Scottish Honeymoon Roadtrip

Hi, do you mean 10 days for your whole trip, or 10 days for the loop? Be aware, as we keep posting on this forum, that although Scottish distances are tiny, so are a lot of the roads & travelling in the Highlands can take a long time.
Some initial thoughts.........
You need a car in Edinburgh like a hole in the head. It's one of the most congested cities in the UK, parking is a nightmare & costly. Save your money & don't have a rental car for this part of your trip.
Pity about Glasgow, it is a great place with lots to see & do. Not beautiful like Edinburgh but it has great galleries, sights, pubs & massively friendly people.
If you are set on missing it out, are flights to Edinburgh much pricier? You could then hire your car when you leave Edinburgh & not be driving jet lagged.
Consider visiting New Lanark when you go to down to Lanark.....
Aberdeen? Depends what you are looking for. Old Aberdeen & the University are interesting & very beautiful, but it doesn't rock my boat. I'd recommend Stonehaven, if you are going to that part of the east coast......it's about 15 miles south of Aberdeen, has some quirky accommodation, great fish & chips, a wonderful harbour & there's a fabulous cliff walk to Dunottar Castle you can do from there.
Oh- there's no 'e' in whisky........
Good luck!

For making a time saving I'd cut off the top part of the loop and drive straight from Inverness to Ullapool in a day. The far north is nice, but its attraction is quieter, more understated than the highlands proper where (for my money) the first time visitor will get more bang for their buck.

Your day #1, Glasgow to Edinburgh via Lanark, sounds overly ambitious to me, especially if you're knackered after a transatlantic flight. I would agree with TLCh that the New Lanark world heritage site is worth a visit, but not as part of your first day. Also poss of interest is Alistair Gray's novel, Lanark (any of his work is great to be honest).

Oh and don't program in too many distillery visits. No matter how fond you are of whisky, once you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.

St Andrews is a 2 hour drive from Edinburgh. Longer if taking the coastal route through the fishing villages. Can see the town in one afternoon and evening and move on the next day. Only go via Aberdeen if interested in oil platform tender ships. Better route via Aviemore. Even better route but slower via Braemar. Inverness needs 2 nights. Visit Culloden, Fort George . Note, no mention of Loch Ness.
Agree with above about cutting across to Ullapool and then before going south sticking to the coast spend a day touring the Assynt peninsula.
Agree with above about clarity required as to when your 10 days start and end.
Disagree with above about car hire on first day only because I can't see any other easy way of fitting in (New) Lanark. Your flight is only 5 hours but you will still have the jet lag syndrome.
Reference Edinburgh, your car will be idle for 2 days. Make sure your hotel has a car park. Recommend staying west side of the city at an hotel close to the tram line giving easy access to the centre.

I too would truncate the major northern coastal loop and do not worry if you miss John o@ Groats. Cutting westwards I would also consider A838 along Loch Shin to Laxford Bridge which sets you up for a route through Assynt possibly Lochinver.

Unless you intend to spend at least a couple of days on Skye I would tend to delete in order to cut down the hours of driving.

Once off any of the A roads expect your average speed to fall below 30 mph especially on areas such as Applecross peninsula.

If you intend to do any significant hill walking in the Highlands this also is going to be time consuming.

R

Thank you all so much! When I said 10 days, I meant land around 8am on August 30, and fly out around 9:30am on September 9. So we'd really need to be back in Glasgow sometime on the 8th.

My fiance realized that his family does NOT in fact come Lanark. They come from what used to be Lanarkshire. A little more digging has suggested that the town to check out for him would be Airdrie, which is a bit more convenient as it's nicely between Glasgow and Edinburgh. I agree with @TLCh about not needing a car in Edinburgh. Flying in to that airport isn't really an option, but maybe we could take a train there from Glasgow and find a car rental that will allow us to pick up in Edinburgh and drop off in Glasgow. Maybe even stop off in Airdrie and do a bleary post over-night-travel tour of whatever it is he wants to see there.

I'll take the advice of @canbot @pedro555 and @rodway and cut off the top part of the loop. I was looking forward to Smoo Cove, but I'm already getting a sense that this won't be our last trip to Scotland.

I'm more hesitant to cut out Skye, but if as @rodway says, two days is necessary than I don't know if we'll have time.

We're not super big hikers, so we don't plan to do any really ambitious hill walking in the Highlands, but definitely do plan to take our time driving, try out some back roads and make lots of stops along the way.

Here's a revised itinerary:
- Land in Glasgow am August 30. Train to Edinburgh. Stay in Edinburgh 3 nights.
- Leave Edinburgh am of September 2. Drive to St. Andrew's. Stay 1 night in St. Andrew's.
- Leave St. Andrew's September 3. Drive to Inverness. Stay 2 nights in Inverness.
- Leave Inverness September 5. Drive to Ullapool. Stay 1 night in Ullapool.
- Leave Ullapool September 6. We'd need to find a place to stay somewhere between Ullapool and Glencoe for one night. Any suggestions?
- Leave wherever we've just stayed on September 7. Drive to Glencoe. Stay one night in Glencoe.
- Leave Glencoe on September 8. Drive to Glasgow and arrive sometime in the evening.
- Fly out September 9.

Here's my new map! https://goo.gl/maps/B8MnTLJ5vuD2 Is this still seeming too ambitious?

Thank you all so much, this is a big help!

Much better, and doable I think. Come back and devote a week to Skye another time.

For the night between Ullapool and Glencoe you could try Plockton . Or Glenelg. Or Applecross as I see from your map that you're planning to explore the peninsula anyway.

This topic has been automatically locked due to inactivity. Email community@lonelyplanet.com if you would like to add to this topic and we'll unlock it for you.