Originally Posted by
Oxon Flyer
For this sort of itinerary, which is all in Scotland with one journey from London, I would recommend the
Spirit of Scotland Travelpass.
Eight days unlimited travel over 15 consecutive days: £179, which includes train, ferry and bus travel in all the areas you at visiting.
And buy a separate ticket from London to Edinburgh. You can get Advance First Class tickets at a reasonable rate.
Always very helpful. Thanks. I think I've decided on the following with regard to Kings Cross > Edinburgh and Edinburgh > Inverness:
First class from Kings Cross to EDI - $211 advanced purchase on Virgin East Coast.
First class from EDI to INV - $90 advanced purchase on Virgin East Coast.
I did take a look at the rest of the trip using the Spirit of Scotland travel pass. We would just need the four days in eight version. BritRail was showing this as costing $424 booked in the US. Looks like ScotRail has a better deal at about $197, unless this is per person. Then the difference is neglible. I'm assuming that since they can't send anything to a US-based address, this would mean that we'd have to buy one at Kings Cross when we arrived in London?
Either way, we will have to weigh the cost compared to just booking the bus, and the two other train trips (FTW > OBN; OBN > GLA). While I certainly like the convenience of being able to take any train at any time on the stated travel days, I can book everything we need for about $700 if go the advanced purchase route without the BritRail Spirit of Scotland pass. Using it, the cost seems to only go up another $24, so the convenience factor might just win out.