My wife and I are contemplating a trip to Scotland for May '08, and wondered if anybody could help suggest some possible itineraries. We'll probably have about 10 days to spend there. We'd like to start or finish in Edinburgh and rent a car for the rest, but beyond that I could use some good suggestions.

We've never been there before, so we really have no idea about what's reasonable, but we're all for Slow Travel (I know, 10 days is probably on the low end for most Slow Travelers, but unfortunately it's about all we can manage). We're fairly seasoned Euro travelers, but mostly in Italy (and I've spent a fair amount of time in Germany & Switzerland).

I'm an archivist for Carnegie Hall in New York, so I'd love to work in visits to Dunfermline and Skibo Castle (I know that's private, but I might have an in ;-), but those aren't hard and fast goals, depending upon how it all works out.

I've been reading David Cross' Scotland notes (love those clickable maps), and have been checking out the Undiscovered Scotland site, but I feel almost overwhelmed right now, since it all looks so great!

Thanks very much,
Rob H.

I'm not much good at planning others' itineraries, but I did want to tell you that Dunfermline is a snap of a day trip from Edinburgh, even if it's not en route for your car itinerary. There are very frequent buses that take less than an hour. I don't know about the current schedule, but they used to run every half-hour or so. So you can work in that pilgrimage no matter where else you go.

My husband and I did this itinerary in May '06.
Edinburgh- 3 days
Cupar, Fife-4 days (day trips to St. Andrews, East Neuk fishing villages, Blackford Highland Games)
Aberdeenshire-3 days (Balmoral Castle, whisky trail)
Torridon-5 days (day trips to Ullapool, Skye)
Inverness-2 days (drop car and fly out)
If you only have ten days, I'd recommend either going low or high, but not both. It's easy to drive anywhere, it just takes a while.

This October, we are spending 2 days in Edinburgh, then driving north to near Loch Ness, and staying at a farm for a week. If you want to stay put somewhere, the Loch Ness area would be an excellent base for day trips.
Please try to see Highland Games and go to a ceilidh if you can!

Our family spent two weeks in Scotland a couple of years ago, in July/August. We rented the top floor of a house on Loch Ness for our first week. A highlight of this week was a day trip to the Isle of Skye.

The second week we rented a cottage across the river from Edinburgh. (It was half an hour into the city by train.) We loved Scotland, and especially enjoyed staying in one place for an entire week.

You might consider staying in the Highlands one week like we did and then your other three days in Edinburgh.

I've posted the story of our stay in Scotland in my blog here. There are links to photo albums.

Kathy

Thank you for all of your replies! Each of your suggestions (KT for Dunfermline, maeby's itinerary, and kaydee's trip post) have valuable points for me to consider.

kaydee, I haven't yet had a chance to read all of your trip report, but your photos looked great (what incredible views over the Loch Ness), and will really help give me an idea for timing and possibilities.

maeby, it seems like from what I've read thus far, your suggestion of going either Low or High sounds like good advice. Even though it seems to be the obvious (or maybe just the most traveled?) choice, my first reaction would probably be for the Highlands -- starting from Edinburgh and going north, perhaps making a reasonable circuit (maybe as far as the Isle of Skye?) and back.

Even though we're just beginning to envision this trip, we're very excited -- it looks like it will be a totally new and wonderful experience.

Rob H.

This is what we did last June
5 nights Edinburgh - great basement apartment
4 nights Crieff - with friends
1 Newtonmore
4 nights Plockton
4 nights Dores - on south side of Loch Ness

the last 3 were all B & Bs

If you only have 10 days yes perhaps cut out the highlands - but they are so beautiful!
Re castles - we saw lots but our favourites were Cawdor, Dunrobin and Glamis. We adore Scotland and could live there - aside from the weather.

Thanks for your kind comments, Rob.

With only that limed time, I suggest that you recile yourself to spending a couple of days mainly on travel and so the Slow Travel thing from a base in either Torridon [where Maeby spent some time] or if you prefer a larger [though not large] base at Ullapool.
Do try to see Culross thoug. It's very near Edinburgh and sound right up your street.

