Scotland: The Bookings

After many glorious experiences and tours throughout Southeast Asia, it is time for us to venture away from that part of the world and get our feet wet in the European region of the world. Up first: England and Scotland.

Per usual, I was browsing travel options on one of my favorite apps, Travel Pirates, when I came across some cheap airfare to London. By cheap, I’m talking $205 a person on Virgin Atlantic, so naturally I jumped on it. I booked the flights 10 months in advance so that’s probably got something to do with how cheap I was able to get airfare. Plus, booking that early gives me motivation (and plenty of time) to really research where we’re going and create an incredible trip.

If you’ve read any of my previous “The Bookings” post I am a huge proponent of researching your destination to ensure that you’ll have a worth-while experience. I always book my trips at least 6 months in advance in order to develop a solid itinerary and get everything booked and paid for prior to take off. Planning and booking a trip this way ensures that you’re able to afford the trip, that there are no surprise costs upon arrival, and it allows you some extra peace-of-mind that you have everything laid out prior to arriving to your destination.

Okay, back to the post. So what had originally sparked my idea for Scotland was because my boyfriend, Joe, and I were sitting on the couch watching the infamous Braveheart when Joe proclaimed that he had never seen the movie before and that he knew nothing of the actual history behind the movie. Shocked, I began explaining Scotland’s rich, and bloody history when the idea sparked that instead of just talking about it, let’s go! That’s what sparked me to find flights to London. Why London? Because London is a hub, much like LAX, and it’s generally much cheaper to fly into hubs than airports in other locations. Plus commuter flights within Europe are cheap!

Our 17 day itinerary will include stops and stays at the following:

• London (3 Days)
• Harry Potter Studio Tour
• Edinburgh (4 days)
• St. Andrews
• Glamis Castle
• Dunnottar Castle
• Aberdeen (2 days)
• Craigievar Castle
• Inverness (2 days)
• Culloden Battlefield
• Clava Cairns
• Urquhart Castle
• Loch Ness
• Eilean Donan Castle
• Portree (3 days)
• Fairy Glen
• Fairy Pools
• Dunvegan Castle
• Glencoe
• Stirling (2 days)
• Kelpies
• Culross -> Edinburgh

For this trip, we’ll be staying mostly in AirBnBs except for in London, Stirling, and our last night back in Edinburgh. This was mostly to save money for this trip as I we are trying to do this trip for as cheap as we possibly can. With all the bookings complete, we spent $2818 for the two of us. That includes our airfare from LAX to Heathrow (London), our flight from London to Edinburgh, all our lodging, and the flight back from Edinburgh to LAX. We’ll be renting a car for our trip so we can bounce around between the various stops and attractions. We haven’t factored in the costs of the rental car, but it’ll be somewhere around $700-$800 for the duration of the trip. We also didn’t factor in spending cash. Total, I figure the cost of the trip will be around $7000 for everything, including spending cash for both of us and I’m budgeting for $100 spending a day, per person. So that’s $3400 of our total budget alone. Obviously, we’ll probably come back with cash, but better safe than sorry, right?!