Hello,
My family (husband, two year old daughter, and myself) are planning to be in Scotland for about a month this May. We are traveling throughout Europe this year and are hoping for recommendations of locations in Scotland to look at. We are dreaming of somewhere in the beautiful countryside where we can take long walks and enjoy slowing down our pace a bit.
Thank you in advance!
Julie
There are others here who know Scotland well (I am not one of them) and I'm sure they will chime in, but I do know that this is a very late date to be looking for accommodations in Scotland; especially in the Highlands. I'm heading there for 3 weeks in May and I started booking back in August of 2022. So I would start looking as soon as possible. And if you were hoping for Skye; at this late date it will probably not be possible to find lodging there.
In the meantime, there are a number of sites that you can visit to get more information. The Walk Highlands website has many hiking opportunities, complete with maps and photos, and is a wonderful resource. Visit Scotland is the main tourist site and has good information on places to visit and accommodations. Another good site is Undiscovered Scotland, which has a ton of information on places to see, drive, stay and so on. You should be able to get a lot of good information here.
Hi, we’ll be in Edinburgh in May and I think it would also be a good idea to figure out what you would want to see and make a plan and get your reservations made asap. Hotels in Edinburgh still have rooms in May depending on where you want to stay and how much you are willing to pay. Our hotel is one the Royal Mile about a 5 minute walk from Waverley train station.
If the Highlands are of interest you might look at Rabbies Tours to see if they have room. Also, the train to Saint Andrews and or Glasgow is a good way to see those cities.
I agree about the hotel issue. We are leaving on May 29 for Scotland. I started making our hotel reservations last November, and many hotels were already booked up.
Thank you all for your replies so far! I should have mentioned in my original post that we're not looking to stay in hotels but are looking for more holiday lets with a full kitchen, etc. We're just looking for location recommendations!
It seems a lot of us are going to be in Scotland in May. Where I live in Mexico, May is the hottest month of the year (rainy season starts in June), so I was eager to get away to someplace cooler. I'm doing a five-week trip clockwise loop by train and bus, starting in Glasgow and ending in Edinburgh.
This will be my first time in Scotland, so I can't offer any recommendations based on personal experience just yet, but based on my research for my trip, you might consider staying in Fort William or Glencoe and using that as a base to explore and hike in the Highlands. Also, Cairngorms National Park is one of the places I'm looking forward to doing some hiking; I'm staying in Aviemore, but there are other towns you might use as a base there.
Have a great time!
If you are looking for May, then location may well be determined by where you can find accommodation. As well as the Coronation, there are two bank holidays at the beginning and end of the month. The last week is also half term when schools are on holiday and accommodation is in short supply.
Many places will have been booked up for months. Avoid the tourist honeypots like Isle of Skye where the chances of finding anything are not good. Many places also have limited accommnodation as well, which adds to the problems.
Look at some of the areas that don't feature on the tourist itinerary - say Dumfries and Galloway, Borders or Angus Glens. All are very attractive areas with some lovely scenery and attractive small towns.
A month is a long time.
Will you be driving, or using transit?
What is your budget per night, on average?
Get a good map of Scotland out and sketch out an itinerary avoiding the usual honeyspots.
I've just been playing around with booking.com, and have no difficulty in finding you a week in Dumfries or Stranraer for Dumfries and Galloway, a week in Melrose for the Borders, a week in Stonehaven for NE Scotland and a week in Ayrshire. Or a week at Ardrishaig for Kintyre.
These are all beautiful areas in their own right, all with lots of walking and other sights, but all fairly neglected areas by tourists, quite unjustly.
This was just looking at random, pins in the map, not at all a proposed itinerary.
I didn't even look for say Orkney or Shetland
...we're not looking to stay in hotels but are looking for more holiday lets with a full kitchen.
It doesn't matter - everything will be booked in the more popular places, like the Isle of Skye. I would pay attention to wasleys' and isn31c's comments and follow their advice with regards to destinations and so on. They are both very familiar with Scotland and know it quite well.
Since this is your first post on the forum and you plan to travel around Europe for a year, I want to be sure you are aware of the Schengen rule that limits US/Canadian/etc. passport-holders to stays of no more than 90 days within any 180-day period within the countries constituting the Schengen area. That area does not include the United Kingdom or Ireland, but it does include most countries west of the Balkans and some in the Balkans. It's easy to do a lot of travel research without coming upon information about the 90-day limit, so one can get blind-sided. It is a very bad thing to overstay that limit. It is likely to lead to a fine (possibly substantial) and can also mean being banned by all the Schengen countries for years. Leaving the Schengen area and re-entering it doesn't re-set the counter, it just pauses it on the full days when you're outside the area. Both arrival days and departure days count.
Wow, someone who has been to Raasay and for more than a day, that's great to hear.
But Ongonos is giving the germ of an idea there, which I would not have thought of. Given that you are struggling this late for places to stay on the well worn trail, for part of your time you could think about hiring a camper van (an RV in US parlance, I believe).
Being a single bloke I can't advise on how well that would work with a two year old, but I am sure others are far better qualified to advise on that.
My daughter and son-in-law have taken their 4 kids camping all over the US, starting when they were toddlers (and one of the kids has severe special needs) . Kids love that stuff and are always excited to be outside. I'll bet the 2 year old would have a blast in a camper van.
Given that you are looking for 'self catering' properties, you are likely to find that in summer rentals are done in blocks of one week stays with the most usual changeover day being Saturday. You are very unlikely to find anyone who will give you much of a discount for stays of multiple weeks as the short term rental business is more lucrative, the season is relatively short and the owners will want to max out their revenue. If I had a month to spend anyone in Scotland I might look to do....
one week in the south east e.g. somewhere near Wigtown or one week in the western borders e.g. around Kelso
one week just north of Edinburgh e.g. near Stirling, Dunfermline, Dunblane
one week on an island e.g. any of the Outer Hebrides, or Orkney, or Shetland
one week in the highlands e.g. Pitlochry/Inverness/Ullapool
A good road trip for a week to the Outer Hebrides would be the ferry from Oban to Castlebay, Barra then wend your way up through the causeways and ferries through Eriskay and the Uists, on to Harris and Lewis to Stornoway, and ferry back to the mainland at Ullapool, or ferry from Lochmaddy on North Uist to Uig, on Skye.
There are local car hire companies in the Outer Hebs.
Hi, Julie,
If you're looking for a real adventure, and you end up on Harris, you may want to consider a boat trip out to St. Kilda. It's one of the most fascinating places in Scotland, even though it's considerably offshore. Your daughter would enjoy the puffins, and you and your husband would enjoy the historical aspect of the islands, as well as the isolation.
Worth thinking about. It's a full day's outing. Three hours out, five hours on Hirta, and four hours back.
Mike (Auchterless)
I saw a suggestion to have a good map above. We drove through Scotland the last halk of last July and the first half of August. I used Google maps to plan our trip. And then we used Waze and Google Nav on our phones, as well as the car's nav system. The roads are well marked. No maps were needed, IMHO.
Hi, gbrennan,
I have to admit that I'm a map enthusiast. I have many of the OS maps for Scotland, including for several places I've never been to, and may never. Every time we've been in Scotland over the last 50 years (!), we've always used maps. Never had a satnav, and my little flip 'phone would definitely not have GPS capability!
It's a case of each to his/her own taste.
Mike (Auchterless)
