14 Night Ireland & Scotland Itinerary - One travel partner with mobility restrictions

How wonderful your grandmother is able and interested to travel for her 80th birthday!

Below are a couple links with interactive maps. Undiscovered Scotland is an excellent resource.
https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/
https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/ustours/index.html

I'm certain that the generous people on this forum will have some terrific ideas for your special visit.

You may find this website useful for castles in the UK- it does not include the Republic of Ireland- https://uk-castles.co.uk/map.html

Are you flying back to Dublin to change planes or for a couple of days? This has me confused. Have you looked into flying open jaw into Dublin and home from Edinburgh. Be sure to let the airline know you need assistance for getting her a wheelchair. That makes the airport so easy on her with back issues.

Welcome to the travel Forums, damarys.talavera.

You'd benefit from reading up on the British and Irish traffic rules of the road, especially since a lot of what you need to know is in graphic signs, not words, including the speed limits, and a lot is written on the road surface.

Hi there. Thank you so far for all fo your replies.

To answer one of the questions so far about our flight plan. We fly in to Dublin straight from Seattle for the first leg of the trip. We did not book a specific date to fly out of Dublin into Edinburgh just yet, we plan to wing it a bit since there are ferries as well that will take us over. What we do know is that by the 8th of October we will have to be in Edinburgh to begin our trip back home which has a layover in Dublin.

I understand that most of the Outlander filming sites are spread out throughout the country. I am just concentrating on some key places not all of them. I will be happy with just the stone circle if I can't get to all of them.

Thanks again I am eager to hear more.

We took an Outlander tour in '17 with Inverness Tours that covered the area around Culloden(Clava Cairns was the "stones" for that one. There is also Midhope Castle(aka Lallybroch) near Edinburgh, which is an empty shell that was 'dressed up' for the series. You need to access permission to visit that one if I recall. Edinburgh is wonderful, but a VERY up and down town walking wise. National Museum in Edinburgh is free admission. The Archaelogical Museum in Dublin is cool too. On top of Edinburgh castle, there is Craigmillar(an undervisited gem) and Stirling Castle nearby.

If you're going to distilleries, you might want to take a tour too, so the driver can enjoy the event! Check Jameson in Dublin and Rabbies does 1 day Whiskey tours too in Scotland.

Look at small group tours out of Dublin(ie. Wicklow area) or Edinburgh(Rabbies)if your time is limited, or pick one other area in Scotland & Ireland and do some daytrips. Something like the Cliffs of Moher can be done as a daytrip but it's a LOOONG day.

Please don't underestimate the amount of adapting a North American will need to do for the narrow roads, round-abouts & off side driving! It can be done but you need to really look at it and have whoever's driving research & focus! Taking a car into either Edinburgh or Dublin is definitely not a plan. I would take a cab into & pick up a car when leaving the cities if you're going on to other stops. We used Celtic Legends in Scotland for our rental & Conn's Ireland(USA) for Ireland.

As always, don't leave your accommodation bookings too long as it seems a lot of B&B owners are retiring and your choices might be limited. And you might want to pick just a few areas and explore them rather than galloping all over trying to see everything. Travel can be a lot slower than in N.A.

Following up on the post by Douglas44 below is the link to Inverness Day Tours Outlander tours page.
https://invernesstours.com/outlander-tours-from-inverness-edinburgh-glasgow/

We have toured with them and can't recommend them highly enough, lovely people to work with.

Clava Cairns, stone circle, outside of Inverness is such an interesting place. We visited toward the end of the day and had the place nearly to ourselves. It's the sort of place that can feel different each time it's visited.

Happy planning!

A car is great for exploring the countryside, but not as useful for cities. You may find that you want to use a combination of car and no car times. Uses taxis instead to help Grandma get around in Cities.

I strongly suggest not “winging it” and coming up with a definite plan on how you are transitioning to Scotland.

The days that you want to be off, how about signing Grandma up for a half day tour?

With 14 days, that only effectively gives just over 6 days for each country - you need to allow half to a full day to get between ireland and Scotland.

Don't be too ambitious and take time to relax and slow down. Driving in boith Ireland and Scotland is slow and will take a lot lomnger to cover the miles than you might expect.

When you say Castles - do you mean stately homes (lived in Castles) or ruined castles?

Why two distilleries in each country? The process of distilling whisky is very similar as will be the tours. In the time you have available, this does seem a bit like overkill. Also remember with strict drink driving rules, the driver won't be able to sample the whisky during a tour.

Two thoughts about Ireland - There is the Ulster American Folk Museum in Northern Ireland that tells the story of Ulster emigrants to America and the hardships they experienced. Buildings from Northern Ireland have been moved and rebuilt here and the stories of the families researched. There is a reconstruction of a ship used to transport families to America - each was allowed a 6' by 6' space and they didn't know how long the journey woiuld take or where they wouild land - it all depended on the winds and currents... There are reconstructed buildings from America.

On the edge of Belfast is the Ulster Folk Museum with reconstrcted farms and agricultural buioldings as well as a reconstrucrted town scene.

Grandma might enjoy both of these.

If you are in the Republic of ireland, There is the Country Life Museum at Castlebar. This has lots of artefacts about rural life in Ireland as well as lots of videos of people talkin g about life and customs in 1950 and 60s Ireland. Life was very primitive at the time and some of the customs were decidedly pagan...

Also from Dublin. there is the early Christian site of Glendalough with its ruined chapels and round towers.

In Scotland, Falkland was used as Inverness in Outlander. It is an attractive town to walk around along with Falkland Palace. There are the Fife fishing Villages as well as St Andrews (where William met Catherine when they were at univeristy there) ith its ruined castle and Abbey too.

Not far away is Culross, a small Royal Burgh that has hardly changed over the last 200 years, with cobbled streets and painted houses. .

You should ask your grandmom.what she needs to be comfortable such as a first floor room, handicap accessible?, does she need a walker or would one help with back issues? I fought off taking a walker with a seat attached until my husband threatened not to go. I had fractured my back and although it had healed I was still not up.to.full.mobility. anyway we took.advantage of handicap facilities when available took.the walker and a.collapsible cane and it saved the trip. Just some suggestions. Best wishes and fantastic You are taking her along!!! Enjoy!

To answer so far what I have read:

1. Grandma and the travel partner are both Scotch and Whiskey lovers so they want to do as many tastings as possible even though I told them that they can do that at the bars/pubs.
2. Grandma does not need a wheel chair or walker. She just gets exhausted faster and her back will hurt when walking too much. She has a great pace though once she gets going.
3. We are aiming for Ruins mainly, not occupied castles.
4. We have already decided that we will fly from Dublin into Edinburgh on the second leg of the trip. That flight is not booked yet so that we do not have to be tied down to a date.

Thank you again

As regards Scotch Whisky do they like it peaty or not, or do they have an eclectic palate?

The reason I ask is that, for peaty whisky then Islay would be your best bet. There are flights there from Glasgow, and there are 9 or 10 distilleries on the island- all do tours and all provide a "driver's dram"- a take away miniature bottle.
If you went to Speyside (one of the other big concentrations of distilleries) far fewer of them offer "driver's drams"