Planning trip to Orkney

[Onekissisallittakes]

Hello was hoping for some advice/tips from anyone who has done this trip before.

Me and DH and our 3 children (12,6,3) are planning to go to Orkney next year to visit family. Never done it before, looking at flying/driving/ferry/train whatever, all works out either quite expensive and short, or cheap and very long. Don't mind doing a bit of everything but I'm most concerned about how tiring it could be driving from Swindon (we live) to Aberdeen then a ferry from Aberdeen to Orkney. Or would it be better to get a flight direct from England to Aberdeen then another flight to Orkney, we just can't decide what's gonna be worth it. Other ideas have been staying overnight in a Travelodge in between driving the whole way then a quick ferry from scrabster to Orkney. Any advice?

The ferry from Aberdeen can be rough even in the summer. How good are all of you on rough seas?
If you are set on driving I would certainly recommend the shorter crossings, Scrabster to Stromness or Gill's Bay to St Margaret's Hope, which is even shorter. But don't underestimate the distance and the time to get places - Inverness to Thurso is 2.5 to 3 hours by road, at least. Swindon to Thurso would be two long days in the car, even if you break the journey somewhere, so 4 four days in total out of your holiday.
But you will need a car to get around on Orkney, so if you fly you will need to factor in the hire cost. You can also fly from Edinburgh, Glasgow or Inverness to Kirkwall. No idea if that's any cheaper than via Aberdeen, but it might be worth playing around with.
Given the distance I'd probably fly and hire a car.

Orkney is lovely by the way.

Are you on mainland Orkney?

Driving: it is a long, long way. But I've done further with the family to central France from the Highlands...I have used both the overnight ferry and the short one - and I would take the shorter ferry from Gills Bay to St Margaret's each time in future ( https://pentlandferries.co.uk/ ). It's cheaper and faster than the Northlink from Scrabster, and a few miles less driving. Don't underestimate how far North that drive is though. Big advantage is you have your car and all your stuff to hand - and you get so see some amazing parts of Scotland as you go up the A9. I would get as far North as you could day 1 (maybe Perth or even Aviemore Premier Inn), then aim for a late ferry day 2.

Flying is the quick way though. There's connecting flights to Edinburgh or Glasgow and on to Orkney - half my flight from Southampton this week were going onwards to Orkney it seemed! You can hire cars on the island although public transport is also surprisingly good. Loganair are good - cuppa and a Tunnocks makes every flight better....

We drove from S Yorks 3 years ago. We got the Northlink ferry from Scrabster, as the Aberdeen ferry got in at something like 11.30pm.

We took 2 days (stopped in Perth and Wick) to get there and 2 days to get back (stopped in Inverness and Berwick upon Tweed).

All I'm saying about the Aberdeen ferry is that my friends who live in Aberdeen choose to drive to Scrabster!! Either option is a hell of a long way from Swindon though, you'd be looking at 2 days on the road each way. That said, you could probably go half way round the world for the same price as a LoganAir flight from EDI or GLA!

We flew to Inverness then hired a car and took the ferry from Gill's Bay, it was pretty painless doing it that way. I wouldn't want to drive from Swindon with kids in the car!