Planning A Trip To Scotland
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We knew from the moment the first Titanic Memorial Cruise Reunion ended that we’d have another one. The plan was to have a reunion every two years. After Ireland in 2014, it was settled to have a reunion in New York in 2016. After 2015, it had also become a tradition to have a smaller interim reunion in the off-year. The idea was that whoever was close by would get together and it wouldn’t cost too much for them to do so.
The interim reunion for 2017 was being planned by our friends Bill and Andrena and was set to be held in Alnwick, England, near the Scottish border. What they were putting together sounded INCREDIBLE. After doing the math, we found out that we could spend two weeks in New York or double, possibly triple that, in England and Scotland. The choice for us was obvious. So it began. We started planning a trip to Scotland.
The Plan
Bill and Andrena put together an amazing itinerary for us from 7 April 2017 to 11 April 2017. We knew we’d be in England for those days, staying at the White Swan Hotel. It was cheaper to fly into Edinburgh, Scotland than any other airports around, so we decided to come a day early to take in a few sites there before hopping the train down to England. Now knowing our starting location and date, we began planning this trip in the same manner that we planned Ireland in 2014. We pretended that we had all the money in the world and started dreaming. For an in-depth look at how we plan, you check out our Planning Ireland post, but in short, it goes something like this!
- Compile a list of all of the places we want to see.
- Add up the cost and time it would take to see those things.
- Assess that against the time/money we’ll have.
- Narrow down the list and repeat
We knew that 4 weeks in Ireland wasn’t enough, so we decided to plan for 5 weeks. A snag held us up, though. We had cut everything we dared to miss and still couldn’t fit it into 5 weeks. So the trip turned into 6 weeks, and we started saving!
We budgeted out what we thought we’d need and made a little color map to fill in when we hit certain goals. We posted everything on the wall in our bedroom, and it helped to keep us motivated when we saw it every day!
Making It Happen
We used the Lonely Planet Scotland book as the main source of information (the newest version is available here). We also spent hours scouring the web for hidden gems and must-see locations. When we’d chosen all of our locations, the real planning began.
Planning a trip to Scotland did not happen in a month. Or two months. Or three. We took our time in laying out what we would see and when. We put our map on the wall, pinned all of the locations, and then got out the ol’ string and made a route. From our experience in Ireland, we knew that we could pack even more into our days. Many times in Ireland, we found ourselves done with our plans for the day with hours left where we could have plugged in another location. We didn’t want to make the same mistake in Scotland, so we researched how long most people spent at each location and planned accordingly. TripAdvisor is a great tool for this!
We saved money like crazy, sacrificing luxuries and nights out with friends and instead put that money in our savings account. Our discussions always boiled down to this: Do you want to have dinner here or dinner in Scotland? Scotland won 99.9% of the time.
We also picked up every odd job we could, same as with Ireland. Our goal was to pay for everything possible in advance and start the trip with a much bigger budget than our previous trips. If there was a pub we wanted to go to, we wanted to be able to. If there was a souvenir we liked, we wanted to ability to buy it. So we worked our tails off and made it happen.
Deals To Take Advantage Of
Once we narrowed down our list, we noticed that there were quite a few locations run by Historic Scotland. I decided to look them up and see if they had some sort of pass that would offer discounts on entry prices (like the Park Pass here in Texas for the state parks). We were in luck!
Historic Scotland offers a membership pass (which you can buy HERE). We purchased a pass for 2 adults, which cost us £90. This pass granted us free entry to any Historic Scotland attraction. After the cost of purchase, we STILL saved over £300! On top of that, it gives you a 20% discount at Historic Scotland gift shops and 10% off at Historic Scotland cafes. We took full advantage of those discounts and had lunch at many HS attractions. It’s definitely worth looking into if there are a lot of HS locations on your list! The pass is valid for one year, and you also get the Historic Scotland magazine every quarter.
There is a similar membership for the National Trust of Scotland that you can check out HERE. We were only seeing three locations under their care, so it didn’t make sense for us to buy the membership, but it might be beneficial to you!
A Savings Surprise
Another money-saving hack was a total mistake. I had budgeted our rental car to cost around $830 by logging on and entering our rental dates months in advance. We didn’t purchase it yet but had wanted to get an idea of how much it would cost. I checked it every few weeks and the price never changed. When it was finally time to book the car, I logged on and entered the dates. The price that came up was only $520. Worried that I’d done something wrong, I backed out, checked my dates, and started over. This time, the total was back to $830. What was going on? After messing around with it a bit, I realized that I’d entered the date that we were leaving Edinburgh to head to the reunion instead of the day we’d be back in Edinburgh afterward. I tried it again, just to be sure, but for some beautiful reason, I was saving over $300 by booking the car for an extra 4 days.
I’m not sure why these savings happened, but perhaps it had to do with rental days? We originally were supposed to get the car on Friday evening but instead rented it the Tuesday morning before. I don’t have an explanation, but we did have an extra $400. Not only did we save on the car rental, but we also didn’t have to take the train from Edinburgh to England and back, so we saved that money, too. Hooray for surprise savings!
It might be worth your time to play around with rental days just to see if you can save also!
Plan What Works For You
Everyone has a different way of traveling, so I just wanted to throw in somewhere that our way of traveling is not the ‘correct’ way. It’s just OUR way. It’s what works best for us. We tend to plan out almost every day so that we can take full advantage of our time. We rarely relax and we usually come home exhausted and completely satisfied. Most of the time, we look at these vacations with the thought of, “What if we never get to go back?”. We hope that’s not the case, but if it is, we want to try to see as much as humanly possible.
If your style of travel is more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants or more relaxed, then do it! Plan a trip that will make YOU happy. Most importantly, TAKE THE TRIP.
Scotland Here We Come
After months of planning a trip to Scotland and 2 years of saving, we were ready to go. Planes, trains, and automobiles were booked and paid for. Hotels and campsites were completely set. Bags were packed.
On the morning of 5 April 2017, we boarded our plane in Austin, TX and the journey began. Get ready for 4 days in England and nearly 6 weeks in Scotland!
Cheers,
Lydia and Billy