Thank you as well, Eliza and David, for your suggestions.

Alas, I wish our time for this trip was not so limited, too, but I guess we can look at it as a good introduction, to prime us for our return!

I'm sure I'll have more questions to post eventually, but now I've got some research to do...

You could also consider Stirling as a base. It is in the middle of Scotland and well served by rail links to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. It is also the centre of the local areas bus links.

The city is small so you can walk all around it. Using it as a base you can go North to the highlands, south to the borders or strike out sideways into the villages that surround it.

Depending on the time of your visit you could find cheap accommodation at the university. Stirling itself has some interesting sights, its castle has a military museum and the Wallace Monument contains William Wallace's sword.

Details http://www.instirling.com/

CDT - thanks for your suggestion.

What is a reasonable day-trip travel radius (what's the farthest you'd go) from Stirling? I don't have a good sense yet for the geography, driving distances, etc.

In May, you have the benefit of some daylight until close to 11 p.m. So, you could go a long way from Stirling--to the Western Isles, to Oban, to the East Coast. Personally, I would not go north of Loch Ness were I based in Stirling, though. It would make for a long day on the road. If you are keen on Skye and Skibo Castle, why not this?
2 days Edinburgh, get car, north through Dunfermline
1 day breaking up to the drive north
1 week staying in a centrally-located vacation rental within driving distance of Skye, Dornoch (Skibo) and other Highland sites. Drop car and fly out of Inverness.

I'd been contemplating some kind of a loop, starting in Edinburgh, then up through Dunfermline towards Aberdeenshire (or something like that), over towards Inverness/Loch Ness/Great Glen area, then down towards Glencoe, Stirling, and out again -- but I'm starting to wonder if some kind of vacation rental base like you suggest might not be the better way to go. That's how we've always done our trips to Italy, and it's nice having your own place to return to each day (plus, as vegetarians, it gives us the option of preparing our own meals if we strike out in restaurants).

Can anyone address the issue of flying out of a different city (such as Inverness) than the one you flew into (such as Edinburgh)? Have you found this to be possible without paying a huge fare premium (also, would this involve drop-off charges for the car, or isn't that such an issue with Scottish rental car companies)?

Thanks again, everyone, for all of your advice -- this is very helpful.

Scotland was the most difficult country for me as a vegetarian. It wasn't too hard in nicer restaurants, but pubs were a different story. I am looking fowrward to visiting farmer's markets and cooking in our rental.
Open jaw flights have never been more expensive, in my experience. Often times, I can get a cheaper flight doing it that way. Drop off charges for rental cars wouldn't be a huge difference. Of course, picking up at the airport usually incurs a charge, but is worth it in my opinion.

If you click on the link below and scroll to the bottom you will see a list of train destinations from Stirling. You can have a play and see the times and earliest/latest options.

It is about 30 minutes to Glasgow, 45 to Edinburgh with trains leaving from early morning to late in the evening.

You could for example get the train or bus from Stirling to Gleneagles - takes about 30 minutes. Wander round the countryside for a bit, then depending on the time have morning coffee, lunch or afternoon tea at Gleneagles hotel - then you can say you have been to the same hotel as George Bush.

Longer journeys Perth - 40 minutes, Aberdeen -- 2hrs 45min and Inverness 3hrs 30min.

If you were driving Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling are all within an hour of each other at worst.

CDT, thanks for your comments on travel times. This is really helpful to someone who hasn't been there yet.

Maeby, I'd pretty much figured Scotland was going to be tough as a vegetarian. That could be another point in favor of a self-catering rental, I guess. I agree as far as paying any fee to pick up a rental car at the airport - I'd rather have less hassle (and fewer worries when leaving, for example) and pay a few more $$ than save money but have to schlep around more.

I don't have much experience booking "open jaw" flights. Any suggestions? Also, any favorite airlines/airports (or ones to avoid?). I'd noticed that Aer Lingus had some reasonable deals into Edinburgh, via Dublin, but I haven't really explored the air portion of the trip in any detail yet.

