We will be arriving April 23rd from the US and will be doing a house exhange. Our base will be Lesmahagow, Scotland. Our exchangers will be leaving us travel information; however, we would appreciate your advice for day trips from Leshmahagow. We will have a car. We are flexible in our travel plans. My husband likes history, especially military history, museums, scotch, and haggis. His descent is Scottish. I like scenery, castles, good food, and history. We will like going to distilleries as we have noted that May is Whisky Month. We will be in Scotland through May 12th. We would also like to take a trip through the northern highlands and would also like to stay on an island or two. We hope to go to one of the Speyside Festival events in May. If any of you have some itineraires saved on your computer or could post here, email is [email protected]. I have read some of them here on Fodors and saved them, for example, Castles, Walks, and Food by Sheila. Thank you for your time, Carolyn

Im interterested to hear how this works out. sounds like an interesting way to go. Please keep us posted!

Since Lesmahagow is south of Glasgow you will be very well situated for touring the Borders, Ayrshire, New Lanark, and Dumfries/Galloway - which are all full of scenery, castles and history to spare. But you will be a loooong way from the northern Highlands and the Hebrides. For your island - how about Arran? It is not the Hebrides but is really lovely.

You can spend a lot of time in the Borders -- all the Border abbeys, Traquair House, many castles, Abbotsford -- just a terrific area. In Ayrshire there is Culzean Castle, Crossraguel`Abbey and all the Robert Burns sites. And down south in Dumfries/Galloway there are Threave, Caeverlock, etc, etc, etc (more than you'd ever have time to see).

To do anything in the Highlands/Islands/Speyside you'll have to leave Lesmahagow for at least a week

Thank you. We are certainly willing to leave Lesmahogow for a week in order to visit the highlands and Speyside. We're familiar with the Inverness/Dornoch/Golspie area, but haven't been to Durness or Ullapool. Actually, we haven't been to Scotland in 20 years, so everything will be new all over again. Lodging or restaurant suggestions? Thank you, Carolyn

Click on my name and you will find my trip report on Scotland, which includes Ullapool, Glasgow, New Lanark, etc. It might provide some ideas.