Hi! I'll be spending a week in Edinburgh in July and am interested in doing a day hike near Loch Lomond or somewhere between there and Edinburgh. I'd be relying on public transportation to get there. Are there any reasonable hikes and transportation in that area? I'm also okay with going with a tour company (leaving from Edinburgh or Stirling) but I can't seem to find any that do only day trips.
Thanks!
Katie
There is a day trip out of Glasgow that does Loch Lomond and Stirling but these tours don't usually do hikes. The one that I took did a one hour lake cruise, though. Have you looked at the Secret Scotland website? They might have some useful information on smaller tour operators that cater to people who want to hike instead of see all the castles. You might have to spurge and do a private tour. Otherwise, you are just going to have to look at bus and train schedule to see if it can be done. I think Arthur's seat would be the closest hike to Edinburgh. Also, check out these sites. Some of these tours include a 'walk', but if you can't find a company that does a hiking day trip these may be the next best thing?
http://www.walkwild.org/Scotland-Day-Tours.html
http://www.viator.com/tours/Edinburgh/Stirling-Castle-and-Loch-Lomond-Small-Group-Day-Trip-from-Edinburgh/d739-225006
https://www.rabbies.com/tours_scotland_edinburgh/stirling_castle_loch_lomond_1_day_tour.asp
http://www.getyourguide.com/edinburgh-l44/ben-lomond-saturday-day-tour-hike-t23294/
Hopefully , Pam will check in on this ( or , you could PM her ) Pam's knowledge of Scotland is incomparable - just reading her posts will make you dream about the highlands .
As Anita notes, Edinburgh is on the opposite side of Scotland for Loch Lomond day hikes.
The Carlton Hill and Authur's Seat/Holyrood Park as good Edinburgh walks accessible using transit.
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/lothian/calton-hill.shtml
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/lothian/arthurs-seat.shtml
Have a look at Meet Up for the central Scotland area, there are lots of walking groups that do various walks and most will allow visitors to join them for a walk I am a member of this group and there may be some walks that might be suitable for you.
http://www.meetup.com/Edinburgh-Walking-and-Travel-Group/
Just let the organisers know you are a visitor and you will be made welcome.
katie,
give this website a look! you can enter edinburgh and then go to the map view and see hikes of varied length and difficulty in any area around the highlands. if you get familiar with the site it is a great tool. i used it big time back in october
www.walkhighlands.co.uk and i agree try to activate Pam for additional!
One of my favorite places to hike is out of Dunkeld. You can easily take the train there and spend the day hiking in the hills. Here's the list from WalkHighlands. And here are a couple more websites here and here.
Walk Highlands shows the range of walks. I've walked along the Tay, and done the Hermitage Walk. I've also just hiked up into the hills a bit. You can pick up some trail maps at the TI in Dunkeld. It is close to two hours to Dunkeld, but in my mind it is so worth it. Oddly, I'm only seeing a 6:30 AM train, which just seems wrong as it's the main route north to Inverness and so there should be a train that leaves at the sane hour between 7 and 9. I must be entering something funky in my search. And BTW you need to check carefully on any trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow as they are working on a tunnel which means you get put on busses and it's not as fast.
Also, while I've not done any walks in this area, I know it's popular with locals and that area is the Pentland Hills. I am pretty sure that they have featured in an Ian Rankin book. :) You might want to just explore Walk Highlands a bit. I've also found, as you can see from the Perthshire links, that going to town websites and searching on outdoor activities will bring up suggestions. I searched on Stirling and walks, and avoiding the links to Walk Highlands I found this page. You can see that it has some references to public transit, which can really help. If you find one that looks interesting, you should think about posting on the TA forum for town. That will get you some local feedback pretty quickly about the reality of doing it via public transportation.
Pam
