Hi we are traveling,4 of us, in mid September. We will spend two nights, three days in Edinburgh. From there we want to go to the Highlands, we will be renting a car. Is there a town we can base ourselves for 3-4 nights and travel to Isle of Sky, Ullapool, Inverness, see St.Andrews. Maybe not visit all the sites but some location with pubs, hiking, water..shopping..
I am overwhelmed now planning this trip and some of my best trips were staying local and doing day trips...... I'm afraid of spending all the time driving!
Thank you
Posted by
Lincolnshire, UK
1833 posts
The simple answer is no, you can't do all these from a single location - you would be spending all your time driving! You will also be struggling to fit this all into the time you have available. Don't under estimate driving distances - they may not look far on a map but will take a lot longer to cover than you might expect. Driving in Scotland is slow.
Some thoughts - Oban (doing Loch Lomond on the way and the Trossachs - some good walking- on the way back to Edinburgh). Spend a day visiting Mull as you can visit Mull from there. Do Glencoe another day along with Fort William area - lots of good walking.
Alternatively you may decided on Fort William area as a base - lots of accommodation and this would get you onto Skye and also into the Ardnamurchan peninsula.
Another suggestion is somewhere like Aviemore/Grantown on Spey - Again lots of good walking and scenery with the Cairngorms. (Yoou can even do Inverness and Locjh Ness from here too) Stop at places like Pitlochry and Blair Athol on the way up and come back via Braemar and Spittal of Glen Shee.
Or you could spend the time on Isle of Arran - regular ferry crossings from Adrossan - which markets itself as Scotland in miniatur.
The Walk Highland website has lots of ideas for walks of all lengths and degrees of difficulty.
The maps on the Undiscovered Scotland website arre a good place to get ideas once you have decided what area you want to visit. They even have suggestions for driving tours...
If you are thinking of this September, you may be limited by where you can find accommodation.
Posted by
Tunbridge Wells
6113 posts
Skye has enough to occupy you for 3 full days (4 nights) but you are likely to struggle to find accommodation for September.
St Andrews is in the opposite direction to Skye and the Highlands - it’s a 6 hour drive between these places, so one base isn’t going to work.
Given your timeframe, I would suggest that you either focus on the west or head east. East - visit St Andrews and enjoy the gorgeous East Neuk seeing places such as Pittenweem, Elie and St Monans. Visit Falkland Palace and have a day in Perth or Dundee. I spent a couple of weeks in this area last year and loved it. There’s likely to be less rain than the west.
West - I would stay around North Ballachulish / Glencoe for the Highlands. Skye is too far from here or Fort William (FW) to be a comfortable day trip, as it’s 6 hours of driving round trip from FW. Oban is about an hour away. My favourite drive is to take the Corran ferry 5 minutes over to the Ardnamurchan and drive the loop to the lighthouse and round to FW.