HanaR

Hello, I would like to kindly ask for advices and tips from the experienced for our trip to Scotland in May ( 11th - 22nd ). We will fly to EDI, where we will rent a car. End also in Edinburgh for the flight home.
We are 4 adults, 2 of us older, so we won't be able to do any long hikes, we would like to have the trip more relaxed, with shorter walks, scenic drives, sightseeing ( castles or other historic sites ), small villages, visit few distilleries, etc. We have never been to Scotland before.
Our plan so far is :
Day 1 - flight to Edinburgh ( 2pm ), rent a car, overnight somewhere north of Edi ( found nice accommodation in Townhill )
Day 2 - drive to Pitlochry, with some stops ( Blair Athol, Dunkeld cathedral ) - any other tip?
Day 3 - drive the Snow Roads ( Braemar, Balmoral, Corgarff, Tomintoule, maybe Glennlivet?, Grantown on Spay ) - stay near Inverness
Day 4 - trip from Inverness - Fort George, Cawdor castle, Culloden battlefield, Clava cairns, maybe Chanonry point to see dolphins
Day 5 - trip from Inverness - Elgin cathedral, Glen Moray dist., Scottish dolphin centre, Speyside copperage, Aberlour or Glenfarclas dist. ( will do only one tour - mostr probably the Glenfarclas, the others just to see / shop )
Day 6 - drive to Isle of Skye - Urquhart castle, Loch ness, Eileen Donan castle - stay on Skye ( Portree? )
Day 7 - Isle of Skye ( northern loop - drive to see Old man of Storr, Kilt rock and Mealt falls, drive to Quiraing, Fairy Glen - back to Portree
Day 8 - Neist Point, Dunvegan castle, Tallisker dist. - leave Isle of Skye ( overnight ?? )
Day 9 - see Glenfinnan viaduct, St Finnan’s and St Mary’s church, Ft William, Glencoe, Glen Etive ( overnight ?? )
Day 10 - Doune castle, Stirling castle - then drive to Edinburgh
Day 11 - Edinburgh
Day 12 - flight home in the afternoon

Does this plan seem reasonable? We would like to see a lot, we are ok with some driving ( used to it from our roadtrips from US ).

thank you all for help!

AJPeabody

Welcome to Fodors.

You could get some more precise advice on what you have proposed if you tell us where you are flying from and your experience in driving on the left and with standard shift cars.

janisj

Welcome to Fodors.

A few questions and comments:

Are you flying in long haul i.e. overnight? If so I would not try to drive that first day. Maybe put your Edinburgh days (car-less) at the beginning. Some would think they need to be IN Edinburgh the night before flying out but staying the last night someplace like Stirling (40 minutes from EDI) . . . or even Townhill (30 mins), and you are close enough for any but the very earliest morning flights.

You may have difficulties finding accommodations on Skye at this late date. It has become insanely popular and places tend to book up far in advance. If Skye is a 'must' for you I'd jump on finding rooms there first and then build the rest of your itinerary from there.

Is there a particular reason you want to stay in Pitochry? It is a nice enough town but other places might make more senes for the itinerary as a whole

You can usually see the Dolphins from the walls of Fort George -- at least I have every time I've been there.

There is nothing to 'see' in Ft William -- it can/should just be a 'drive throug'h en route to Glencoe.

By St Finan's do you mean the small isle in Loch Shiel? That is a pretty long detour over a very narrow road through some fairly remote countryside off the Mallaig > Glenfinnan > Ft William road. AFAIK there are no roads actually to the site so you'd have to walk in and out from the teensy hamlet of Dalelia (maybe 3 houses and a farm) about 30 minutes each way to the loch shore/isle.

And, which St Mary's church are you talking about?

HanaR

We are flying from / to Vienna, so a short flight. We have no experience with driving on the left, this will be our first time. We can drive manual, that is not a problem, but most likely we will rent a car with automatic transmission ( already got a quote from Celtic legends..very expensive for 11 days, but assuming this is a consequence of the Covid times.. ).

HanaR

We are flying from Vienna, so only a short flight, should not be an issue for us to drive few kms outside Edinburgh I think. We should arrive at 2pm, so when we rent a car around 3pm, we should be able to drive f.e. to Townhill.

Reason for Pitlochry is that we would like to drive the Snow Roads the following day ( through Braemar, Balmoral, Corgarff, Tomintoule, maybe Glennlivet?, Grantown on Spay, to Inverness), and it seemed as a lovely small town based on photos.

thank you for the tip on the dolphins to see from Ft George

For Skye - I hope that we will find some accomodation, I tried to search airbnb and there were some options..Would like to book as early as possible, but try to finalize the itinerary above at first, to see if it make sense or if it needs to be changed somehow.

I mentioned Ft William only as a drive through city, f.e. for some shopping of groceries etc, I googled that there is not so much to see in the town itself.

I read a tip for the St Finnan and St Mary church in some of the roadtrip, it is a small church right on the A830, about 1km far from the Glenfinnan visitor centre, just for a quick walk / photo.

Once again thank you all for your time and advice!

Gardyloo

I have a couple of suggestions and random thoughts, all quite personal, so bear that in mind.

First, Skye. I'll echo Janis in that Skye's popularity puts the beautiful island a little at risk of being loved too much. Many of the key visitor destinations can actually feel crowded, if that's possible in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Now you're not coming during a school holiday period, which means the numbers of visitors to Skye will probably not be at the scale of what they'll be later, but it's still a very popular holiday destination in the spring.

