My daughter and I will be traveling to Scotland for her 40th birthday. Our home base will be Edinburgh. This forum has been my lifeline for all my travels, so I wanted to put a question out there. I know there have been several day tour companies mentioned on the boards, but I was wondering if anyone has had first hand knowledge of which might be the best for us. We would like small mini buses..maybe 10 people or so with the guides. My daughter is obsessed with castles..has anyone take an excellent castle tour from Edinburgh? Besides castles, out plan is to day trip all four days we are there to different locations...Thanks so much.

There are a few good companies - but the best known w/ the best variety are probably rabbies and timberbush.

Some day trip are better done independently -- Stirling or St Andrews for example. But for a guided small group tour, rabbies or Timberbush are likely your best bets . . .

You can see Linlithgow (technically a ruined palace rather than a castle, but I would expect it to appeal to someone who likes castles)as a half-day outing from Edinburgh - it's about 20 mins on the train, and is warmly recommended by me. There are guides there.

http://www.edinburgh.org/see-do/sigh...side-edinburgh

Edinburgh Tourist Board list of excursion tour companies - Rabbies Small Group Tours that janisj promotes is first on the list.

I have not used these folks, but found it in a fodor's forum as being recommended. I plan to use them on my next trip to Edinburgh.

The link for janisj's promotion.

http://www.rabbies.com/?gclid=CLC71f...FWcbQgode0jFLA