abram

DH and I want to visit Scotland for 6 weeks approximately May 18-June 29, 2020. I have compiled a Word document listing places to see/things to do, based of reading several guidebooks and Trip Advisor.
Some things are starting to make sense, but I am feeling overwhelmed by trying to put together an itinerary. We like slow travel, in that we prefer to stay places for at least 3 days, making driving loops to see what's in the area, rather than move every night or 2. We will be 70 & 72, like to see a variety of different types of places, history, beautiful drives, hikes of 1-2 hours at a time, specialty museums, learning what makes a place different from the place down the road.
So far, it seems that it might work to spend our 1st several days in Edinburgh, then rent a car as we leave town, spend a week in the South (maybe at 2 places), do the rest of our road trip, and end with 3 days in Glasgow, returning the car when we arrive.
I'm thinking of 3 days in Dundee, 3 days in the Orkney Islands, staying in Kirkwall, 3 days on the Isle of Skye, staying in Portree. That still leaves 18 days to play with, so a max of 6 places to spend 3 nights each. It could be fewer places for more nights each. Would the Isles of Lewis/Harris be possible?
I've tried to group things into loose categories, picking a few from each category so we have enough variety. Our family joke, which began when we saw a few too many archeological sites on one trip, is to say, when we've seen the umpteenth whatever, "Oh, look--another pile of rocks!" We don't want to see so many of the same type of thing that we stop appreciating it.
I haven't listed the sights in the places I'm already thinking of spending several days.
Castles: Caerlaverock, Culzean, Scone, Stirling, Dunnottaur, Balmoral, Blair, Cawdor, Dornie.
Border Abbeys: Jedburgh, Melrose, Dryburgh.
Gardens: Logan, Drummond, Arduaine, Inverewe.
Churches: Rosslyn, St Machar.
Museums: Rural Life, Scottish Fisheries, Borders Textile, Vikingar!, New Lanark, Scottish Industrial Life, Secret Bunker, Aberdeen Maritime, Gordon Highland, Elgin, HIghland Folk, Gairloch heritage, Wick Heritage, Auchindrain Township, Hamilton Toy, Inveraray Jail.
Parks/hikes/drives: Falls of Clyde, St Abb's Head, Galloway Forest, Queen Elizabeth Forest, Argyll Beaver Centre, Cairngorms NP, Loch Garten Nature Reserve, Hermiatge, Linn of Tummel, Glen Torridon, Lochs Maree, Lomond, Ness, Drumbeg Loop.
Miscellaneous: Jupiter Artland, Falkirk Wheel, Cairngorm Mountain Railway, Jacobite Steam Train, Scottish Crannog Centre, Pitlochery Dam, Smailholm Tower, Crawick Multiverse, Bonawe Iron Furnace, Isle of May birdwatching.
Thank you VERY much to anyone who was able to plow through this too lengthy post and to anyone who has ideas to help me. REALLY appreciate it.

janisj

OK -- you are soooooo all over the place it will be hard to help you. But just to get you started, you have places/sites listed from Edinburgh to the very far SW to the Borders to Fife to Aberdeenshire to Orkney to Argyle to the Outer Hebrides to the very far NW to Skye to Glasgow . . . to every place in between. This would be pretty much to impossible in 6 weeks - and difficult in 2 to 2.5 months. It almost seems like you got ahold of a guide book and threw everyplace against a wall and everything stuck.

INHALE, relax and and cut your wish list in about half. and then we can sort of make sense out of things. In general think how much territory one can cover in a week just to see what's practical -- some examples: Edinburgh and the Borders = approx one week. Dumfries/Ayrshire/a bit of Glasgow - about a week. Fife/Aberdeenshire/Deeside = about a week. Argyll/Skye/Glencoe/Jacobite - a week. Perthshire/Cairngorms/around Inverness = a week give or take. The far NW + Orkney = about a week. Now -- that looks like its all doable in 6 weeks (without the Outer Hebrides) - but that is running full tilt for 6 straight weeks without a single break, which as far from the 'slow travel' you say you prefer.

If it was me -- I' pick five places to base for 5 or 6 days each (this would be besides the 3 or 4 days in Edinburgh up front and maybe 2 days in Glasgow at the end). Do day trips from a base, then move on to the next base.

Good bases could be the Borders, Deeside, the Trossachs/Loch Lomond area, Skye or thereabouts, somewhere near Inverness (somewhere between the Black Isle through say Nairn). But there are other options.

abram

Thank you very much for your thoughtful and helpful response.
I apologize for not being clear about my own definition of slow travel: staying several nights in one place, rather than what we call one night stands. We do like very full, busy days of sightseeing.
Yes, I am literally all over the map--that's intentional, as we know we'll never get back to Scotland. We're content to skip islands such as Shetland, Iona, Arran, Mull, and the Outer Hebrides.
Again, thank you.

Gardyloo

I'm a little hesitant to jump in, first because your initial list is so daunting, but second because of that statement. What if you fall in love with the place as so many do?

Not so fast. Let's rewind a bit and think about why you want to see all these places in the first place, and what you plan to see and do and experience while you're there. Because by doing so, it might turn out that you're after the same thing, but in multiple locations. Or worse, sacrificing things or places that have no peer.

Now I'm no Ronald Reagan; even though he probably never actually said, "If you've seen one redwood tree, you've seen them all," but well, a confession... the inside of one castle, particularly those whose Victorian occupants had romanticized with a surplus of pointy things and animal heads on the walls... is, to me, pretty much like the last one or the next one. And - and saying this hurts me to the core - one spectacular Highland glen can resemble the last one or the next one, too.

