Go with the Known - More planning!

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Web searches are great for gathering information. But I believe it's more informative to talk with someone who has been there.

I met up with a friend who just returned from London where she worked for 3 years as a Foreign Service Officer assigned to the US Embassy. She gave me her point of view for my few days of London sightseeing, as well as loaned two guidebooks which saved money. I love books as it's always nice to be able to go back and forth between pages which I find difficult online. But there is also tons of info about Great Britain online. Booking my transportation into London from Heathrow produced a brochure, as well as hotel websites. In fact there is so much info, it is overwhelming. And I am getting emails from all over with tips.

My friend suggested that since I was arriving at one airport and departing from another, to stay between Paddington (where the Express arrives) and Victoria (the departure point for Gatwick). I chose the Victoria area of London. For the hotel and to cut costs, as the exchange rate is not to our advantage, I used a whole bunch of frequent flyer miles. Why not? I haven't used the miles in 4 years.

For this part of my trip, I will stay in London for my arrival day in the event of a "baggage malfunction" plus a full day afterwards, and head up to Inverness the day following. So basically I do lose a day with taking the train to Gatwick Airport plus the check out time and the flight check-in time. The flight itself is less than an hour but much faster than the train. And if I get up early enough, I should have time to do a short walk around the local area for breakfast. And I have at least 2 hours to check out Inverness. The rest of Inverness will be done on day 3 of the ride where we will explore Outlander sites including Culloden.

I went back and forth over how to get to Inverness. No wonder Travel Agents earn their pay. I did an Expedia.com search and decided to fly as well as book an overnight hotel. EasyJet grabbed my eye with it's low fare. However hindsight is always 20/20 and I was too quick booking with them due to their horrible baggage fees and seat booking fees. In fact I didn't realize the one carry-on baggage policy until this week, and then only after reading someone's Travel Blog on London. I was about to cancel the flight, but couldn't locate a CANX button anywhere. I looked up their baggage policy and decided to pay for an extra bag, which would have been my carry-on (with all of my riding clothes and equipment). I will take my daypack onboard as it contains camera equipment, a tablet and my phones. So there. Now I have two "hold" bags paid for. I just hope they don't "hold them" in London. Having said that, I will probably fly in one of my riding outfits so I at least have one set to begin the ride in while waiting for missed luggage to catch up.

I have never been good with decisions and researching hotels drove me crazy! I gave up after number 25 and chose the Royal Scottish hotel, which looks to be a perfect choice. Its Scottish theme will make great photographs and it's close to the pick-up point for the ride the following morning. Glad I started this process early because it has been very time consuming for me! The rest of my trip setup will be forthcoming.

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