Trying to decide between London or Edinburgh, Scotland for my first international travel.
Coming from the US I decided I first wanted to go to a country in which understood the local language before I go to somewhere like Japan. I've always been interested in these 2 places so I've settled on one of them but I can't decide which is the better option to go with.
In regards to budget, outside of food/travel getting there, I'm willing to spend up to $1000 for entertainment/seeing the sights.
Interest, while I'm a massive nerd for anime/videos and the related I do have a massive interest in the natural world, castles and shit made ages ago. I'm not really big on "go to this city and look how much shopping you can do!!"
So which would be the most interesting place to go?
Scotland. London's a dump
Just feels like you're a furry bro
london is full of vultures looking for prey
edinburgh is a chill time
You can go by plane or train reasonably easily between the two. Do both
Both cities are interesting and have plenty to do (London much more, obviously). But if you have 7+ days go to both. Nature wise you'll be best served doing daytrips.
London is also very expensive so consider that as well.
London is a better city but Edinburgh is prettier. If you want to get into nature then Edinburgh wins hands down. Scotland has some of the best nature anywhere. All the pretty stuff is a couple of hours away from Edinburgh; lots of firms do excursions in minibuses which lets you look at stuff without having to deal with moving around yourself. You can hire a car if you want to properly explore the highlands - accommodation can be a real pain at short notice.
Edinburgh has an excellent castle and there are lots of Neolithic and Pictish sites dotted around Scotland, although the best ones are a huge pain to visit from Edinburgh and you want a special trip for those. However there are a few sites in Fife with standing stones, cup and ring marks etc if you want to see what folk were doing 3,000 years ago
>first international trip
>london, scotland or edinburgh because english language
Most of the UcucK is a terrible place to visit, London especially as its basically NYC v0.5.
>but the language
You won't need language for much once you have an itinerary and a map (so literally your phone), don't ruin international travel for yourself by going to absolute first world shitholes and just do the basic b***h Rome > Florence > Venice. They're flooded with tourists so English menus are in practically every restaurant, sample itineraries and routes are already made that you can copy, broken but good enough english is everywhere you'll be and you'll have a much much better time. Italy is prime castles and shit made ages ago, beautifully preserved and out of this fricking world
>ancient rome by the coliseum
>vatican glory
>old meets modern trastevere nightlife
>giant plazas full of life
>architectural marvels in practically every church you can enter for free
>if christian, can climb the steps jesus knelt through before crucifixion (the vatican bought and imported the steps from ponsius pilate's residence)
If you have a short period of time like a week just do Rome, you won't run out of things to see and do. Avoid the UK at all costs, it's fricking terrible, there's a reason even amsterdam has come out and said "english tourists please stay the frick home, you're too degenerate for even us."
It actually depends on how well you handle stress but Japan was quite an easy place for me to visit. It was my first international trip.
People don't really speak English though, outside of the main centres everyone was Japanese in hostels too so it might be isolating. Transit and the railway system of Japan is excellent so it's easy to get around these days, just use Google Maps/Phone GPS to navigate.
OP here, Edinburgh was the one that I was leaning towards the most. Scottish Highlands really appeal to me. Never actually considered going to both since I'll be there just a week. I know the UK has a train system so maybe I'll look into using that to drop by London.
>I know the UK has a train system so maybe I'll look into using that to drop by London
lol
You'll be bored to death in Edinburgh, it's not a big city, it's a borderline town. Stay in London and get the train to Edinburgh, it takes 5 hours and is very fast. You can easily visit the Highlands from there and get the train back to London, either the same high speed train or an overnight train (Caledonian Sleeper). If you're staying a week you could probably squeeze in a trip to Paris with the Eurostar train from London which is 3 hours or visit somewhere else in the UK too.
There is more to see and do in London than in Edinburgh, if you are sticking in the city. If you want to get out and see the country a bit, Scotland is more spectacular. If you are hyper concerned about the comfort of speaking the language, Scots can be hard as frick to understand. I think they sometimes do it on purpose.
You can't not visit london if you fly across the atlantic. You'll regret it. People can shit on it as much as they want but it's absolutely worth a visit at a minimum.
I haven't been to Edinburgh but considering the hassle of getting on a flight you might want to think getting a train. It's like 6 hours but it's doable.
Personally I'd stick around the south, plenty to see around there Castles, palaces etc. If you're after a landscape Wales is closer.
>the natural world, castles a
there are tours which do a loop around scotland visiting different castles and some of the major natural scenery areas. haggis tours is maybe one, i have seen their minibuses a few times.
If you go to London, hit up the Imperial War Museum. Very cool, and they had an amazing ww1 exhibit when I went.