But there's another Inner Hebrides destination that doesn't (yet) experience the same level of demand as Skye, and which is, in my opinion, not only comparable to Skye in terms of scenery and history, but in some cases may exceed it: the Isle of Mull. Plus, mainland Argyll (from which one accesses Mull) is remarkably diverse, with splendid scenery, remarkable history, lovely villages, distilleries, etc. From Mull (or Oban on the mainland) you can tour the isle of Iona, home of Christianity in Scotland, as well as visit Staffa, with its wildlife and amazing Fingal's Cave. At Kilmartin, south of the main town of Oban, the valley floor below the little church contains dozens of prehistoric sites - standing stones, stone circles, etc., and the little town of Inveraray on Loch Fyne is one of the prettiest villages in the country.


So it may be too late for you to change things, or maybe you have no intention of doing so, but do give it a little research if you're open at all to altering your plans.

I confess I had to look up Townhill (despite having gone past it umpteen times.) If you're arriving at EDI at 2 PM, I'd actually suggest you go a bit further before stopping for the night, and while Pitlochry is okay, I wonder if you might not enjoy staying in the little town of Falkland instead. It's around an hour's drive from EDI, so not that much farther than Townhill, but Falkland's advantage is that it's (a) beautiful (b) VERY historic, and (c) the Falkland Palace gardens in May ought to be spectacular. Falkland (used as a stand-in for Inverness in the Outlander TV series) is also well situated for heading north toward the Speyside, via the Spittal of Glenshee, Braemar, et al.

I am not a fan of Inverness, aside from its usefulness as a place to find a modern and reasonably comfortable hotel for a night. The Moray Firth coast - Elgin, Nairn etc has its charms, but with limited time and so many potentially (more) interesting destinations, I guess I'd question allocating too much time in the area.

So if you're open to one or more major deviations from your current plan, I'd suggest googling the places on this map - https://tinyurl.com/falklandmull - and also to consult Undiscovered Scotland - Undiscovered Scotland: Home Page - for in-depth coverage of the places you might visit. Their lodging listings are also useful.

Again, personal views. I'm sure you'll have a great time regardless of your decisions.

dfourh

Might be worth trying AutoEurope, or Priceline.

janisj

That's why I qualified my response asking if you are flying in long haul -- so great. With that info, I agree with Gardyloo that I personally would not 'waste' a night in Townhill. Driving a little farther should not be a problem. Falkland as Gardyloo suggests or any of a number of other small towns could be a better fit. An afternoon/evening and next morning in Falkland then driving to Braemar or Ballater for the next night would be much superior IMO to a night in Townhill and a night in Pitlchry.

Oh -- I get it -- I read it to mean St Finnan's (the Isle) . . . AND St Mary's (the church) but I now see there was no comma between

Do take Gardyloo's comment re Skye vs Mull into consideration. Skye is large and can absorb the visitors . . . but the roads are very narrow so there are 'Skye versions' of traffic jams, parking very scarce at the main beauty spots and finding accommodations in convenient areas - difficult. One would want to stay at Sligachan (most convenient for touring the island) or in Portree. Otherwise touring will be even more time consuming.

I don't have an issue with the Inverness area that Gardyloo mentions -- there is a lot to see in the area. Not as scenic as other areas but lots of historic sites. But if you do head that far north definitely do not stay IN Inverness but in someplace like Nairn, or the Black Isle (tons of Dolphins), or Dores, or even Grantown-on-Spey

janisj

ps: IF you can drive a stick -- you will save a ton of £££ - plus I actually prefer driving a manual on those sorts of roads. Gives me a better 'feel'.

. . . and I'd also suggest you at least check out Autoeurope, they often have the best rates.

HanaR

thank you all for these tips and advice, I really appreciate it!

Regarding Skye - I discussed this with rest of the group and they really would like to go there, so it looks we will choose Skye this time. But your suggestion for Isle of Mull looks amazing, lot of interesting things, so I will save this for our next trip, as I see already now that Scotland has so much to offer for us.

I will definitely consider the 1st night to go further than Townhill, as it seems we will have enough time, so probably go somewhere as Falkland as you mentioned.
If we depart Falkland next morning, going up via Dunkeld ( as we really would like to see the cathedral ) and drive north the Snow Roads ( via Glenshee, Cairnwell pass, Kindrochit castle, Braemar, Balmoral, Corgarff, Tomintoul, maybe Glennlivet?, Grantown on Spay, to Inverness or around ) - could you please suggest a place where we could stay for night - meaning how far we could drive in one day from Falkland? Balmoral maybe or even further? Or would it be possible to drive up to Inverness ( or around ) on this day?

For the Inverness area - we do not insist on staying directly in Inverness, could be a smaller town around, I will search the places you all suggested.

Day 4 and 5 we plan to stay in the Inverness area, per the original itinerary - but you mentioned it is too much for this region? I think it won't be possible to cover all the places in one day, that is why we split it to 2, but I will look onto this again.

And last one - thank you for the tip on autoeurope, I have booked through them once for US, so I will check their web as well.

thank you all!

janisj

"Day 4 and 5 we plan to stay in the Inverness area, per the original itinerary - but you mentioned it is too much for this region? I think it won't be possible to cover all the places in one day, that is why we split it to 2, but I will look onto this again."

I definitely disagree it is too much -- IF you are going up to Inverness you definitely will want/need two full days there (at a minimum). Ft George alone will eat up nearly half a day. Culloden at least a couple of hours. Elgin/distillery tour/Dolphin Centre a couple of hours each, plus all the driving in between.

janisj

Oh - meant to add . . . sure, you could easily drive from Falkland to the north via Dunkeld. From Dunkeld you'd zig over to Blairgowrie and up the Spittal of Glenshee and on to Deeside. That 'detour' to Dunkeld would only add 15 - 20 minutes to the day's total drive time. You could stay that night in Ballater, or Braemar or anywhere in that area