Tips for transportation in Scotland (no driving)
 

Hi all,

Wondering what your best tips and ideas are for how to get around Scotland without renting a car.
Specifically:

1. How do we get from the airport to Edinburgh center?
2. Any ideas on how best to travel (comfort-wise) from Edinburgh to Inverness and/or Glasgow?

Thank you!

There's a tram/light rail from the airport to the city center.

Train is definitely your best bet for Inverness/Glasgow.

I have not taken a train from Edinburgh to either of these places, but have taken a train from London to Edinburgh (LNER in 1st class) and one from Edinburgh to Chester (Avanti West Coast). We also bopped around a little on ScotRail.

They're all nice trains

We had BritRail passes, and thought them worth it, but we took a LOT of trains. It's probably not worth it for just for one or two segments.

Whether first class is worth it or not seems to depend a lot on the train. We were never on a ScotRail that had it, so I'm not sure how that is. LNER was nice, first on Avanti West Coast was even better (and I don't think that's how they usually rank, so obviously it depends).

I won't say there are no peculiarities with the trains, but they compare very favorably to US ones.

Depending on where you are headed in central Edinburgh -- the tram goes through the west end, right up Princes Street and to St Andrew Square. For some destinations the AirLink or SkyLink bises might be better, and for some a taxo is best -- all depends on you ultimate destination. Or something like the tram into the city centre and then a taxi to your accommodations. Amount of luggage will also have a bearing.

As above post -- definitely trains between the cities. Also to places like Stirling, etc. Highly unlikely a BritRail Pass would be of any use to you.

This is great, thanks very much. I will look for hotels near the train station in Edinburgh then and good to know that traveling by rail around the country is a good way to go. I appreciate your help!

seat61.com may help
rome2rio might help

There's a YouTuber who travels around Scotland primarily by train... Steve Marsh. He lives in Montrose, north of Dundee. You might want to watch a few of his videos to get ideas of what you could do by train. He's very budget-minded which occasionally feels like it overrides the point of the journey, but he's excellent at covering the logistics and little details.

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...marsh+scotland

Jeeze -- just saw all the typos in my post -- and I can't even blame it on being up late or ??

Cool, thanks for these recommendations!

Hahahaa, no problem. I knew what you meant.

Thanks, Jean! I just checked out the link and bookmarked a couple of videos to watch later. I appreciate your suggestion.

The train between Glasgow and Edinburgh is a commuter train, as they are close, less than an hour's ride. Very easy to go back and forth between the two cities. Waverly Station in Edinburgh and Queen Street Station in Glasgow.

That's great news, thanks!