Hi all!!

My wife and I will be in Scotland from June 4 to June 15 (11 days). At this point, we have our flights booked but everything else is being planned.

We are an active couple who love to bike, hike, walk and do outdoorsy things. But we also love to relax and try different whiskies (we love smoky, peaty scotch). We also love good coffee shops, bakeries, small restaurants. . We like staying in places that are walkable so we can walk to the sights, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, museums etc. While we definitely want to spend time in Edinburgh and explore that city, we generally like small quaint towns over large cities. We also prefer slow traveling so don't want to have a hectic trip where we are staying in each place for only a couple days and then checking out and going to a different city.

We definitely want to spend some time in Edinburgh as well as Islay (Laphroaig and Ardbeg are our favorite!).

So rough plan is we start in Edinburgh without a car (maybe 4 days?), rent a car for the rest of the trip and end on Islay (maybe 3 days?). Not sure what we do in the middle.

1. One idea is to just do two bases: 5-6 days in Edinburgh, and 5-6 days on Islay (with some day trips thrown in if we feel like it).
2. The other idea is to do 3 bases: Edinburgh to start, Islay to end, and then some small quaint town in the middle.
3.  
   1. Tobermory looks great but our fear is Edinburgh --> Tobermory --> Islay --> Glasgow/Edinburgh will mean significant travel times.
   2. Oban is an idea but looks too big and crowded.
   3. Pitlochry looks pretty but looks too touristy.
   4. Inveraray might be an option especially because it is a good breaking point in our travels from Edinburgh to Islay.

Would love some suggestions!

I assume your flights are in/out of Edinburgh - right?? If so you really have about 10 usable days on the ground. Day one/June 4 may be semi-comatose, jet lagged. And June 15 is a non-day being eaten up with packing/airport/flight.

And Islay is a long drive from / to EDI. So counting getting there and back as two as 'transit days' you are down to about 8 truly usable days. (If I have your actual time on the ground wrong, please clarify - the flights being through EDI and arrival / departure days)

So really you only have time for Edinburgh, Islay and maybe a night in someplace like Inveraray, along Loch Lomond, or in the Trossachs (Aberfoyle/Callander/Doune/etc.)

IMO you do not have time for Mull/Tobermory

Thank you janisj and you are correct!!

Our flights are flexible though. We fly into London (LHR) on the morning of June 4, and fly out of LHR on the morning of June 16. We haven't booked flights from LHR into Scotland so we can fly into Glasgow or Edinburgh or any other city if there are flights. Basically we will get into one of those cities on June 4. So we have 10 full days for Scotland (June 5 to June 14). I am marking June 15 as a travel back to London day so we get into London the night before our flight back home to the US.

But I feel you are right. Now I am thinking perhaps we should skip Edinburgh?

We spent time in and around Islay last September (~ 3 weeks), my trip report might be helpful West Scotland : Islands & Highlands, September 2025

I swear I didn't see your latest post last night -- maybe it was intercepted by the spam filter because I did see ANJU's post but not yours?? weird.

Anyway - I don't think you need to drop Edinburgh unless you really want to. If it was me I'd fly into EDI and spend a few days - maybe 3 nights exploring/getting over the jetlag a bit. You could also use that time to take a day trip either by train, or with Rabbies (HIGHLY recommended - https://www.rabbies.com/en-us/tours ) to see maybe Stirling, or St Andrews or Bamburgh, or a bit of the Highlands. They are small group tours by van (16 or fewer passengers)

Then head west to Islay stopping for one night en route (Callander or Aberfoyle or Inveraray) and finally flying back down to LHR from GLA - not EDI because GLA 1) is about an hour shorter drive and 2) there are generally more flights per day to LHR

If you DO decide to drop Edinburgh / the east side of the country, I'd fly LHR > GLA and GLA > LHR and spend all your time visiting Mull/Islay/Kintyre/Oban.

