Travel around Ireland and UK

There is indeed a Scotland-London night sleeper, sounds pretty good but also quite expensive. http://www.seat61.com/CaledonianSleepers.htm As you can see, you can take it all the way into the Highlands if you like.

Sounds like it would be more interesting in the London-Scotland direction, when you would get to see Scottish scenery in the morning - in the spring or fall, it will probably be dark by the departure times from Scotland. But maybe that doesn't fit in with your plans.

Edited by: fear_rua

If you want to go from the highlands (or central Scottish belt area around Edinburgh down to Glasgow) then yes there's the sleeper train that #20 cites. Alternatively you can train it by day (around 5 hrs door to door, nice scenery), or you can fly it (boring scenery, and not that much quicker door to door).

(I should add that for trains in the UK, the earlier you book the cheaper it is. Downside: it restricts you to a particular train, but I imagine your itinerary may be fairly fixed anyway, so this might not bother you much).

I sympathize to some degree with your goals. I, too, like to carefully plan an itinerary and see as much as possible on a given trip. My husband made me slow it down a bit and leave a bit of breathing room which has indeed made our trips more fun. We still cover a lot of ground. I don't really get people like my Austrian friend who just visited me in Boston, and then went to NYC for five days with almost no plans and ended up doing a lot of "walking around."

That said, 11 days for three countries is just plain too much. It seems like you want to say you've been. But even if it's years from now, save one of these places and just do it later. If you see three places in Ireland, you won't really have seen or experienced Ireland, but you won't be driven to return either, because you've "already been there." I have been to England/Scotland; we are currently planning 15 days in Ireland. Try to see too much and you end up experiencing nothing.

Definitely try to get a car because it is very difficult taking trains and buses around Ireland. I mean it is possible but its not as enjoyable as driving around the countryside, I took a life down to Clare last week and it only took about 3 hours where as it took 6 getting back using buses.