3

Going on a Coldplay concert with my wife at Wembley in London in August on a Friday, and going to Edinburgh on Saturday/Sunday. We have not decided how to travel from London to Edinburgh. To see some of the countryside would be nice. We have checked that we can travel by train and rental car of course.

What is the best way to travel from London to Edinburgh? The hotel we will stay in Edinburgh is close to the train station and we are taking the train to Glasgow on Monday. Is it fairly easy to drive from London to Edinburgh if we take a car? Only been driving on the right side of the road in my life, but been driving in big cities like Rome, Madrid, Berlin, etc. with no problem. Price-wise, the rental car is also more expensive than the train, and I will probably drain more energy to drive.

Any suggestions on what we should do to experience and have the best trip and travel experience from London to Edinburgh? (And if there is any must stop by and watch places on the way which do not include driving into big cities since it will be to time-consuming on a transfer trip like this).

Community
  • 1
Bjørnar
  • 41
  • 4

4 Answers4

8

Google maps expects you to need about 6:40 to 8:50 hours to drive.
The train will take less than 5 hours, and if you book early you should be able to get train tickets for £36.00 each. If you wait with booking till the day you will pay a lot more, likely comparable to the rent of a car and the petrol needed. I used this planner, it will show you which company you travel with, you can buy the ticket from that site or from the site I used to look.

On a 7 hour car travel you will want to use motorway, otherwise your journey will be longer still, way longer most likely.
Not all the motorways will be boring but many are.
View out of a train is often more varied.

I would go for a train journey, but for me the choice is obvious as I do not even have a driving license.

You will also need to consider your return journey and/or drop-off costs for a car if you do not return to London. For the train tickets you can often find a good price for journeys both ways, that same site allows you to fill out details for the return journey.

Willeke
  • 63,333
  • 21
  • 165
  • 324
8

I recommend the train.

Don't underestimate the energy drain of driving on the left side for the first time and then for 7 and a half hours straight. This will NOT be a relaxing experience, you will quite likely be exhausted after this drive.

Hilmar
  • 119,360
  • 8
  • 205
  • 414
3

The sleeper train leaves from Euston at 23:50, arriving into Waverley at 07:23. (It leaves at 23:30 on Sunday evenings). However, it costs £205 for a bunkbed sleeping 2, travelling on Fri 5 Aug. Additionally, getting to there from Wembley at the end of the gig might be tight.

https://www.sleeper.scot/timetable/london-edinburgh/ https://new.sleeper.scot/?children=0&destination=9328&males=2&origin=1072&outDate=2022-08-05

CSM
  • 3,219
  • 15
  • 21
3

There are also busses from London to Edinburgh. Typically they are much less than half of the rail fare. The Megabus website says fastest journey is 9 hours and shows prices starting at £9.99. The National Express website offers overnight travel for £14.90. There may be other companies.

I recommend against driving yourself.

AdrianHHH
  • 361
  • 1
  • 8