Scotland fits into day trips. Most of the good ones leave at eight in the morning.
Which Loch Ness tour actually puts you on the water. What the Jacobite steam train costs and how far ahead it sells out. Reviews of every tour you can book in Scotland.
The castle, the vaults, Loch Ness, Skye.
The four bookings a first trip hangs on, with what each costs and what the people who took it said.
01The first morningEdinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketTimed entry with a guide who turns a hill full of buildings into one story. Take the earliest slot; the esplanade fills by ten.
02The eveningThe World Famous Underground Ghost TourDown into the chambers under South Bridge by torchlight. Small groups, an hour, and the cheapest thing in the Old Town worth doing after dark.
03The long day northLoch Ness, Scottish Highlands, Glencoe and Pitlochry TourLoch Ness, Glencoe and Pitlochry in one run out of Edinburgh. Twelve hours in a seat, and the drive is half the point.
04The island dayIsle of Skye and Eilean Donan Castle Day Tour from InvernessSkye and Eilean Donan from Inverness without the overnight. The only version of Skye that fits inside a single day.
One long day north: the loch, the glen, or the run to the island.
The Highlands are a day trip from the cities, and the minibus leaves early. Three shapes of day, what a seat on each costs, and how far north each one actually gets you.
Edinburgh for the first three days. Then Glasgow, or the road to Inverness.
Nearly every tour in the country leaves from one of six places. The capital sends the most minibuses north, Glasgow owns the west, Inverness is the short cut to the loch and the island, and the cruise ports run their own shore days.
Edinburgh: the castle before the crowds, the vaults after dark.
Everything in Edinburgh →
The Old Town is a mile of closes and stairs with a fortress at the top and a buried street underneath. Do the rock early, keep the underground for the evening, and leave the middle of the day for whatever the sky allows.
Castle entry, or entry with a guide
The gate scans the slot printed on your ticket, so the decision is made before you arrive. A guide costs a little more and does the work of joining up the Half Moon Battery, the tiny chapel and the Honours of Scotland.
The vaults under South Bridge
The chambers inside the bridge arches were built for storage, flooded, abandoned, then filled with people. The good tours tell you what the city actually did down there before they try to frighten you.
Victoria Street and the Greyfriars stones
Curved shopfronts on Victoria Street, a kirkyard full of borrowed surnames, and a school that looks the part from Candlemaker Row. The cheapest guided hour in the city, and a decent Old Town walk regardless.
The days out that fill up first in Scotland.
See every review →These carry more travellers than anything else in the country. What each one is really selling, and what a seat costs.
1
The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour
Walk Edinburgh’s Old Town after dark with a costumed guide playing characters such as Dr Robert Knox, Lafayette, or the Fairy Wife. Hear grim tales in the closes, visit Greyfriars Kirkyard, then enter the South Bridge vaults. The 75-minute tour is in English, costs $26.35, and suits families at 6:45pm.
From · $26
Read our review →
2
Underground Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh Old Town
from $33
3
Loch Ness, Scottish Highlands, Glencoe and Pitlochry Tour
from $67
4
Loch Ness & Highlands Small-Group Tour from Edinburgh with Cruise
from $84
5
Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticket
from $51
6
Edinburgh Castle Guided Walking Tour in English
from $52
7
Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Fort William
from $62
8
The Chocolatarium Chocolate Tour Experience in Edinburgh
from $44
Scotland measures distance in distilleries.
Wash backs, copper stills and a warehouse that smells of the past forty years. Edinburgh has working distilleries inside the city, Speyside is a day north of Inverness, and almost every visit ends with something poured at cask strength that never reaches a shop.
Closes, kirkyards, and the street they buried under South Bridge.
Edinburgh does its best work at night. Book the vaults for the story rather than the scare, the kirkyard walk for the history, and leave the pub crawl until last.
Skye is a long way further than the map suggests.
The Quiraing, Kilt Rock and the Cuillin sit five hours from Edinburgh and two and a half from Inverness. That gap decides the whole booking: one day from the north, or three from the capital with Glencoe and Eilean Donan on the way in.