This might sound odd, but what if you flew up to Islay from Heathrow to start the trip. There are connections via Glasgow (BA to GLA, Loganair to ILY) and there are rental cars available on Islay. You could overcome jetlag in a superb and restful place, then fly back to Glasgow, get a new car, and continue your trip. Certainly you'd save hours and hours of driving, and the cost differential with no ferry charges might not be that great. Just a thought, anyway.

Thanks janisj !..... The more I think about it, the more I feel we should skip EDI and just spend time west of Glasgow. I would love to sanity check this plan with you and see if we need to make changes.

1. Most of our plans are in Western Scotland. This makes me wonder if we should skip Edinburgh altogether and fly into Glasgow. So far we have booked our flights into LHR and yet to book flights into Scotland. Maybe we should fly London --> Glasgow, and then plan our 10 days West of Glasgow. We love smaller towns over bigger cities anyway so this might not be a bad idea. Any thoughts?
2. Flying into Islay is another great idea to save time. We fly into London on June 4, and can then fly into Glasgow the afternoon of June 4, spend the night near Glasgow airport and then take the first flight into Islay the morning of June 5.

Here's how that itinerary might look like:

1. June 5 (morning) - Glasgow to Islay flight, spend day on Islay.
2. June 6 - Day on Islay..
3. June 7 - Take morning flight to Glasgow, pickup rental car in Glasgow and drive to Oban and ferry to Mull. Hotel in Tobermory.
4. June 8 - Day on Mull
5. June 9 - Day on Mull.
6. June 10 - Ferry back to Oban and drive to Inveraray. Spend night in Inveraray
7. June 11 - Day in Inveraray
8. June 12 - Day in Inveraray
9. June 13 - Drive to Tarbert and spend day in Tarbert
10. June 14 - Day in Tarbert
11. June 15 - Ferry hop towards Glasgow (between Tarbert, Portavadie, Tighnabruaich, Dunoon, and Greenock)

What do you think?

Edinburgh is one of my favorite cities on the planet. I hope you give it a few days.

Gardyloo's suggestion to fly to IslaY via GLA is great -- the car you rented on-island would only be used on Islay. Then as he mentioned you'd fly back to the mainland and rent a different car. Then you could go anywhere you wanted for the 2nd half of the trip and fly to LHR from either GLA or EDI

Re your new plan -- Very nice but I'd make a couple of adjustments.

I'd want another day on Islay for sure -- especially with your interest in single malts. IMO the best part of 3 days in Inveraray is way overkill. It is a very small place (approx population 500) and not really a good base for touring other areas. One night en route somewhere else - sure.

As for Inveraray, Tarbert etc -- what I might do is drive Oban > Tarbert > Tighnabruaich > Inveraray > Loch Lomond > GLA, perhaps with an excursion down into the Kintyre Peninsula . . . breaking the drive where ever. I'd make it a three day drive all in.

Meant to add -- the site seems to be playing tricks with your posts. When I wrote "Gardyloo's suggestion to fly to Islay via GLA is great -- the car you rented on-island would only be used on Islay . . ." now post #9, your revised itinerary post #7 wasn't there 😕 I'm so confused

Thank you to all who are responding! I really appreciate all your help! I am struggling with this site because I post a reply and then it gets taken out until a moderator approves it, and sometimes this approval takes hours. I hope that stops happening so I can respond more timely

I have to disagree about Inverarary if you have a car. There is a lot to see and do in that area, walks, lochs, gardens, amazing food, I love Argyll! We spent a week in a cottage on the shores of Loch Fyne and had a great holiday, even with some truly dreich weather. It is less touristy than many areas of Scotland, which is a plus.
Spend some time in Oban too - more whisky obviously but also the Oban Chocolate company, and just a nice place to wander around for a while.

https://www.heartofargyll.com/

Totally personal opinions, but if this is your first time in Scotland, and given you're heading to Islay for a couple of days already, I might reduce my time in/on the Inner Hebrides a little. Oban is tremendous, but ferry-hopping in that part of the country is time consuming, and - not trying to be alarmist - there have been enough recent disruptions on Calmac ferry services (vessels out of action, labo(u)r issues etc.) that reliance on them might be problematic.

