Travel advice for Scotland
From travel safety to visa requirements, discover the best tips for traveling to Scotland
Book your individual trip, stress-free with local travel experts
written by Mike MacEacheran
updated 21.10.2020
With more than thirty other namesakes around the world – from New South Wales in Australia to South Africa's Eastern Cape – Scotland's Aberdeen remains the original and best, wearing its history well.
Known as the Granite City, and built on centuries of nautical heritage – herring fishing, whaling, shipbuilding, and the far more recent offshore oil boom, which took off like a rocket – the place is a shrine to the ambition of coastal life, with a rich mercantile quarter, marine climate and two sprawling universities. Whether you want jam-packed history, unbeatable golf or superb whisky, this is what you need to know about Aberdeen.
20 days / from3066 USD
The Great British Road Trip
Get ready to explore Britain on this unique self-drive road trip. Choose the car of your liking before you hit the road: from the Cotswolds and its picturesque villages over the Beatle's favorite hang-out in Liverpool to Scotland's capital Edinburgh: this trip includes many highlights to be explored
view tour ⤍6 days / from627 USD
Festive Feelings around Christmas in Scotland
Experience the magic of Christmas in the heart of the Scottish Highlands! Lovely Christmas Markets and winter festivals await visitors during the winter months, but this itinerary can also be turned into a summer festival hop!
view tour ⤍11 days / from1096 USD
Scotland's Wildest Natural Scenery
Want to lose yourself in Scotland's wildest natural scenery? This itinerary is a breath of fresh air and perfect to explore the most enchanting landscapes of the Highlands. It will allow you to get to know the wildest landscapes of Scotland, its fast-paced history and its amazing traditions.
view tour ⤍7 days / from696 USD
A true 'Outlander' Adventure
Calling all Outlander lovers…you are in luck! Who would like to follow in the footsteps of the nurse Claire Beauchamp on her trip to Scotland in 1743? We have designed the perfect itinerary to experience the most charming corners that feature in the series.
view tour ⤍7 days / from915 USD
Magical 8-Day Family Adventure in Scotland and England : From Harry Potter to Loch Ness!
Searching for an unforgettable family adventure? Scotland is the perfect destination! With a perfect balance of nature, adventure, and Scottish culture. This 8-day trip offers a delightful mix of activities that everyone in the family will enjoy. Get ready to create life long lasting memories!
view tour ⤍9 days / from1536 USD
Highland Tour: Isle of Skye, Loch Ness and Edinburgh
Discover the beautiful region of Perthshire, the famous Loch Ness and Inverness – the capital of the Highlands. Get a chance to admire Europe’s oldest mountain, stroll along sandy beaches on the Scottish West Coast, and visit the mysterious Isle of Skye.
view tour ⤍14 days / from3300 USD
Walking around vintage England and picturesque Scotland
Visit two traditional capitals, London and Edinburgh, and enjoy a trek through the Loch Lomond national park. This trip will let you discover peaceful Scottish islands by foot, with several days of detailed walking tours included in the trip.
view tour ⤍8 days / from810 USD
Harry Potter and The Alnwick Castle
You are one step away from joining a magical adventure! If you are fans of the wonderful world of the little magician apprentice, Harry Potter then the time has come to discover the very scenes where the Harry Potter universe was filmed. Do not forget to bring your wand. We await you on platform 9¾!
view tour ⤍8 days / from4032 USD
Discover 'All Creatures Great and Small' - England & Scotland
Explore the sets of the TV show "All Creatures Great and Small". The show follows the adventures of a young veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales during the 1930s. Start in London and make your way up to Yorkshire and then further to Edinburgh in Scotland.
view tour ⤍In a nutshell: culture. Never mind oil – if the city could harness its art and ambition, it'd have enough oomph to power the north. Later this year sees the reopening of the Aberdeen Art Gallery, following a £30m aesthetic expansion that will add to its impressive roster. Among the highlights of the collection – which sketches a line from Pre-Raphaelite art and Impressionism to the 20th-century Brit school – are works from Boudin, Courbet, Monet, Pissarro and Renoir. Before then, feel the weight of the city’s cultural welly during a visit to the tantalising Maritime Museum, a combo of a modern gallery and the warren-like corridors of Provost Ross’s House, the second oldest building in the city.