Every Skye tour →
Glasgow is an hour from Loch Lomond and never mentions it.
The city trades on music, architecture and football, then sends minibuses to Loch Lomond, the Trossachs, Oban and Glencoe before most people have finished breakfast. The same shape of day costs less leaving from here than from the capital.
- 1Guided Celtic Park Stadium Tourfrom $25
- 2City Sightseeing Glasgow Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tourfrom $27
- 3Oban, Glencoe, Highlands Lochs & Castles Small Group Day Tour from Glasgowfrom $50
What a day out in Scotland actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The walks that made the Old Town famous sit at the bottom of the ladder. Anything with a train ticket or three nights attached sits at the top.
Old Town walks, castle entry, the vaults, and the distillery tours inside the cities.
The full-day standards: Loch Ness with a cruise, Glencoe, Stirling, St Andrews and the Borders.
The Jacobite, multi-day Skye and Orkney runs, and a private car with a driver for the day.
Three bookings you cannot make anywhere else.
Castles and coach tours exist everywhere. A steam locomotive working a viaduct on a public timetable, a freshwater loch deep enough to swallow the light, and a still house running the same wash since the 1820s do not.
The Jacobite over Glenfinnan
The line from Fort William to Mallaig crosses twenty-one arches above Loch Shiel, and a steam locomotive still works it on a public timetable through the warm months. Tours pair the ride with the viewpoint on the hill above, because the photograph everybody wants is taken from outside the train rather than from a seat inside it.
- 1Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Fort William★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,337 reviews
- 2Original Harry Potter Locations Tour in Edinburgh : Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,236 reviews
- 3The Potter Trail Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,353 reviews
Urquhart Castle, and the water below it
Loch Ness holds more fresh water than every lake in England and Wales together, and the peat washed into it kills the light within a few metres of the surface. The ruined castle on the western shore is the one place you can see the whole length of the loch, which is why the cruise boats time their turn there.
- 1Loch Ness, Scottish Highlands, Glencoe and Pitlochry Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6,854 reviews
- 2Loch Ness & Highlands Small-Group Tour from Edinburgh with Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 6,022 reviews
- 3Loch Ness, Glencoe & The Highlands★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,771 reviews
Whisky poured where it was made
A distillery tour is a lesson in patience: barley, water off the hill, copper, then a decade in oak in a dark shed nobody photographs. The tasting at the end is the reason to pay for the longer version, because cask strength off the wood is a different drink from the bottle on the shelf.
- 1The Scotch Whisky Experience Guided Whisky Tour – An Introduction to Whisky★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,578 reviews
- 2Edinburgh Food Tour with Scotch, Haggis, a Secret Dish & More★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,172 reviews
- 3Highland Lochs, Glens & Whisky Day Tour Including Admission★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 641 reviews
Four things in Scotland you cannot leave until you land.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before over a pint. These four run on timed slots, a seasonal timetable and a festival calendar that takes no interest in when your flight arrives.
- 01Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketEntry runs on timed slots with a cap on each one. The morning slots go first, and the gate turns away anyone holding the wrong hour.
- 02Scotland in 5 Days Including Jacobite Steam Train from EdinburghThe steam service runs a seasonal timetable rather than a daily one, and the carriages are gone weeks ahead through the summer.
- 03Scottish Highlands Day Trip and Edinburgh Military TattooIt happens in August, on the castle esplanade, and nowhere else. The seats are taken long before the month begins.
- 04Orkney Day TripGetting there means a ferry across the Pentland Firth on a fixed sailing. Lose it to weather or to the clock and the whole day is gone.
Scotland gets four seasons before lunch. Keep something with a roof in reserve.
Rain here arrives sideways and without warning, and from November the light has gone by four in the afternoon. The answer is the same in both cases: put the outdoor day early in the trip and hold an indoor booking back. Still houses, vaults, castle interiors and a long lunch all work in a downpour.
By city, cruise port and Highland base
By kind of day: loch, castle, still house or film location
Edinburgh, Stirling, Glencoe, Loch Ness, Skye: the week most first trips end up doing.
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