even within the same brand. Apparently this has all been in flux in recent years. The travel sites that compare cards say that Amex and Visa are currently the best and Mastercard blows chunks.

Sad, because my platinum MasterCard used to be my most premium credit card. I looked at the latest version of that card and it no longer says "Platinum" on it (although it is still silver colored). In fact, it is impossible to tell by looking at the card which of the current Mastercard products it actually corresponds to. I rarely use it any more, but hesitate to get rid of it since I've had it since 1985. Apparently this makes it valuable in some way that I don't entirely understand, probably something to do with credit ratings.

"As we cull books, I think that I have some travel guides to Scotland. It's been 8 years since I was there, so I don't promise that they're completely up-to-date, but they might be useful nonetheless. If you're interested I'll pull them out for you."

I'd love to take them off your hands! We have a Minnstf meeting at our house in about a week - that would be a good time to drop them by. Or I could come get them. Let me know if you find them. Thanks!

[hakatrip.livejournal.com]

Edinburgh was my favorite part of my European trip. The castle is a must, but a tour guide isn't. They have self-guided tours where you wear headphones and have control of what you choose to hear about. Walk around, see something interesting with a number, dial the number, get the scoop.

We rented bikes and spent a day out in the country, biked to an old castle that didn't have a roof anymore. The only castle ruins I saw in our North European tour. All other castles were reconstructed after WW2. Hiking up Arthur's Seat was amazing! An easy walk, though uphill, the view is fabulous.

July huh? Look at the Fringe Festival dates for Edinburgh and see if your trip will overlap. The home city of the Fringe, they rent out every lecture hall available, and have plays going all day, everyday, for two weeks I think? We were very lucky to land there during that, without planning to.

We were there in 2001. They had an excellent bus system, where you buy a single pass good for many days. Our bed and breakfast was really nice, but outside the downtown area. It had a bus stop right outside it. :)

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"We rented bikes and spent a day out in the country, biked to an old castle that didn't have a roof anymore. "

Do you recall where that was? I was looking around on websites for easy bike rides with rental bikes, but it seems that most of Scotland is way too challenging for the casual biker (steep steep steep).

"July huh? Look at the Fringe Festival dates for Edinburgh and see if your trip will overlap. The home city of the Fringe, they rent out every lecture hall available, and have plays going all day, everyday, for two weeks I think? We were very lucky to land there during that, without planning to."

The Festival is in August, which is fine with me. I'd pay extra to avoid that. I mean, I love the Fringe Festival here at home, but I do NOT want to plan a trip that overlaps with the biggest tourist draw of the year. I was on a business trip once that happened to hit Munich during Oktoberfest - Yikes!

"Our bed and breakfast was really nice, but outside the downtown area. It had a bus stop right outside it. :)"

Do you happen to recall the name of the place?

[hakatrip.livejournal.com]

A-Haven Townhouse for the B&B. (We took a pic of the sign, so I just looked in our photo album.:) The only problem was that it was a bit far out, so when we were out very late at an 11 pm show, the bus only took us partway back and we had to walk the rest. Not too far, maybe a mile, mile and a half? The breakfast room of the B&B was the only place I heard a real thick Scottish accent... to the point of recognizing that the other guest was speaking English, but only understanding about one word in eight or nine.

We rented bikes from a bike rental in Edinburgh, and that guy gave us the map and route to the castle. I don't remember the name of the castle. It was not too steep, indeed I remember a lot of rolling greenery. It was a day trip, with that hike up Arthur's Seat in there. There was a small village with a pub that we stopped at for lunch. It rained lightly on us, as it's wont to do in the middle of the day I understand.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Good tips! Thanks.

[fuzzygabby.livejournal.com]

When I go to London, I usually stay at the Arran House Hotel. It's a few blocks from the British Museum. Last October, I only had 3 weeks notice and Arran House was full up so I stayed at the unfortunately named Beaver Hotel, which was fine, but not as conveniently located, though it's near the Underground.

I would definitely recommend the Tower and the British Museum. I've actually never done the Eye. Really must one of these days. (Assuming I can afford to get back to Europe sometime. Thank you, Scott Walker!)

I spent 2 nights in Edinburgh once, but my main memories are of meeting and getting to know a cousin. He took me on a drive by the Firth of Forth which was pretty. Oh, and an online friend took me to the Christmas market which was fun, but unlikely in July. On an earlier trip, a friend and I drove up to Loch Ness and then the Orkneys both of which I would highly recommend. Be aware though that the roads in northern Scotland are extremely narrow. Basically they're one car-width, but traffic goes both ways. It took us just about 2 full days to drive from Orkney to Cambridge. I think we rented our car through Hertz and they were fine. We picked up the car in Glasgow (after Worldcon 2005) and turned it in in Cambridge.

That's all I can think of that's relevant for now...