I'd fly into Edinburgh and out of Inverness or Glasgow (depending upon where you want to end up). Each just has one airport. I usually fly Delta or Continental. Both have directs from the NYC area to Edinburgh. Just select "Multi city" or "Multi Stop" instead of "round trip" when looking for flights to search for open jaw.

See the website below for vegetarian restaurants in Scotland

http://www.vegdining.com/GetRestList.cfm?rgk=EU-SCO&CFI...685&CFTOKEN=31741673

Remember as well virtually every town in Scotland has Indian or Chinese restaurants all of which cater for vegetarians. Indian restaurants especially have wide selections. In general if you know where you are going to be eating a phone call to the chef the day before or even several hours before can get you something specially prepared. Everywhere does porridge for breakfast . Glasgow has some of the best curry houses in Britain so you should try one of those.

Thanks, CDT!

I've found Multimap helpful in planning driving routes because it gives and estimated travel time and based on my last trip to Scotland the times are fairly close.

http://www.multimap.com/

(The site now seems to cover many countries but I've only ever used it for Scotland and England)

We used Aviemore once as our base and that worked well as it was an easy days trip drive from Edinburgh with time to stop at a castle or two along the way. It allowed for easy day trip access to the east to visit a few whiskey distilleries and castles. Also to the north to visit Culloden and a stone circle and more castles. And then easy to get to Loch Ness and more castles...lol. Ummm I like visiting castles.

I also think around Oban makes for a good base. It is an easy afternoon drive from Glasgow (which is the only airport in Scotland I've ever used) with quite a few things in between. From Oban you can do a great day trip out to Mull, Staffa, and Iona to get a taste of the islands.

quote:

Originally posted by maeby:
Scotland was the most difficult country for me as a vegetarian. It wasn't too hard in nicer restaurants, but pubs were a different story. I am looking fowrward to visiting farmer's markets and cooking in our rental.

I am a vegetarian and travel in England frequently. You can always find vegetarian options in the tea rooms for lunch (not open for dinner). Is it the same in Scotland? We usually cook dinner in our vacation rentals, but some of the supermarkets also offer good vegetarian prepared meals for a quick meal. Read more about Vegetarian in England.

We have some excellent travel notes for Scotland on the site, including some detailed google maps.

We flew to Scotland on Icelandair, flying into Edinburgh and out of Glasgow, and I don't remember the fares being outrageous....if it had been we probably wouldn't have flown open jaws in the first place!

We traveled in August to be in Edinburgh for the Festival and Royal Tatoo, and were also able to attend some of the highland games as we traveled around the country.

Scotland is magical! I know you'll love it.

The vegetarian thing doesn't overly concern me at this point -- we'll figure something out. I'm most interested in selecting a base, since the more comments I read, and the more I explore online, it seems like a self-catering cottage might be the way to go. Hotel prices can be high, and when I compare the quality vs price to rental rates I've been seeing for self-catering places, it looks like it could be a much better deal (and offer more control/options for meals, since we could prepare ourselves).

Thanks for the Aviemore suggestion, Narcissa; I'm curious to check that one out some more. I'm getting the sense that we should either choose a base in that area, or one up around Loch Ness or the west/northwest, and just concentrate on what can be reasonably explored from there (saving the rest for another trip).

Thanks again, everyone -- this continues to be very helpful.

Around Edinburgh: Roslyn Chapel
Day trip from Edinburgh: Hadrian's Wall; the Borders in general
Nice b&b in Peebles, cute little town south of Edinburgh: Mrs. Forbes’ Dilkusha House, Chambers Terrace, Peebles

An obscure destination but fascinating: Ferry from Thurso to Orkney Island; Scara Brae Neolithic village and Ring of Brogar, Stones of Stenness, Maes Howe. We could have spent a week on Orkney, shopping for sweaters, searching for puffins, looking at prehistoric sites and just generally exploring the countryside. Alas, only three days.
Nice b&b on Orkney mainland: Mrs. Hourie's Flotterston House