All roads lead to 17th-century Mercat Cross, the city’s gargoyle-covered ground zero at the heart of Castlegate square, and this is where you should start your whistle-stop tour. From here, looking up at silvery granite that flickers in all weathers, follow gently ascending Union Street to ambitious Marischal College, ribbon-cut by King Edward VII in 1906 and one of the planet’s largest granite buildings. At nearly every turn, now in sight of St Andrew’s Cathedral, you’ll encounter a higgledy-piggledy tangle of granular spires, Baroque towers and imposing, slate-grey edifices.
Notwithstanding this devotion to time-worn tradition, Aberdeen also offers up some genuine guidebook surprises: its quarried granite was used to build London’s Houses of Parliament, while it’s also the sunniest city in Britain. Bet you didn’t expect that from a place plotted at a latitude north of Moscow.
We’re not making it up. The city has an easily accessible 3km ribbon of golden curving sand where you can sunbathe, swim and surf. When the often tempestuous seas are calm – and particularly in summer – a real Aberdeen highlight is to take a dolphin-watching tour from the salt-lashed working harbour with Clyde Cruises; you might also see minke whale, basking shark and rainbow-nosed puffin.
Farther along the coast, those same sands give rise to some of the world’s best links golf courses, undulating 18-holers shorn and sculpted out of 4000-year-old machair-topped dunes. Aberdeen has a golf course for every week of the year, with two big-hitters to try – namely Royal Aberdeen Golf Club, the world’s sixth oldest, and – politics aside – the $1.5 billion Trump International Golf Links on Menie Estate.
Edinburgh and Stirling both have banner-waving castles that sing on postcards, but so too does Aberdeenshire. For the melancholic whimsy of northeast Scotland, savour toothy Dunnottar Castle, a medieval fortress perched on a rocky headland south of Stonehaven on the coast. Bloodstained stories spill from its stones – not least one from 1297, when Scottish folk hero William Wallace burned an English garrison inside alive. Come around dusk, and it’s also not hard to imagine a witches’ sabbath taking place in the keep.
In the opposite direction, towards the Cairngorms National Park and Braemar, stop by the royal Balmoral Estate, where Her Majesty the Queen – most definitely not a witch – decamps to Scotland every summer.
Victorian-era boozer The Grill on Union Street is what Scottish old timers’ pubs do best, offering little or no seating, an ornamental counter and mahogany trim. The 600-strong single malt selection is unrivaled (fact: Aberdeenshire is within spitting distance of the largest number of distilleries in Scotland), while the characters inside are just as much a part of the pub’s warp and weft.
Evidence of stranger times is on show at The Illicit Still, a gothic bar-cum-prohibition den, beautifully packed with leather armchairs, pool tables and sneering gargoyles. Finally, it's boisterous and student-packed, but Brewdog’s Gallowgate craft beer pub is where it all started for the Fraserburgh brewer that’s gone global.
Whisky-coloured skies, blustery golden beach days, torpid rain from fish-net clouds above the North Sea – Aberdeen has a remarkable range of colour and weather. The long summer nights from May to August promise the best of the sunshine.
Meanwhile, from September to March, on nights when the skies are burning clean with stars, it’s not out of the realms of possibility that you'll witness one of the greatest, if rarest, spectacles in the UK: the northern lights (the city even has a song about it). Check out the VisitScotland website for more information on catching the "Mirrie Dancers" all around the country.
written by Mike MacEacheran
updated 21.10.2020
Mike MacEacheran is a travel journalist & guidebook author based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has reported from 108 countries for National Geographic, Conde Nast Traveller, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Wall Street Journal, Mail on Sunday, The Independent, Evening Standard, The Sun, The Globe and Mail, Scotland on Sunday, The National and South China Morning Post. Follow him on Twitter @MikeMacEacheran
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From travel safety to visa requirements, discover the best tips for traveling to Scotland