Scotland is small. The days out are not.
Which Loch Ness coach actually stops at Glencoe. What a Speyside dram costs before the gift shop. Whether Skye works as a day out of Inverness. Reviews of every tour you can book in Scotland.
A first week in Scotland hangs off four bookings.
The Highland run, a night walk under the Old Town, the castle on the rock and the crossing to Skye. What each costs and what the people who took it say.
- 01The long day northLoch Ness, Scottish Highlands, Glencoe and Pitlochry TourGlencoe, Loch Ness and Pitlochry in one run out of Edinburgh. Twelve hours, and the only day that shows you the shape of the country.
02After darkThe World Famous Underground Ghost TourDown into the vaults under South Bridge, by candle. Book the late slot; the early ones go to school groups.
03The rock itselfEdinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketGuided entry to Edinburgh Castle with the ticket included. The guide is the difference between a view and a thousand years.
04Over the bridgeThe Isle of Skye and Eilean Donan CastleSkye and Eilean Donan from Inverness, which is the only base that makes it a sane day rather than a coach marathon.
Six places worth a bed, and the best day out of each.
A capital built on volcanic rock, a second city with better music, a Highland town at the head of the loch, the Cuillin, the monster water and an archipelago of standing stones. Pick your base and the tours follow.
Speyside, Islay or an hour under the Old Town. Pick your whisky day.
Distilleries are the one thing Scotland sells that you cannot get anywhere else, and the day you book decides whether you taste three drams or six. Three shapes of whisky trip, from an hour in a city cask room to a week on the peat coast, with the entry price for each.
Edinburgh works in layers: the rock, the closes, then the vaults.
All of Edinburgh →
The castle sits on a plug of extinct volcano, the Old Town falls away east from it in stone stairs, and underneath South Bridge there are sealed chambers nobody lived in willingly. Three bookings cover all of it.
Guided, or just the entry
Entry alone gets you through the gate and no further into the story. The guided versions cost roughly twenty dollars more and cover the siege years, the Stone of Destiny and why the one o’clock gun still fires.
Vaults, graveyards and closes
The South Bridge vaults and the Covenanters’ graveyard are the two underground walks worth the money. Some run as theatre, some as history; the listings say which, and the late slots are the quiet ones.
Haggis, whisky and the good pubs
A food walk here is mostly a pub walk with plates. Expect smoked fish, a haggis that will change your mind, cheese from the Borders and a dram poured by somebody who will not let you drown it.
The days out this country books most.
Every Scottish tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else on the site, and the thing that earns each one its place.
1
The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour
Walk Edinburgh’s Old Town with a costumed guide playing a notorious Scottish character, then visit Greyfriars Kirkyard and South Bridge’s underground vaults. Expect dark stories, audience participation, stairs, and a lively performance style. Guides have included David, Maggie Dickinson, Dr. Robert Knox, Frederick, and the Fairy Wife.
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
Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Fort William
from $62
7
The Chocolatarium Chocolate Tour Experience in Edinburgh
from $44
8
Original Harry Potter Locations Tour in Edinburgh : Guided Tour
from $19
There are more castles here than there are days in your trip.
Some are lived in, some are a wall and a view, and a few are the reason the coach turns off the main road at all. These are the ones travellers rate highest, and the entry fee is usually the smaller half of the bill.
The ferry timetable is the itinerary.
Skye is joined to the mainland by a bridge and behaves like an island anyway. Orkney needs a boat and a whole day either side. The Hebrides need three. Book the crossing first and build the rest around it.
Every island trip →
What a Scottish day out really costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best Scottish days come in under the cost of dinner in Edinburgh.
Old Town walks, vault tours, city entries and the short tastings you can reach on foot.
The full-day standards: Loch Ness and Glencoe by coach, Stirling and the Kelpies, Skye out of Inverness.
Private drivers, multi-day runs to Orkney and the north, and the small-group island tours.
Three things you can only book in Scotland.
Mountains and old stone are common enough. A losing army’s last field, a television drama that rebuilt a tourist season, and a steam locomotive on a curved viaduct are not.
Culloden and the Jacobite road
The battle lasted under an hour and settled the Highlands for two centuries. The moor east of Inverness is kept as it was, with the clan graves marked where the lines fell and nothing built on it. Guides who do this well take you to Glenfinnan first, where the rising started, so the moor lands the way it should.
- 1Loch Ness & Culloden Battlefield Private Tour from Inverness★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 932 reviews
- 2Scotland in 5 Days Including Jacobite Steam Train from Edinburgh★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 341 reviews
- 32-Day Jacobite Experience including the Hogwarts Express from Edinburgh★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 335 reviews
The Outlander circuit
Doune Castle plays Castle Leoch, Midhope stands in for Lallybroch, and Falkland in Fife is dressed as 1940s Inverness. The tours run whether or not you have seen the show, because the buildings were worth the drive long before the cameras came. Most leave Edinburgh at eight and get back after six.
- 1Outlander Film Locations Day Trip from Edinburgh★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,776 reviews
- 2Loch Ness Cruise, Outlander & Urquhart Castle Tour from Inverness★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,384 reviews
- 3Outlander Locations Tour Including Admissions from Edinburgh★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,116 reviews
Steam over Glenfinnan
The West Highland Line crosses twenty-one concrete arches above Loch Shiel, and a working steam engine hauls carriages over it twice a day in season. Ride it, or stand on the hill and watch it pass. Seats sell out months ahead; the hillside costs nothing and gives you the better photograph.
- 1Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Fort William★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,337 reviews
- 23-Day Isle of Skye Inverness Highlands and Glenfinnan Viaduct Tour from Edinburgh★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,351 reviews
- 3Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Fort William Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,151 reviews
Four bookings here that will not wait.
Most of this country can be sorted from a pub table the night before. These four run on timed entry, sailing schedules and a steam timetable that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketEntry runs on timed slots and the castle is the busiest paid attraction in the country. Summer mornings go weeks out.
- 02Scotland in 5 Days Including Jacobite Steam Train from EdinburghThe steam service runs a fixed seasonal timetable with a fixed number of seats, and the carriage windows that matter go first.
- 034 Day Islay Whisky Tour from EdinburghIslay is a ferry and a small island of working distilleries. Beds, cars and tasting slots all run out together in summer.
- 04Orkney Day TripOrkney is a sailing, not a drive. The day tours run to the boat, and the boat runs to the weather.
It will rain. Here is where to spend the afternoon.
Scottish rain is rarely dramatic and rarely brief. The answer is not to wait it out but to book indoors: a bonded warehouse, a blending bench, a vault under the bridge or a room where somebody explains what happened at the table you are sitting at.
Edinburgh, Stirling, Glencoe, Skye, Loch Ness: the run almost everybody does first.
Edinburgh
Stirling
Glencoe
Isle of SkyeBy place, from the Borders to Orkney
By kind of day: glen, distillery, castle or close
Scottish tour reviews, newest first.
The rest of this week’s →
ULLAPOOL PORT Cruise Ship Tour, Ardvreck Castle, Rocks & More
Read our review →
Full-Day Private Speyside Malt Whisky Trail Tour from Grantown-on-Spey
Read our review →
CANYONING in Laggan Canyon | Roybridge, Scotland
Read our review →
Full-Day Walking and Hiking Adventure in Quinag Mountain Range
Read our review →
Stirling Castle and the Secrets of the Old Town Private Tour
Read our review →
3 Hour Private Tour of Stirling Old Town and Stirling Castle
Read our review →