We are looking forward to the upcoming RS Best of Scotland Tour (Oct 10th - 22nd)! The itinerary shows these free times:
An Afternoon in Glasgow
A Day in Oban
An Afternoon in Inverness
We welcome any suggestions experienced travelers may offer for these times. Thanks in advance!
Garrison
I loved Glasgow and think the Kelvingrove Museum is well worth an
afternoon.
To me, Oban is a place to go to make daytrips to other places. I'm
surprised it's a vacation from you vacation stop.
Inverness is pretty and you can probably kill an afternoon walking
along the river, but Clava Cairns and Cawdor Castle may be worth a
trip. The gardens at Cawdor Castle are beautiful.
Take a tour of the murals on the buildings in Glasgow.
I just came back from this tour a few weeks ago! We had great weather for the whole trip, so that wasn't an issue in any of our plans. In Glasgow, the guided tour in the morning was several hours (and included many of the murals downtown); we finished around lunchtime. We took the subway to the west end and did Rick's walk there, which was very nice then arranged for dinner at one of the restaurants along our walk. In Oban, our guide arranged a seafood lunch for the group, so our morning was spent waking to the Dunollie castle ruins & grounds then shopping in town for the afternoon. Others in the group arranged to go to Staffa to see puffins (which involved pretty much the same trip as the day before to Mull, Iona, with only 1 hour on Staffa) or hiking on Kerrera or in other surrounding areas. Those were all full-day trips. I had also considered going kayaking with a group on the free day. I found Oban to be a charming town, so I didn't mind just wandering around. A group of us worked with our guide to arrange for a taxi from Culloden to go to Clava Cairns for some of our free time in Inverness. We had a great driver who showed us a few other sights. Then back to the city just for some general exploring. I really liked Inverness, so walking around was nice. I had also considered the bike tour Rick recommend in the guidebook that afternoon. Hope that helps!
During my 2017 RS tour of Scotland:
In Inverness, I loved my relaxed visit to Leakey's Bookshop, which sells used books: https://leakeysbookshop.com
In Oban, the weather prevented our planned trip via boat and bus to Iona. The guide tried to arrange a bus to take us to a nearby castle, but none were available. Fortunately, we were all happy to poke around Oban, on our own or in small groups, window shopping and having leisurely lunches and chatting over hot cocoa.
