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Just a couple of ideas to ease traveling. If you have not yet booked your flights, I HIGHLY recommend that you fly SFO to LONDON (or EDINBURGH if they go direct) on Virgin Atlantic air. There is a tremendous difference in these coach flights...and you will get to sit and read a book instead of trying to occupy your children the entire time. Every kid gets a backpack with goodies, every passenger gets a bag of supplies to ease the flight. Every seat has its own little tv screen and up to 20 movies to choose from. My family flew Virgin last summer and they had many new releases, a couple of Disney/kid movies (Hercules, The Borrowers) and they were running their summer blockbusters (Independence Day, Grease) series. In addition, they have computer games (7 types of solitaire, Super Mario Bros., etc.) and I think 6 tv channels. I would take the 4 seats down the middle, pull up the armrests and spread out as a family. Put the 15 year old across the aisle from you so that they are separated from younger siblings. The Virgin staff were also terrific. 9.5 hours into the flight they baked cookies, came and invited my 4 year old daughter to be a stewardess and help them and took off with her to distribute cookies...their energy level was wonderful and she was thrilled.
Three other points, pack super lightly...two pairs of shoes tops - 1 on your feet and 1 "nicer" set for going out to dinner. Get your older kids their own packs (LLBean has great ones in zillions of colors, monogrammed) and make sure that they can easily lift them. Hang on to their passports yourself. Plan to throw everything into the laundry on a weekly basis. Even if you have a great sweater that you want to wear, if it only goes with one thing in the pack than it is not pulling its weight; everything should go with everything else. Yes, you become somewhat monochromatic but who cares. Too much luggage will ruin your trip. Years of experience in this part!
My 6 year old and his dad read up on various castles, certains knights, and general gruesome history before we went to England. I learned about because Jack looked forward to each castle/monument/pile of stone, etc. because he understood what had happened there, or at least could imagine the pageantry and battles. Also, go into a formal castle/museum in the morning...and then hike to a stone ring or some ruin in the afternoon so that you are not always being formal and can let off energy...Anyhow, your 15 year old might approach some aspect of Scotland this way...so that he looks forward to seeing for himself something, like a natural part of the land or how the railways run(great Railroad system in the UK) or a particular Scottish game (rugby or something) or maybe he is musical and would like to investigate different Scottish instruments...just ideas. He could look up Scotland on the web and find something that intrigues him to investigate.
Oh, and plan to picnic as much as possible. It is fun, and you get to relax if you are eating in a park and your 18 month old wants to throw food, scream, giggle, or run away!
If you are staying in B&Bs, get up for breakfast...they are huge and will start your day off nicely. Then you can picnic and have a pub dinner later. We found that the pub food was fine (great for kids) and lots of it. However, we were usually seated in a separate room because of the kids (unlike Ireland where they don't mind kids directly in the pub). I am not sure how Scotland pubs are regarding kids eating dinner.
Lastly, remember how far north you are. It will not get truly dark until around 11pm in July in Scotland...it might throw your little one off but is great for everyone else because you can wander around until late. Have fun!
Hi There! We went to Britain, including Scotland for our Honeymoon, about 9 years ago. Unless you are really comfortable with driving a car on the "wrong" side of the road (and don't mind the exhorbitant cost of gas there!) you probably want to go by train. Train coverage was great when we were there, but there has been some talk of privatizing the trains, and if that's happened, there might be less coverage in the more rural areas. If you want to see rural Scotland, you will probably have to rent a car. There are BritRail packages that include both. Forget Buses: they are incredibly uncomfortable compared to the trains, and tend to wind all over to your destination, leaving less time to see the sights you're aiming for.
As for the sights to see: we mostly shopped, which would be BORING to your teens. But you wouldn't want to miss Edinborough Castle, of course. And there's probably Bagpipes to be heard there if you're into that. I seem to recall some sort of Military show with bagpipes at the Castle.
I wish you the best of luck traveling with the 18-month old. That's the part that frightens me! I've traveled with my daughter at 6 mos, 11 mos, 18 mos, 20 mos, and 23 mos. At 6 and 11 mos she slept most of the way. At 18 and 20 mos, she was AWFUL--kicking, hitting, and otherwise letting me know she didn't want to be cooped up. And too young to keep entertained with the in-seat type of stuff for very long. At 23 mos it was better--I timed the flights to be at night when she would normally be asleep, and while she *didn't* sleep most of the time, her energy was down. Additionally, she could be entertained with stickers, drawing and me reading her books, which didn't work on the previous two flights. Something I haven't tried yet: I've seen some really cute soft-sculpture dollhouse things in some catalogs--the dolls and the furniture all fit which catalog it was in, but you might try looking at HearthSong on 4th street in Berkeley.
For the 15-year-old: I might suggest a GameBoy or some such. Other options are some of those travel games. On one flight my 12-year-old was entertained for almost two hours by one of those minature Triazzle puzzles. You can get them at good game stores (we got ours at Star Magic in Noe Valley, SF, but they're probably available at Games of Berkeley, too). Good luck!
Sterling, which is about half an hour's drive west of Edinborough, has a great castle. Just south of Sterling is the battlefield where the Battle of Bannockburn was fought in the 1000's. It has an interpretive center.
St. Andrews, with its famous golf course, isn't that far away. We weren't able to visit it because the British Open was going on, but it was recommended by relatives.
The drive northwest of Sterling is beautiful--you get into the countryside and forests.
I'm sure there are lots of interesting things in Edinborough and Glasgow. We were mostly visiting relatives so didn't get to see a lot of tourist things (or read guide books) but both cities have a lot of history. The University of Glasgow has a well-known art museum. Until we visited it, we had never heard of Charles Rennie Macintosh, who was one of the principals of the European Arts and Crafts movement and has a style much like that of David Lance Goines.
We didn't try the trains but driving is easy and convenient. We flew into Edinborough and rented a car. The airport is outside the city so we never had any traffic to deal with. Driving all over Britain is safer and more comfortable than it is here. Our biggest problem was running into signs for detours all over the place. Just as here, you never know what the detour is for or where it will take you. I recommend a good road atlas such as the "Great Britain AZ Road Atlas", which shows roads in 3 dimensions.
Last updated: Sep 15, 2003
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