England/Scotland - The Planning

I had no plans to travel to Scotland or England this year, but my niece, Shruti, is in Manchester for one year so I can meet her and of course my cousin, Gaurav, also lives in England so it will be perfect. And then I can add Scotland and make a nice trip out of it. Luckily Shruti helped in the planning and guided as to how many days to spend where and about the weather there.

So....here is how it worked out. There is flight into Manchester, so that is awesome, I don't have to go to London (too big of an airport). I can take trains and buses everywhere else. This time I want to do all the planning and booking, no more middle person. I was hoping for about a two week trip, but by the time I finished counting days and looking at tours, it turned out to be a bit more than a three week trip. I will start and end at Manchester. At the end, it all looks like below. I had book all my hotels and transportations. I took it one city at a time and planned the tours and activities. It was a lot, but in the end it all worked out beautifully. London was not on my list this time because I think it needs a lot more time, but Shruti was going to London during that week so I also decided to venture out. I was afraid of London also, too big of a city for me! 

22-May: Thur - depart PBI 23-May: Fri - Reach Manchester 24-May: Sat - Manchester 25-May: Sun – Manchester: Dales and Montes 26-May: Mon – Manchester: North Wales, Snowdonia, and Chester Tour 27-May: Tue - Glasgow-1: Train to Glasgow 28-May: Wed - Glasgow-2: Highlands tour 29-May: Thu - Glasgow-3: Self paced Glasgow city tour 30-May: Fri - Inverness-1: Bus to Inverness 31-May: Sat – Portree: tour to Isle of Skye -2 day tour 1-Jun: Sun - Inverness-1: back to Inverness 2-Jun: Mon - Inverness-2: Jacob steam train tour 3-Jun: Tue - Inverness-3: self  paced Inverness city tour 4-Jun: Wed - Edinburgh-1: Bus to Edinburgh - 1 5-Jun: Thu - Edinburgh-2: Edinburgh - 2 6-Jun: Fri - Edinburgh-3: Edinburgh - 3 7-Jun: Sat - Stockton-on-Tees: Train to Darlington/Stockton On Tees 8-Jun: Sun - Stockton-on-Tees 9-Jun: Mon - Stockton-on-Tees 10-Jun: Tue - to London: Train to London-Kings Cross 11-Jun: Wed – London 12-Jun: Thu - London to Manchester: Bus to Manchester 13-Jun: Fri - Manchester 14-Jun: Sat - Depart for PBI

Booking was through Delta and this time I decided to go Comfort plus, which is really all just BS, you do get to board first and have a overhead luggage space for sure, but, it is not much worth it. I will not be using it next time. I had Delta in USA and Virgin Atlantic to London and back. VA was a great airline, lots of leg room and good food. 

I was able to make all my transport and tour bookings online. The only one I lost money on was through Viator, they overcharged me, but GetYourGuide was okay. I booked my free walking tours in Glasgow and Edinburgh from here and for London while I was in Inverness, just a bit in advance. The good thing is all these tours can be cancelled last minute and money is refunded. The walking tours were free so no issues. I booked all the hotels directly. The only hotel I made an error in was in Edinburgh - it was not in the city center which prevented me from walking out at night.