1

Thing is, we can't really comment on your budget since it's in CAD, which, to the most of us, doesn't mean much. Perhaps you could let us know what the equivalent sterling is? Then we can comment but I would think $200 per person per day for food and drink is a bit excessive.

I would personally drive. I think that train travel with 3 children is a bit much and you would still need taxis/buses quite often too. Driving is not so bad here. We had a Canadian couchsurfer stay with us in Cornwall last year and she had never driven on the left before, nor had much experience with roundabouts (rotarys I think you call them). She drove all the way from the south of the country to Scotland, via Wales and then onto Ireland and she coped very well. She was also on her own so had no help navigating or moral support. If she can do it, I bet you could too! It is just SO much easier and nicer to be your own boss! Once you're out of major cities, it's not too bad and ok, we probably drive faster than you but there are plenty of OAPs who drive slowly...

2

1.5CAD = £1

I'm sure you could spend £100-150 on food per person per day, but you could also get by on £25.

Your hotel budget is about £100 per day. That would be enough for 1 x 3-star hotel room IMO.

3

so helpful! Thank you so much already!
For food in GBP it would be 130gbp a day per person. It does seem quite a bit, but I thought it would be better to be safe to allow for a couple "nice" meals.

I am getting the feeling from different sites that driving maybe isn't the terrifying experience I am envisioning it to be! I suppose we could get on alright given we just did taxi's in larger cities? I read somewhere it would be a good idea to take a taxi from the airport to a smaller town outside the city and rent there...avoiding the stress as soon as we get there.

We had looked at renting a vacation home for a few days in Scotland and a few days in England based on locations of the majority of sites we'd want to visit. We could perhaps save a bit of money packing a lunch for the day? We'd also have easy access to a washing machine so we could get away with packing less?

Am I on the right track?

4

Good idea to book cottages - plenty of websites, but sykes cottages, cottages4you, holiday cottages and others all have a good range. You haven't said when you're coming but it is worth booking in good time (3 - 6 months before coming) to get a good choice. As Fwoggie and others suggest, think about doing longer journeys by train and then hiring a car for local journeys. In most towns and cities public transport is good and often much easier than trying to find a parking space. And just in case, remember most cars here are manual - if you want an automatic gearbox, that's something else you need to book early.

Once you've developed an outline of where you want to go, come back here for some suggestions and additions and we'll try and help polish up your itinerary - most of the replies here are from residents who know different areas of the country in detail.

5

ditto get a sat nav.

Whether you need a car or whether public transport will suffice, really depends on where you want to go.

We did a road trip from Cornwall to Edinburgh - couple of lovely stops along the way which would have been difficult without a car.
I have also travelled by train from Glasgow to London, with a stopover at York - I was more than happy with that trip and a car wasn't really necessary.

6

Good call on the automatic vs manual car thing.

7

Hi - and welcome to Thorn Tree.
Please take note, that the UK uses £'s and not CAN$'s.
If you want to use CAN$'s in England and Scotland - you'll get badly stung on the exchange rates.
In Scotland, you'll get change in Scottish £5 and £10 notes. These are pretty worthless outside of The UK.
Get rid of them before leaving.
The very best of luck with everything.