JohnnyColombia

Right hotels booked for 10 and 12 Oct. 11 Oct West Coast to Edinburgh via Cairngorms and Perth didn't seem to provoke much outrage so I just need to work out a route from Glasgow to Oban

Thanks once again for the help everyone. Google Maps seems quite optimistic. Birmingham to Glasgow in under 5 hours. Fingers crossed it is not too much worse.

ajGoes

Google Maps shows driving time in current traffic conditions. Given the time difference, you may be looking at a quick drive in the middle of the night....

I see they had a way to show estimated driving time for a given future date and time in the old ("classic") Google Maps. This video tells you how.

JohnnyColombia

Cool thanks, says its still only 4 hours 38 mins for Friday morning at 10.30

nobbyclark

5 hours from Birmingham to Glasgow is about right. One you get past Manchester, the M6 and M74 are very quiet. Then it's an hour or so from Glasgow to get to the good stuff.

Mizter T

I don't think it's well known about, but TomTom (the satnav company) offers a free journey planning website available to all - you can enter a specific departure day time (and day of the week) and it'll show a journey time according to what they estimate the traffic conditions will be, plus it sometimes offers different routes at different times depending upon traffic estimates.

It's here:
maps.tomtom.com

JohnnyColombia

OK doing this route



Any thoughts?

Jenbel

If staying around Pitlochry, the Enchanted Forest is running currently:
http://www.enchantedforest.org.uk

I ate at Loch Fyne restaurant (the original) and it was good, but very busy. Seafood was disappointingly main stream though. Another good eatery is the Moulin Pub just outside Pitlochry - the same people have the Atholl Arms in Blair Atholl with a very similar menu.

HIDDY

As good a route as any I would say.

Here's hoping the weather behaves itself.

JohnnyColombia

Looks very nice, but I am hoping to be passing through Pitlochry before dark.

Thanks. And I am very happy to have put together a frivolous trip using only the advice of FTers.

LindaTerrill

Thank you for the link to this sunrise-sunset chart. A link on the left details sunrise and sunset by location and month. Very helpful for planning winter travel/driving rural roads and the early sunsets.

antichef

You are more than welcome ^

tev9999

I am planning a similar trip for the week of October 20th. I decided to take the train from London to Edinburgh, so I will be renting a car from Tuesday morning until Saturday morning. I plan on keeping my plan flexible so I can adjust in the event of bad weather, but my initial thoughts are:

Monday: Arrive at Waverly station. Hotel Indigo award stay.

Tuesday: pick up car about 9:00 from Waverly. Hit Doune castle (a must for the trip) and possibly St. Andrews golf course. Targeting Dundee for the night for a free Holiday Inn stay.

Wednesday: Dundee to Inverness via Cairngorms National Park.

Thursday: Inverness to Oban

Friday: Oban to Glasgow via Loch Lomond. Several Holiday Inn award possibilities.

Saturday: Glasgow to Edinburgh to drop car and catch a 10:52 train back to London.


This seems to keep me at around 100-130 miles and three hours or so a day of driving.

Some questions:
1. Is it worth the side trip to St. Andrews to maybe snap a picture and buy a souvenir for my golf bag?
2. Is it worth a detour to Aberdeen? Looks like the hotels are pretty well sold so I am guessing there is something going on that week.
3. What is the most scenic route through Cairngorms National Park?
4. Any recommendations on cheap but clean lodging along the way? I am trying to use IHG and Hilton points, but the redemption rates don't make sense against the current price, plus there are no properties for a couple nights. I don't care about fancy rooms, but walking distance to a pub or two would be nice.
5. I'm on the fence with Glasgow. Not a big fan of large cities. Any alternative locations that would leave me within an hour or so of Edinburgh to get the car back on Saturday morning?

Thanks for any advice.

Jenbel

St Andrews is a nice town - it's not just the golf course, it's a pretty little university town. I took an American friend recently and he was pretty amazed to realise that you could just walk out onto the Old Course (being wary of interfering with players of course).

For me, the detour would be weather dependent. The most logical way to get to it would be to go Edinburgh - Doune - Stirling - Perth - Dundee - St Andrews so you could pop down if you feel like it at the end of day 1. The clubhouse at the Old Course has a decent restaurant and prices aren't too touristy, you could always get a bit to eat as well. Of course, you could also stop off at Gleneagles en route between Stirling and Perth - it is a 5 star hotel, but was also home to the recent Ryder Cup. St Andrews also has some reasonable pubs and restaurants.

If you do go to Aberdeen, you end up actually missing entirely the Cairngorms. Be aware that your routes through the Cairngorms from Dundee will be much slower, but are nice (I presume you are thinking of going via Blairgowrie, Glenshee, Ballater and Grantown-on-Spey? It is a nice run, but is slow - but you are on holiday! Just watch out for snow - seen long range forecasts suggesting some may fall this month on high tops, and Tomintoul is always the first place to get cut off!) Whereas Dundee - Inverness via Aberdeen is actually a pretty dull drive - although dual carriageway all the way to Aberdeen and then patchy over to Inverness. Your other option is to go via Perth and A9 - the traditional route. Its also a nice drive and very scenic, but yeah, I'd go the more demanding drive I think!

Inverness has a number of good B&Bs which are pretty central. I've had good stays at the Craignay B&B and the Ardconnel B&B - of the two, I'd chose the latter. It's maybe a 10 minute walk into central Inverness. Wouldn't recommend the B&B I've stayed most recently at in Oban....

For your return, what about staying around Loch Lomond? it's actually not that much further back to Edinburgh (maybe an extra 30 minutes). The central belt between Edinburgh and Glasgow is a bit meh - another option might be at Linlithgow or Stirling itself.

JohnnyColombia

I am happy you jumped in

There is some great Hilton value at the moment in Scotland. Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh is £55 per night plus 20K points. HGI and Hilton Glasgow are both £33 per night plus 12K points. Hilton Dunkeld and Doubletree Edinburgh are both in the UK 7 day flash sale (about 5 days remaining) Maybe Dunblane Hydro if you want to avoid Glasgow.

No IHG or Hilton in Oban but there's a Best Western and they'll status match you giving you a smattering of points in your favourite airline programme.

Not professing to be a Scotland expert given I started this thread, just sharing my hotel findings

Happy travels

Jenbel

The Waldorf in old money is the Caledonian.... it's kind of an old hotel name in the city to be so easily discarded

YMMV, but BW in random locations in the UK can be quite scary.