hiking day trip from edinburgh?

First of all there is a great resource for you to explore: Walk Highlands.

So, that is your starting point. One area to look into is Perthshire. There are lots of walks near Dunked. Or you could go to Aberfeldy walk the Birks of Aberfeldy.

You could go west to the Trossachs. I haven't personally done these walks, but I know others who have. Also, you could look into the Balquhidder area. I drove out to the end of the Glen and ran into some folks who were headed out on a walk. It looked great.

There are others in the Borders. And there are some distance walks. The John Muir Way is a new walk that takes you coast to coast, and there may be sections that would be a good day walk. And I've not done them, but there are walks in Fife across the Firth of Forth. Then there is the the Fife Coastal trail.

There are more that I've not looked into. The Pentland Hills come to mind.

Pam

I was just looking into hiking options from Edinburgh for my family. We will be in Edinburgh for 4 nights at the start of our Scotland/Ireland trip and will not have a car. We plan to explore the city for a day, take a Rabbies tour another day to get a taste of the West Highlands and castles, but want to hike or mountain bike somewhere on our last day. I was looking at Pebbles which is about a one hour bus ride from the city centre I believe. I haven't worked out any details yet, but here's the link to a site I was using to research options. There appears to be a Borders Railway too. Looks like it may be fairly new?

https://www.visitscotland.com/destinations-maps/peebles/

Yes, the Borders Railway just started and it is a great idea to reach the Borders. Here's a link. The first stops seem to be all commuter stops for Edinburgh. Eskbank has some possibilities. Gorebridge looks worth checking out as well. And here's a link to the Peatland Hills that I mentioned earlier. All of these places are closer then the Dunked area, but Dunked I think still would be my favorite.

Pam

If you want to use the Borders railway for a little hiKing trip it is quite easy and very pleasant. You could take the trin all the way to tweedbank the last stop and walk from there to Abbotsford House( about 30m minutes or so) and then walk from there to Galsaheilds another hours walk but very pleasant.Stop for lunch and rfreshmemts in Gala and then the train back to Edinburgh.
You can also walk to Melrose from Tweedbank along the Tweed and to the Abbey in Melrose and walk back , maybe a couple of hours walking and all pretty flat.

I was hoping you would reply on this Unclegus. I just didn't see what would be best with the Railway.

Thank you, everyone for your details responses. This gives me a great starting point to figure out our hiking adventures!

Laura