Scotland: Itinerary help
 

We're headed to Scotland for 3 weeks in July 2019. Need help with itinerary. Plan to start in Edinburg. Interested in history, MacDonald and other clans, would like to visit Orkney Island as part of our trip. We like seeing local life, pubs, would like to golf at St Andrews one day. Open to any and all advice from those who would like to weigh in. I'm a MacDonald with lots of other Mac surnames in my family tree, 99% Scottish, although have never been there. My husband and I are active 60 year olds. We'd like to visit some castles and a distillery or two. Thanks in advance for your advice.

Moved to Europe board

OK - a bit of a reality check is in order. 3 weeks (if that means 21 days home to home) will net you 18.5 days free on the ground. minus your jet lagged arrival day and your departure day you are really down to about 17 days to play with. Edinburgh, St Andrews, the Orkneys, and - while there are MacDonalds all over, the Clan Donald Centre is on Skye . . . well that is 4 major destinations in 4 totally opposite corners of the country. and with essentially 2.5 weeks real sightseeing time you will need to focus quite a bit. To get to all those place I'd really want a month - travel in the rural bits is very slow.

If you mean playing n the Old Course that takes a lot of pre-plannig but there are no tee times available between March and November of next year. They do a daily ballot/lottery but you would need to be in the area at least 3 nights to even have a prayer of getting on. The Starter will add single golfers to existing twosomes and threesomes on a first cone first served basis but that usually means hanging around the course all day with your fingers crossed. There are many other wonderful courses all over the country -- but all the 'biggies' (famous ones) require far advance booking and specific requirements for each one.

I'm leaving for the rest of the day so can't really comment more until later this evening.

SO . . . how many days total do you have?

I've played the Old Course many times and walked it many more. If you are looking to play the Old Course note that you both must have a valid handicap. Second, if you are not ultra serious golfers I would table the idea of walking the course on a Sunday when it is closed for golf and open to walkers. You get to see whatever you want to see (which you don't when you are following your ball around), and you don't have other golfers waiting impatiently behind you.

Thank you for your reply! We have 23 days total, so accounting for jet lag, I'd like to plan 21 days of actual sightseeing.

Thank you for the information xcountry! We may just go walk the course, we aren't set on golfing it anyway, but we'd like to visit, to see it.

CRAP (!) :( I started a very long response and poof -- it is gone

Anyway the quick and dirty -- >>We have 23 days total<<. If you mean 23 days home to home count on about 20 days free on the ground. A real rush if you are trying to squeeze in Edinburgh, Fife, the Orkneys, and Skye. Do you have any guide books? There are hundreds of worthwhile/scenic places and you will hae to be very selective.

Yes playing the Old Course complicated things a LOT. If you visit on a Sunday you can walk the entire course - take iconic photos on the Swilken Bridge, see the Road Hole up close, walk on the West Sands (where Chariots of Fire was filmed). A much better use of your limited time. Plus there is a TON of other things to see/do in/near Fife. The fishing villages, Isle of May, Falkland Palace - Glamis Castle(not in Fife but driving distance) and many others.

One thing to consider to save a LOT of time if Orkney is a must -- you can fly up from EDI then fly back to Inverness -- collect your rental car at Inverness then down to Skye eventually returning the car at Edinburgh.

Tell us a little about yourselves. Do you have any particular interests aside from those mentioned? Where's home?

July is a popular time in the Highlands, especially on Skye, which presumably you'd want to visit in order to see Armadale Castle, ostensibly the seat of Clan Donald. So one of the things you probably should do is start with a rough timetable that would let you make some hotel bookings in places like Skye as it can become difficult the longer you wait.

Without being specific (because this would have to do with your own tastes, how many city v. country days you want, etc.) I'd maybe think of a roughly circular driving route around the country. I'd head to the west coast and Inner Hebrides (Mull and Skye being the two biggest and most accessible islands) then north to the northwestern Highlands, then south through Inverness and down into the whisky country in the Spey drainage, castle country in Aberdeenshire, then down to Fife (St. Andrews, picturesque fishing villages) and back to Edinburgh. Here's an imaginary map that illustrates the skeleton of such a route - https://goo.gl/maps/DpEsyhHUUKr . There are too many variations on this to count; for example there are distilleries all over Scotland, including some in the western part of the country (even on Skye) and I've included the ancient town of Dornoch on the map, where golf was first played around the same time as in St. Andrews. (And if you want to play, it's an easier place to do so.)

But this ignores a host of other places and regions that are equally worthwhile - Loch Lomond, Mull and Argyll, the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway... endless.

Orkney poses logistic issues; I would actually recommend that you fly there from Edinburgh before or after any road touring.

I'd recommend getting familiar with Undiscovered Scotland - https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/ - which is an excellent resource through which you can "drill down" on specific places, and also see things at a more regional level.

One thing to note when looking at road trips. Mapping services like Google Maps are very useful, but their time estimates are notoriously optimistic. Distances in Scotland may look short, but trust us, it's not a quick place to drive around. Add 30-50% to Google's time estimates and consider yourself lucky if that's all it is.

Happy planning!