First Time to Scotland - Advice Please?
 

Hello! We are planning on visiting Scotland for the first time in August for seven days. Our initial thoughts are:
Edinburgh by rail or air. Hire car at airport. Hire rental property and stay in pretty village or small town around 30 minutes or so drive from Edinburgh - any suggestions where? Would like to visit the Highlands - possibly driving and staying one night in B&B if journey too much for one day? And Loch Lomond area.
Are we being too ambitious to try to fit in so much. Are the areas within reasonable distance of each other? Nice village or small town outside Edinburgh to stay?
Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
Lena

I think travelling to the Highlands from Edinburgh in one day is too much, try spend a day or two in the Highlands, maybe coming down the West Coast, it is beautiful, a drive through Glencoe, Fortwilliam, Oban and down that way.

I am curretnly travelling in Europe and from Scotland, I have been travelling already for just over 3 months, and miss Scotland.

I know I've probably not answered your question properly. Sorry.

But the Highlands is really worth a visit! You will not be disapointed :-)

Renting a cottage for a week somewhere in the general triangle of Stirling/Callander/Drymen (including Aberfoyle, Lake of Menteith, Doune) or just north of that area would place you for good touring everywhere from Edinburgh to Glencoe to to Loch Earn/Loch Tay to Oban/Inveraray to Loch Lomond. So basically everywhere from Loch Lomond to Perthshire to the west coast.

For Edinburgh - instead of driving you could drive over to Dunblane and take a day trip into the city by train.

However - you may need to do quite a bit of searching to find availability for your dates. Places w/i a reasonable distance of Edinburgh will book up for August.

Thank you both so much for this information - so helpful. We are really looking forward to visiting Scotland. Thank-you! Lena

More time would always be better. As janis mentioned, August will be tough in Edinburgh due to the various festivals.

We did a trip last year that might help with your thoughts and planning:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...rip-report.cfm

Good luck

Thanks so much indy_dad, what a great trip report and will be so helpful. Your photographs are beautiful. Lena :)

Thanks everyone for your invaluable advice so far. So excited about the trip - had trouble finding suitable accommodation but eventually found a lovely place in Perth to rent for the week. Perth is probably not in the best centrally convenient place but it was hard to find anywhere more suitable. We plan to spend a whole day in Edinburgh; a day at Loch Lomond and a day in Inverness / Loch Ness, travelling over to Skye and spending the night there. The other area we really want to see is Oban/Glencoe/Fort William but we can't really afford another night's B&B so plan to travel from Perth to Glencoe in one day. We will probably have time to also visit Oban or Fort William on the same day but which one is best? Sadly, there will not be time to visit all three areas and take it all in on the same day - or at least I don't think so? Advice for anyone who knows the areas would be much appreciated. :)

MissGronky, how is it going? Any chance you could do an update on your thread?

"<i> . . . and a day in Inverness / Loch Ness</i>"

"<i>We will probably have time to also visit Oban or Fort William on the same day but which one is best?</i>"

Just so you know-- there is absolutely no reason to 'visit' Ft William or Inverness. You will likely drive through Ft William -- can't really be easily avoided.

Loch Ness is mostly a 'drive along' w/ just Urquhart Castle worth a stop.

So instead of visiting Inverness - I'd go through Glencoe and across to Mallaig for the ferry to Skye. Leave early to give you as much time on the Isle as possible. The drive should take about 5 hours plus stops.

Early the next afternoon leave Skye via the bridge, drive half way up Loch Ness as far a Urquhart, then backtrack just a bit and continue to Spean Bridge, across the A86 and down to Dalwhinnie, then the A9 back to Perth.

This drive is about 5 hours plus stops and takes you through some beautiful highlands scenery. The 'fast' route from Skye, the full length of Loch Ness, through Inverness and down the A9toPerth would only be maybe 30 minutes faster.

As you can see - two nights on Skye would be much MUCH better.

