Trip motivation For Thanksgiving break 2024, our family visited England and Scotland! Last Christmas, we visited Germany and Austria and loved the long train rides through the countryside. We decided that the Scottish Highlands would be the perfect adventure for our next trip to Europe. We spent a few days in Edinburgh, took a bus tour to the Highlands, and wrapped up our trip in busy and historic London. European travel is quickly becoming one of my favorite things with family-friendly towns, easy navigating with trains and so much history and beauty. Traveling internationally with kids can be daunting but with a little preparation and research and tips from other travelers, we had a successful trip! This post covers our flights, itinerary, planning process, and international logistics such as using the subway, getting a phone card, and finding budget restaurants. For more on our United Kingdom trip, see our posts here England and Scotland with Kids Winter 2024: Flights and Logistics 2 Days in Edinburgh, Scotland: Itinerary with Kids Our Family’s 3-Day Tour of the Scottish Highlands 3 days in London, England: A Family Itinerary   Planning our Itinerary I love planning trips, especially through well-traveled places where there’s a ton of information to read through and make plans for. Many online blogs were really helpful! We were in each home-base for around 4 days and read numerous blogs and books (Rick Steves is always a must-read for Europe trips). One tip for traveling with kids is take a 3-day best of guide and cut out half of it to make it actually realistic to manage in those same 3 days. Mix in some kid-focused/less touristy options like malls, playgrounds, hotel pool. We did a lot of bus and train travel on this trip and our kids loved reading their new kindles on the trains and this was a great time for just chatting and reconnecting with gorgeous views. Several months before, I sketched out our plan in excel and on google maps with a balance of activities, rest time, food, rest, and fun. We made sure to research how far areas were and tried to schedule several anchor points with a few optional activities so we didn’t overstuff our schedule. Overview Day 1: Late Arrival, National Museum of Scotland, Christmas Festival Day 2: City walks, Harry Potter-themed tea and escape room, Royal mile, Christmas Festival Day 3: Highlands Tour: Kelpies, Glencoe, Glenfinnan, Inverness Day 4: Isle of Skye Tour: Portee, Kilt Rock, Quiraing Day 5: Loch Ness Boat Tour, Clava Cairns, Culloden Battlefield, Pitlochry Day 6: Train to London, View Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Evening Boat Tour, Hyde Park Winter Festival Day 7: St James Park, Buckingham Palace, View Big Ben, Harry Potter Studio Tour Day 8: British Museum, Kensington Park, Science Museum, West End Matilda Show Day 9: Fly Home!  Flying to Scotland and London We used the Chase Portal and Chase Points to fly to Edinburgh (stop in London) and non-stop from London on the way back Chase Sapphire Preferred Apply Here Chase Sapphire Reserve Apply Here Chase Hyatt Apply Here Tips for Long Plane Rides Sleeping on planes West to East: Plan to sleep! For the overnight red-eye flight to Europe, we emphasized that after dinner service, everyone was going to try and get some sleep. I gave each kid a dose of melatonin and they passed out pretty immediately. We packed these cheap pillows from Amazon (They came with eye masks!).  On arrival, get outside and try to limit naps so you can readjust.  Activities for long flights East to West On the long flight, the kids were happy playing with the personal screen and alternating between coloring, reading, tv, games, and snacks. Ellie has been loving the Magic Treehouse books and when they were little, they used to love activities in the Magic Ink and small play pack coloring books (Amazon links).  We have one Nintendo Switch that the kids love.  For more on our favorite activities and tips for flying, see our post here.  Transportation in Europe Train travel and public transportation is one of our favorite things about Europe. Everything is pretty straightforward and inexpensive. In Edinburgh, we walked to most destinations and took a few buses that were easy to tap pay at the front.  One top tip for international travel is to download the city map to google so that it doesn’t continue to use data every time you load.  We took the LNER train from Scotland to London. We should have purchased tickets ahead of time as prices went up closer to departure. For our family of 4, it was still very cheap and only $300 for everyone.  In London, we took the underground subway and double decker buses everywhere. Kids are free and enter through the wheelchair gates. We took one long train ride to the Warner Bros studio and these tickets were a little pricey ($30 for all round-trip) but overall bus and subway travel went really smoothly excited!) I love how easy train travel is in Europe. We mapped destinations using google maps and compared the time/cost/effort to use a taxi, train, bus, or walk. We used uber or the train depending on where/how far we were going. If you have little ones, it might be harder to use a taxi due to the car seat. If you plan on using a stroller on the subway, many have elevators, but be prepared to fold it and carry up stairs. Eating in Scotland and London Several of our hotels came with free breakfast, and we also stopped by grocery stores for easy cheap meals to start our day and snacks for the hotel room. Tesco pancakes for 60 pence was our favorite snack. During the day, we tried to balance quick meals with sit-down meals. We did do a few fancy meals like a Sunday Roast in Edinburgh and a Brazillian steakhouse. And a lot of fish and chips. In London, we did a few market type set-ups