There are, of course, endless alternatives you could pursue that would (in my view) more than compensate for fewer ferry trips. For example, look at this loop drive from Inveraray: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ACiKJwgKjckrGXnb9

This would include the impressive ruins of Kilchurn Castle, then a drive down Glen Etive, which in June is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful, if not THE most beautiful drives in Scotland. It would be followed by awesome Glen Coe, then down the coast through Oban, with a stop at Kilmartin and its huge collection of prehistoric monuments, before returning to Inveraray. This would be a long day, but don't forget you'll have VERY long hours of daylight in June.

That's just one example of options that would broaden the variety of landscapes and activities in this remarkable part of Scotland.

Grr.. editing troubles..

MULL is tremendous, not Oban (which is very pleasant too.)

Hi all,

So my wife and I went over the plan several times and here is where we are landing. This is our first time in Scotland, and we feel we don't want to deal with the uncertainties/time delays of ferry crossings, so we have decided to skip both Islay and Mull from this trip.

So here's a simple version of the itinerary and we would welcome any tweaks:

1. June 4: Edinburgh (4 nights) - Fly into Edinburgh on June 4 and spend 4 nights there (3 full days, with one of those days potentially used for a Rabbie's day trip)
2. June 8: Aberfeldy (3 nights) - We rent a car in Edinburgh and drive to Aberfeldy (longer route with stops in Stirling and Killin), and spend 3 days exploring the area.
3. June 11: Argyll (4 nights) (Inveraray or some other town as our base) - We drive to our final base somewhere in Argyll. Still not sure what will be a good base but leaning towards Inveraray, and spend the time exploring Argyll.
4. June 15 - Drive to Glasgow, return car, and fly out from Glasgow airport.

Question 1 - Does this make sense? We wan to keep it simple and just relax without too much logistics?
Question 2 - What town would you recommend as our base in Argyll? Note we love cute small towns that aren't too touristy.

Seems fine -- however just to confuse things even more . . . . . . Now that you've given up on Islay (which is single malt heaven - though too smokey/peaty for me) is there still a reason for going to Argyll/Inveraray?? Nothing wrong with that for sure - however originally your main reason for going west was for Islay.

Maybe consider a Highlands/Speyside (much more to my liking -- Macallan, Balvenie, etc) trip. Edinburgh, Aberfeldy with excursions to Fortingall, Killin, Glencoe and Glen Ettive, then maybe a stop on Deeside (castles galore), Speyside/Invernesshire for scads of distilleriies, Culloden, Cawdor, Ft Georgs etc etc. then flying down to LHR from INV.

lol janisj there’s so much to see and so little time!

Islay was one reason but the other reason we are leaning towards Argyll is it seems less touristy. I feel with Edinburgh-Aberfeldy-Argyll we are getting

• a great historic city
• a Highland small town
• a west-coast lochside region

It reads like:

City → Highlands → West Coast → Home

If we were to consider your Highlands suggestions, what would you pick as our third base?

Since you're making stops at Stirling and Killin, take a slight detour (looks like just an extra 15 minutes of driving) and visit The Kelpies (in link below). It's a short stop, but well worth it. Sounds like a great trip. If you want a mini break from Scottish food, L'Escargot Bleu in Edinburgh is a terrific French restaurant with my favorite steak tartare ever. There's also pictures of Killin in the link, because we stayed there on this particular night. Beautiful spot.

https://travelswithmaitaitom.com/cha...rgh-to-killin/

I am happy to see that you have kept Edinburgh in your itinerary. It's an amazing city, and I would love to return, even though we don't generally re-visit places. But if we did, Edinburgh would be at the top of my list to re-visit

I like janisj's suggestion to see Glencoe and Glen Etive. This area, along with the Isle of Skye, were our 2 favorite places on our trip for sheer natural beauty. Take a drive down the Loch Etive Road all the way to the loch. Spectacular scenery, and in June the hillsides were blooming with hundreds, if not thousands, of rhododendrons.

Instead of staying in Inverness, we stayed in Nairn, a small seaside village, which is lovely. From here we visited Cawdor Castle, Culloden, Elgin Cathedral, and a distillery.