Thank you Janis that makes much more sense - we were really going to go out of our way before.
Another question please: Where is the best place to stay on Skye? Preferably somewhere not too far in land if we are going to be driving for much of the day.
Two nights on Skye would be wonderful but we are having to stick to a tight budget unfortunately.
Thanks once again for your much appreciated advice.

Normally the best places to stay are at Sligachan which is sort of at the crossroads of the whole island http://www.sligachan.co.uk/

. . . or in Portree which is the only town of any size.

But Skye is very large and the driving can be quite slow (another reason 2 nights would be better if you can swing it). Armadale where the ferry lands to Portree is easily a 90 minute drive. Armadale to sligachan is a bit under an hour if you are lucky.

So to save some time that day you could look around Broadford. The problem then is - the next day you'll have a LOT of driving just to get to the Trotternish Peninsula and sightsee around the island - before another 5+ hour drive 'home'.

As you can see - it really would be great if you could find a way to swing an extra night. A bit of Skye can be seen on this sort of lightning visit but it isn't easy. From one end of Skye to the other is about a 2 hour drive - and that is just the direct route w/o going to any places on the west side.

Thanks so much Janis, I really appreciate your advice. Wish we could stay an extra night but I don't think it will be possible. We will have to get up very early to see as much as we can and there are two drivers so we can share the load. It seems we will have to visit again another year when we have more time. Thank-you again Janis, you have been really helpful.
Lena :)

janisj's posts here are admirable, probably because they reflect my own views perfectly :-)

The reason Skye roads are slow is the number of tourists pulling campers very slowly because of sheep walking onto the roads. You think I am joking?

It is one of a number of reason experienced fodorites always recommend that you expect any road trip in Scotland to take roughly twice as long as the same mileage in the States. Though very busy, these are not superhighways. I have been blocked for more than an hour by an accident on the A9 west of Blair Atholl, and we were there at the end of the cleanup process. If you are going back to Perth, fine. If your destination were Edinburgh Airport with a plane to catch I might rethink this.

Thank you so much Ackislander. I have looked into staying another night on Skye but it's definitely not possible - not only is our budget limited but we also have tickets for the Edinburgh Tattoo and other plans which means we cannot spare the time. However, we are going to drive the quickest, most direct route to Portree which, on paper, takes three and a half hours (plus sightseeing of course). We are not stopping anywhere else and will visit Oban and Glencoe on a separate day. I am worried we will be spending far too much time driving but will have to accept this if we are to see everything on our list!
Once again, I really appreciate everyone's input. :)

"<i>However, we are going to drive the quickest, most direct route to Portree which, on paper, takes three and a half hours</i>"

Not even remotely. Is the cottage actually IN Perth or just a Perth post code. That could make a significant difference. But assuming it is IN Perth - Portree is a 5 hour drive.

The AA route planner gives 4hr 19mins which is 'perfect world', and 5 hours would be doing very well. It is nearly 200 miles which would mean <i>averaging</i> 40MPH to make it in 5 hours, and that isn't easy. To make it in 3.5 hours one would need to average nearly nearly 60mph which is impossibe.

Ackislander: We <i>are</i> sort of brilliant, aren't we ;)

Janis, you are right - I was looking at the wrong line on my notes (have made so many of them)! According to the RAC Perth (town) - Skye Bridge is 3.5 hours but, after reading your post, even that sounds very optimistic! Our plan is to leave around 8 in the morning and reach Skye by mid-day ish. We will have all afternoon and evening on the island, and then leave around 3 pm the next day. Any tips on the 'must sees' in Skye, bearing in mind we only have the time above?
I know we are being a bit naive and had considered dropping the trip altogether but we really want to go to Skye, it looks so beautiful. Thanks again for your time and advice. L :)

Do remember that the Skye Bridge is about an hour from Portree . . . it is a BIG island. Leaving at 0800 you can expect to be mid-island (Sligachan or there abouts) a little after 1PM if you don't stop anywhere giving you some time to tour around before checking in at Portree.

In the middle of August sunset is around 9PM and its light even later, so you can certainly drive around a bit after checking in to your B&B.