On the other hand, ditching a place like Iona when you have six weeks... well, there is no peer, at least not in Scotland. Why was it on your list in the first place?

You said as much yourself: The key word there is "types." What if... just imagining here... you did the research before you traveled to determine how places were different or similar enough so that one castle, say, could stand in for others of its type? Maybe being selective in which castles or museums to visit - in order to reduce duplication or increase the depth in which you could visit them, might allow you to free up enough days that you could give a bit more focus on how life is lived in places like Shetland or the Western Isles. I can assure you that three or four days in Shetland will leave you with an entirely different picture of Scottish life than one you'd get with three or four days surrounded by other visitors on Skye.

So I guess my advice at this early stage is that you've got 10 months or so to plan; use them to determine how much is enough of any given landscape type, community type, old building or museum... and what places or activities you could use as representative of similar places, minus the driving and logistical headaches. And which places really are unique, or offer cultural characteristics or activities - fiddlers in Shetland, Gaelic speakers in the Western Isles... that have some special resonance. It's not always the case that less is more, but sometimes shotgun approaches aren't the best thing either.

jtpj777

You mention wanting to see Aberdeen Maritime Museum and Gordon Highlander Museum ; you also mention St Machar (Cathedral?) all in Aberdeen, yet you have no time in Aberdeen?

historytraveler

janisj

Just quick . . . Scotland doesn't really lend itself to a dash all over heck and gone from place to place itinerary. And your wish to stay a few days at each stop also precludes dashing around so much. The travel is slow - like 35 mph slow in most rural areas. The sites/sights are around every corner and trying to squeeze in a looooooong laundry list of sites will be frustrating because you will be passing through many places you'd want to stop and enjoy.

Six weeks sounds like a long time -- and it is. It can be a wonderful trip. But its not long enough to hit every corner of the country like you've listed. Orkney is great -- but for a first visit IMO Mull/Iona would be a better fit. Caeverlock is great - but If it was castles I'd want to see on a first visit -- I'd probably choose Dunnottar and the Aberdeenshire Castle Trail.

I think you are overwhelmed because you are trying to see it ALL and that is impossible. IM (very) HO you would do better to pick a few regions and explore them in some sort of depth instead of running the length and breadth of the country ticking off a list. Every corner of Scotland is wonderful -- but it takes lot more than one 6 week trip to see every corner.

abram

At our ages, and with so many wonderful places in the world left to visit, I know that we will not choose to return to Scotland--or any other place, no matter how much we loved it. That's why we tend to choose longer trips. I've seen LOTS of 2-3 week Scotland itineraries in guidebooks, tour companies, travellers' trip reports, so 6 weeks (as much as we're prepared to be away right now) seemed long. If we fall in love with Scotland, we'll have wonderful memories and be glad we took more time than many to see as much as we did.

Of course, we want to spend time in Aberdeen--maybe that will end up being one of the places we stay for several nights and do driving loops to see the area. That's my current struggle: figuring our in which towns to spend how many nights.

Although it may not look like it, I have tried to narrow down how many of each type of place to include on my wish list. As a VERY visual learner, there are always charts so i can compare information. For this trip, I made charts of castles, bird watching, gardens, abbeys, houses/palaces--and compared museums that sounded like they had similar content.

As I read through your (very much appreciated) replies, it seems like one failing of mine is not understanding the names/locations of different areas--so terms like Deeside, Fife, and anything that ends in "shire" don't resonate for me. That means I have more learning to do. I bought a map of Scotland (choose it because it's large and only printed on one side, so I can see everything), but it doesn't have those types of names.

Thanks to everyone for taking the time and effort to respond.

Jean

This might help a bit. Click on "Regions" and scroll through the area names.

https://www.visitscotland.com/destinations-maps/

abram

Thanks, Jean--I'll do that.

vickiebypass

I am also a person who makes charts listing all the possible things I want to see/visit and then researches each of them to help me figure out how "worth it" it is to me; I also rank each site from 1 to 3, since there are always "must sees" and "nice if I'm there and in the mood"; and of course, i also code them by location. This approach would drive some people nuts but it works for me. I spent two weeks a few years ago in Northumberland and the Borders area of Scotland; as janisj and other have noted, while driving was a pleasure on uncrowded roads, it was always much slower than GPS or Google indicated. I agree with Gardyloo's suggestion of figuring out what uniquely appeals to you and focusing your trip on that; in my case, I don't like huge stately homes like Versailles (or Culzean Castle). I much prefer Victorian or 20th century homes full of interesting woodwork, architectural details, wallpaper and furnishings so I seek those out and blithely skip the others.

historytraveler

janisj

There are many types of Castles and to avoid one sort or another seems weird to me. There are the 'Stately Home' types like Floors or Culzean - with its gardens. dramatic setting, and Adam interiors. There are the 'Tower Houses' like Fraser, Cragievar (an absolute gem and a must IMO), Crathes (magnificent gardens). Then the massive military castles like Stirling and Edinburgh. And the ruined defensive castles like Dunnottar, and Kilchurn, and Urquhart.

Every sort is worth visiting -- And the 'seen one castle seen them all' could not be further from the reality.

abram

I make those kinds of charts, too, planning an itinerary by "must-sees" and adding other things as time allows.

Just when I thought I had narrowed my castle selection! More to add. Value your opinion.