Glencoe from $39
Edinburgh in the morning, Glencoe by lunch.
Which Loch Ness coach actually stops at Urquhart Castle. What a seat on the steam train costs. Whether Skye works as a day out or needs three. Reviews of every tour you can book in Scotland.
Loch Lomond from $19
The castle, the vaults, the Highland day and the road to Skye.
Between them these four cover the city, the glens and the west coast. Prices are per person.
01The big day outLoch Ness, Glencoe & the Scottish Highlands TourLoch Ness, Glencoe and the A82 in one long day out of Edinburgh. Leaves early, back after dark, and covers more ground than anything else on the site.
02The castle, sortedEdinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketEntry ticket plus a guide who knows which parts of the rock are worth your time. Take a morning slot; by noon the esplanade is shoulder to shoulder.
03Under the Old TownUnderground Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh Old TownThe sealed vaults under South Bridge, walked by torchlight. Cold, low-ceilinged and genuinely unnerving.
04The Skye dayIsle of Skye and Eilean Donan Castle Day TripEilean Donan on the way out, then the Trotternish road. A long day from Inverness, and the only version that fits into one.
Three roads north out of Edinburgh, and what each one costs.
Nearly every Highland day follows one of three routes: up the A82 to Loch Ness, west into Glencoe, or the long haul over to Skye. Same early start, a different country by lunchtime.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · Loch Ness, Glencoe & the Scottish Highlands Tour
Loch Ness and UrquhartThe cruise, the ruin, and back before dark.
Glencoe and the Three SistersThe valley every coach stops in, and rightly.
Skye, if you have the dayFive hours each way from the capital. Worth it once.
Loch Lomond, the short versionAn hour out of Glasgow, on the water by ten.
All 196 Highland days out →
Edinburgh for the closes, Inverness for the lochs, Glasgow for the night after.
The cities sit an hour or two apart by train, so the choice is less about distance than about what you want out of the window on the first morning.
Edinburgh: the rock first, then everything underneath it.
Everything in Edinburgh →
The castle sits on a volcanic plug at the top of the Royal Mile and the city falls away from it in stairs and closes. Go up early, then spend the afternoon working out what is under your feet.
Guided, or just the entry ticket
The ticket gets you the crown jewels, the war memorial and the one o’clock gun. A guide gets you the reason any of it is up there. On a first visit, take the guide.
The vaults under South Bridge
Nineteen chambers were built into the bridge arches, let to traders, flooded, abandoned and bricked up. They were only reopened in the 1980s and they are still cold enough to see your breath.
Old Town food and a distillery flight
Haggis you will actually finish, cheese from the Borders and a tasting flight that finally explains the difference between Speyside and Islay. Most runs start in the Grassmarket.
The tours Scotland books before anything else.
The full catalogue →The ones that fill first, from the long coach run to Loch Ness to a torchlit hour under the Old Town.
1
Loch Ness, Glencoe & the Scottish Highlands Tour
See Loch Ness, Glencoe, Urquhart Castle, and Highland villages on a long but rewarding coach tour from Edinburgh.
From · $62
Read our review →
2
Harry Potter Magical Guided Walking Tour
from $19
3
Underground Vaults Tour
from $32
4
Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticket
from $49
5
Loch Ness, Glencoe & Scottish Highlands Tour
from $61
6
The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour
from $26
7
Underground Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh Old Town
from $33
8
Edinburgh Castle Guided History Tour with Tickets
from $50
Scotland keeps its castles in working order.
A garrison on a volcanic plug in the middle of the capital, a ruin on the shore of Loch Ness, and the one at the end of the road west that half the postcards are taken from. Entry is usually timed and almost always cheaper booked ahead.
- 1Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticketfrom $49
- 2Edinburgh Castle Guided History Tour with Ticketsfrom $50
- 3Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticketfrom $51
Speyside, Islay and a tasting room off the Royal Mile.
Scotland makes whisky in five regions and pours it in all of them. Most visitors get as far as a flight of drams in Edinburgh. Anyone with a spare day drives up to Speyside and watches it being made.
Edinburgh is a different city once the closes go quiet.
The vaults under South Bridge, the kirkyard the body snatchers worked, and a bus tour that is mostly a comedy act. Nearly all of it starts after six and a good deal of it is underground.
Every night walk in Edinburgh →
Scotland by price, from a walking hour to a week on the road.
Every tour on the site sorted into three bands. City walks and tastings sit lower than most people expect. The coach days into the Highlands are where the money goes.
Old Town walks, the vaults, castle entry, a tasting flight and the loch cruises.
The full Highland days: Loch Ness, Glencoe, the Glenfinnan viaduct, Skye out of Inverness.
Multi-day runs to Skye and the far north, private drivers and a seat on the steam train.
Three things that happen in Scotland and nowhere else.
Castles and coastline are common enough. A loch with its own industry, a steam engine on a curved viaduct and a television series that redrew the tourist map are not.
Loch Ness
The loch holds more fresh water than every lake in England and Wales put together, and none of it is clear: peat washes down off the hills and kills the light a few feet under. That is the monster story in one sentence. Urquhart Castle stands halfway along the shore, and every cruise slows down for it.
- 1Loch Ness, Glencoe & the Scottish Highlands Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 17,446 reviews
- 2Loch Ness, Glencoe & Scottish Highlands Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 11,381 reviews
- 3Loch Ness, Scottish Highlands, Glencoe and Pitlochry Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6,854 reviews
The Jacobite
A working steam locomotive runs between Fort William and Mallaig from spring to autumn and crosses the Glenfinnan viaduct on the way. The films made the curve famous. The line itself was built in 1901 to get west coast fish to market, and day tours from Edinburgh and Inverness time their stop for the crossing.
- 1Harry Potter Magical Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 11,944 reviews
- 2Glenfinnan, Glencoe, and Highlands Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 4,657 reviews
- 3Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Fort William★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,337 reviews
Outlander country
A castle in Stirlingshire plays the great hall, a tower house outside Edinburgh plays the homestead, and a small Fife town plays an entire village. All three were standing for centuries before a camera arrived, which is why these runs are still worth a day if you have never seen an episode.
- 1The Outlander Experience Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,821 reviews
- 2Outlander Film Locations Day Trip from Edinburgh★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,776 reviews
- 3Loch Ness Cruise, Outlander & Urquhart Castle Tour from Inverness★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,384 reviews
What sells out before you reach Scotland.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on timed slots, a seasonal timetable and a very small number of seats.
- 01Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketEntry runs on timed slots at the busiest paid attraction in the country. Summer mornings go first, and the gate turns away anyone without one.
- 02Outlander, Palaces, and Jacobites Day TripThe steam train runs spring to autumn only and the carriages are sold by the seat, months out. There is no walk-up option.
- 033-Day Isle of Skye and The Highlands TourSkye is five hours from Edinburgh, so the honest versions run over three days on small buses. Those seats go before anything else in the timetable.
- 04Underground Vaults TourThe vaults take small groups by torchlight and only so many go down each evening. The late slots are the ones people want.
It will rain. Scotland has a whole industry for that.
Three days of sideways drizzle is a normal week and nothing closes because of it. The answer is the one the locals use: get under a roof with something to look at. Distillery floors, palace state rooms, museum halls, and a vault that was never dry in the first place.
By place, Edinburgh to Orkney
By kind of day, glen or close or distillery
Edinburgh, Stirling, Glencoe, Skye, Loch Ness, Glasgow: the loop almost everyone drives first.
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loch Ness, Inverness and Outlander Sites From Invergordon Port
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