If you have the funds, I'd recommend checking into a private tour. We did not want to go around Scotland in a big bus with someone else's itinerary and on someone else's schedule, nor did we feel comfortable driving ourselves. We wanted to spend time, mostly outdoors, in a relaxed fashion. I developed the itinerary with Lea, a consultant at Rabies and Rabies subcontracted the trip to a driver-guide with Hopscotch Travel. https://hopscotchtravel.co.uk/ Our guide was Stewart and he was fantastic. My husband and I spent 8 days with him driving in a comfortable Mercedes SUV. Among the places we went were Oban, three islands (Mull, Iona and Staffa in one long day), the Isle of Skye for three days, the Applecross mountain road, Inverness, Culloden, the Hermitage Woods walk, and Birnam. We did Edinburgh and Stirling on our own. It was a very collaborative and fun experience. Free of many of the stresses of travel.
Posted by
Royaume-Uni nul points, pas plus
2615 posts
How much for the 8 day tour?
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23671 posts
The response may be -- if you have to ask, you cannot afford it.
Posted by
OP
Seattle, WA, USA
5 posts
Price for the eight days was about $9,000, including some entry tickets and the guide's lodging. Did not include our meals or accommodations (which we chose and booked ourselves). Not cheap but not crazy expensive given what we got.
Posted by
OP
Seattle, WA, USA
5 posts
We could have booked directly with Hopscotch but I did not know of its existence at the time. I suspect it would have been somewhat cheaper but I don't know.
Posted by
Royaume-Uni nul points, pas plus
2615 posts
Thanks for confirming the price - always interesting to know what sort of figure it would be.
Posted by
1 posts
I just came across this post. I wanted to highlight that I visit Scotland every couple of years and had exactly the same feedback. We booked a public tour with Rabbies back in 2022, it was good but it felt a bit rushed and we didn't like some of the other people on the tour (really noisy and inconsiderate). So this year we booked a private tour with Rabbies for my wife and me (along with a couple of friends). We contacted Rabbies once again and ended up on a Hopscotch Tour. We got home and took a look at the Hopscotch Travel website and quickly realised they could have arranged everything for us and we could have saved around 30% over our tour - approx. $3,500 USD if we'd booked direct with them! Our guide, Fraser, was brilliant - really took the time to get to know us individually on the first day and took his time to point out things he felt would be of interest to us throughout the tour!