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Posted by
1840 posts

I would like the latter tour. Inverness is a neat town. Loch Ness, is just another pretty lake just like Loch Lomand. Glen Coe is great and we got the feeling like something dreadful happened there, in which it had. Great Glen is interesting too. You will get to see the Highlands which is worth the money.

We have never taken a tour but we have taken buses around parts of Scotland. It is a good way to travel if you aren't driving. Take some food and drink. The buses we have been on have a rest room.

Posted by
4637 posts

I think any tour is good in Scotland. When I was in Edinburgh I took three day tour also by Highland Experience. Two overnights in Inverness. In addition what you will see we saw Skye Island and visited whiskey distillery. I would recommend 3 day tour through Scottish Highland. So much to see.

Posted by
5678 posts

Peter, If you don't have specific events tying to Edinburgh, you might think about splitting your time between the city and another location. A good alternate location is Inverness as there are so many day tours from that city that you can take. Here's one site. The advantage is that you have much less bus time.

Pam

Posted by
44 posts

Thank you for your comments. Pamela, good point I could stay two nights in Inverness.

Posted by
100 posts

Peter Paul & others:

I have been trying to learn about day trip companies....I'm in Edinburgh for five nights in July, and would like to take two day trips into the countryside. Only know of Viator (but that's a middleman company, right?...they are not the actual tour company, right?). So I'm glad to learn here of Highland Experience. Are there others?

My thinking is to do one day going west (Stirling, Loch Lomand), and on another day do the St. Andrews trip (but The Open will be taking place, so not sure if it'll be offered, or if the town will be too crowded...?).

Any help is appreciated.

Posted by
5678 posts

Have you gone to the www.visitscotland.com site? I searched first for Edinburgh and the Lothian. The under Things to Do and See I found tours. See what you find there. Also, you can contact the local Tourist Information Centre via phone or email to ask about specific companies or availability of tours. Here's the Edinburgh link with the contact information. (I find it very hard to browse to this information on their site. So, what I do is search within the site for contact information cityinscotland tourist information and it brings the link right up!)

And yes, I'd do two day, three nights in Inverness. :)

Pam

Posted by
484 posts

You an check out Rabbie's Trailburners for day trips and multiday tours. We took a couple of these and liked them.

Posted by
3 posts

I'd like to second the suggestion for Rabbie's. I recently did two 1-day tours with Rabbie's and one 1-day tour with Highland Experience (the Loch Ness monsters and mayhem one you listed).

In terms of the scenery and tour route, I suggest cutting Loch Ness options in favor of the Western Highlands options. I did a West Highlands, the Loch Ness and St. Andrews. By far the West Highlands was my favorite for the sights.

With the Loch Ness tour, we spent the entire day in a caravan with about a dozen tour busses. That meant huge crowds at each stop. And the lochs on the West Highlands tour were far more breathtaking to me than Loch Ness. With the West Highlands you get a great mix of lochs, glens, castles, villages and a fishing port.

As for companies, I prefer Rabbie's because of the size. No more than 16 people on a tour. The Highland Experience one was at least double, if not triple, that size.

Between the companies I prefer Rabbie's and between tour options I think West Highlands is a better choice. With all that said, no matter what you do it's not a bad decision because it's all wonderful :)