Where are Reservations needed for sights, museums, castles, etc

My guess is that in August you’ll want reservations for all the main and popular attractions like Edinburgh and Stirling castles, Holyrood, etc. When we were there in September 2022 even restaurant reservations would have made life easier. It wasn’t too bad in the smaller towns.

Edinburgh, Doune and Stirling Castles definitely need reservations, especially in August, one of the busiest months. Look at the website and figure out the earliest time you can make them. Ferries (Mallaig?) need reservations, but they do have a line for those that don't mind waiting (indefinitely). I'd recommend visiting the website or FB page for every place you're interested in (including restaurants) to see what they suggest. Portree will be hard to find dinner without reservations or a long wait in line (we ended up at an Indian restaurant all three nights we were there - food was great, but every night!).

Music in Edinburgh will be easy to find (Sandy Bells, Royal Oak among others). We were there in June, so music is less available, but Oban and Portree were disappointing. There was one duo playing different nights in Portree in different bars and if you like two guitars playing sing-a-long stuff, it was okay. In Inverness we had a great early session at MacGregor's and there are several others. Use Facebook to search.

Edinburgh will be especially busy because of the Fringe Festival.

August in Edinburgh, as you might already know, is the Fringe Festival- for the entire month! The city’s population triples in size, so you definitely want to look into pre-booking sites, events and restaurants to avoid disappointment. Even though Fringe is only in Edinburgh, the rest of the central belt (Stirling, Falkirk and Glasgow) also swell with people, since Edinburgh is easily commuted to from those cities. Therefore, if you are planning on going these places as well, it’s worth booking in advance.

One helpful thing to know about, which will undoubtedly save you money, is the Historic Scotland Explorer Pass. Historic Scotland owns and runs most of the historic sites in all of Scotland (castles, abbeys, battle sites, etc.), and the Explorer Pass includes entrance to them all! This includes the big ones of Edinburgh and Stirling castles as well. The pass is good for 7 days once you activate it, and comes with other perks too! Depending on your demographic, if you qualify for concession (senior) rates or adult, the pass can be as cheap as £28 per person. It’s worth noting that even with the pass, you should book your time slot online before arriving, as sometimes certain times sell out at the larger attractions.

The link is here for the pass, or google “Historic Scotland Explorer Pass” for more info. I hope that helps!

• https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/explorer-passes/

Definitely pre-book Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle. We were there the first week of September last year and people were being turned away at Edinburgh Castle if they didn't have a ticket.

What Mary said. And I agree about booking dinner (and even lunch) reservations on Skye. I booked at least 2 weeks ahead and some require even more time (I was there in May and it will be more crowded when you are there).

I would book any ferries you can ahead of time. Some will not need booking (the Turn-up-and-Go ferries), but definitely the Skye ferries will. It was recommended to me to book them at least one month ahead, but given that it's August I would probably book much sooner. The summer timetables will be available to view in a few days so you can at least do some planning. Here's a link that will give you details when booking is available (and also info on the Turn up and Go routes). https://calmac.co.uk/customer-updates/summer-2024-timetables

In terms of music, you might want to look at this thread that I started before my month-long trip to Scotland last May. There was a LOT of information given about live music: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/scotland/finding-live-music-in-scotland

For whimsy near Edinburgh, head to Rosslyn Chapel in the town of Roslin, south of Edinburgh. There are public buses making the run from Edinburgh in about 45 minutes. It's a rather popular place. I have no idea whether you'd need to buy a ticket in advance in August; it wasn't necessary in July 2019, but I did spend a few minutes waiting for a ticket.

The Rosslyn Castle ruins are nearby, but there's little to see, so you can skip them without missing anything significant.

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Thanks for the info . We will definitely make reservations for the Edinburgh and Stirling Castle, etc. The Scottish pass sounds like a good plan. i hadn't thought about needing restaurant reservations but will also look into those. The Fringe festival is the reason we are coming in August, For other trips we have enjoyed going off season in May or October, but we really want to experience the Fringe. We are starting with 7 days in Edinburgh so we will have plenty of time for all the traditional sights and Fringe performances. For our 4 other locations - Oban, Portree on Skye, Inverness and Stirling we have booked 2 nights each. Thanks for the suggestions about live music and whimsical sites!

When we visited Rosslyn Chapel in 2022, its credit card processing wasn’t working, so we needed to pay in cash. We didn’t book ahead since we didn’t know we’d be visiting it until the day we visited.

We bought the annual Historic Environment Scotland pass due to the number of its sites we visited. It more than paid for itself. We purchased it at Edinburgh castle and because one of us was over 65, the two concessions pass was the least expensive. For all the other sites we visited we just walked up and showed the bar code at the entrance. No timed entry was needed.

Doune castle, about 8 miles from Stirling, wasn’t busy when we went and neither were Urquhart Castle or Fort George. I’m sure they’ll be busier in August. We too had a car. Between Edinburgh and Stirling we stopped to see the Forth Bridge, Falkirk Wheel, and the Kelpies sculpture.

We bought the annual Historic Environment Scotland pass due to the number of its sites we visited. It more than paid for itself.

I did the same thing. Buying the annual pass wasn't that much more expensive than the 7 day pass and given that I was there for over 3 weeks, it was worth it. It may be worth it to you as well, depending on how many sites you want to see. Plus even if I didn't break even, I figure it's a good donation to a worthy cause. I was really surprised at how many of the staff working at the historic sites thanked me sincerely for becoming a member.

The only caveat is that you have to pay extra to purchase the pass and have it mailed to you. So to avoid that (plus due to the time factor), I decided to buy the pass at the first site I went to (which happened to be Stirling Castle). It worked out well, because you can still book your ticket ahead of time without paying. Just go to the ticket booking webpage for the first site you want to go to (for example, Edinburgh Castle), but instead of clicking on the Adult or Concession ticket, click on the Historic Scotland Member's ticket. Reserve your slots (it will email you a confirmation), then on the day of your visit, just tell them you want to purchase a membership. They will handle the transaction and give you a temporary pass to use at all the HS sites while you are there.

The nice thing is that if you make a trip back before the year is up, you can use it again. And you can use it in England to get half price off English Heritage properties (which I will be doing in March and April of this year). Also, as jaimeelsebio said, seniors pay a reduced rate.