tours to Orkney

We did a day trip out of Inverness to Orkney. Was a very long day- but well worth it. We booked through the Tourist Information office. The tour left from the main Inverness bus terminal which is only a few blocks from the train station. There are also great day trips to Isle of Skye (with Eliean Donan castle included), Glencoe, the Great Glen and many other interesting places. Inverness makes a great base. If you stay in the Caringorm Mts (we love the village of Aviemore, but there are others, too) there are some great day trips you can do on your own by train or bus- Blair Athol, Dalwhinnie distillery, Rothmurchie estate, Mt. Caringorm with its funicular, the reindeer center, the heather center, and much more, too.

Hey Diane, I think that you were looking for tours to do while on Orkney, which if you have the time is better than doing out of Inverness. Orkney has a couple of great websites. There is the tourist site. http://www.orkney.org/ There is great history site. http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/ It's been around for a long time and is terrific. On the tourist site if you click on the Visit Orkney block and then the Getting Around tab you'll find a list of tour companies. I've heard good things about this company http://www.wildaboutorkney.com/ Pam

BTW don't hesitate to use the contact me email addresses to ask for more info about what will be happening in May in Orkney. Clearly, the site doesn't have much on it for next year and it doesn't let you know what happened last year, which is bad design. So, drop them an email. ; ) Pam

Hello Diane, Not certain about tours, sorry. I did fly to Kirkwall from Inverness stayed at a B&B, rented a car and had a wonderful time. The main island is very small and with good roads easy to get around . Also took several ferry rides to various islands. It's a very nice diversion. Regards, Liam

Diane, there are lots of reviews on Tripadvisor of the various tours. Take reviewer comments from reviewers who have only one post with a grain of salt. ; ) Pam

If you want to do something really unique, you can take a flight between Westray and Papa Westray. It is officially the shortest airline flight in the world. It's 1.7 miles and lasts less than 2 minutes. (I found that out tonight watching QI and double checked on the net.)

We did a tour this summer. We left from John O Groats and did the abbreviated tour. It was fine. We saw the highlights and had a good time. Our driver was very friendly and informative. His daughter came along (school was still out) and she was very charming.

John, Do you remember the name of the tour company and/or the tour? I'll look it up if you do. Thanks

We did the highlights tour with : http://www.jogferry.co.uk/ We paid 45 Pounds each for the hightlight tour. The full tour is about 60 Pounds per person. The Highlight tour left at 10:00 and got back around 6:00. I would suggest you rent a car when touring Scotland. It is a far flung trip place to place. If you do public transport, check schedules very carefully, and my wife says good luck.

Thanks for the information! I spent three weeks in Scotland in 2008 going from Glasgow to Oban to Skye to Inverness to Edinburgh and lots of places in between and did fine. I don't like driving there and since I'll be on my own, I can't enjoy the scenery when I'm watching out for 'suicidal' sheep on the one-way roads (to quote a delightful tour guide from Skye). And I love rail travel. I'll buy a rail pass and just get on and go to all kinds of places that I have heard about or am curious about or just on a whim. I always seem to be defending using public transportation in Europe, but I drove 4000 miles on a trip in the US last summer and do long car trips here often. It is just a treat to have such great public transportation at my beck and call in much of Europe. (unlike the US)!! Just saying-