Edinburgh takes two days. The rest of Scotland leaves from Waverley.
Which Loch Ness coach actually stops at Glencoe. What the vaults under South Bridge cost after dark. Reviews of every tour you can book in Edinburgh.
A castle, a ghost story, a glen and three days north.
The four bookings a first Edinburgh trip is usually built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The long day northLoch Ness, Glencoe & the Scottish Highlands TourLoch Ness, Glencoe and the Great Glen in one coach day. More travellers take this than anything else on the site.
02The castle, properlyEdinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketEntry ticket plus a guide who explains the half-moon battery instead of leaving you to read boards.
03After the pubs fill upThe World Famous Underground Ghost TourDown into the chambers under South Bridge, by lamp. The cheapest hour in the Old Town, and the one people talk about later.
04If you have five days3-Day Isle of Skye and The Highlands TourThree days over the Skye bridge and back through the Highlands. The trip that makes the flight home feel early.
Every coach leaves at eight. The difference is how far it gets you.
Three lengths of day out of Edinburgh, what it costs to sit on each one, and how much of the Highlands you actually see before dark.
Two days on the Royal Mile, then point the car north.
A volcanic ridge with a castle on the end of it, a loch that needs no introduction, the Cuillin, a run of castles an hour west, and the golf coast across the Forth. Six places to start, and the best day out in each.
The Old Town is a mile long and takes two days to do badly.
Everything in Edinburgh →
One street runs from the castle rock to Holyrood, and everything worth seeing hangs off it down a close or up a stair. Book the castle for the morning, walk the mile in the afternoon, eat somewhere off it. These three carry more travellers than anything else in town.
Castle entry, with or without a guide
The plain ticket gets you through the gate and no further into the story. A guided walk covers the same rock with the Stone of Destiny, the siege lines and the one o’clock gun explained on the way past.
Down the closes off the Royal Mile
The Royal Mile reads as a souvenir street until somebody takes you down a close and shows you where the drains ran. Two hours, mostly on cobbles, and the best value in the city centre.
Haggis, Scotch and a chocolate room
Small plates around the Grassmarket and the New Town, with a distiller or a chocolatier at the end of it. Turn up hungry, because the portions are Scottish rather than tasting-menu.
Scotch is the one souvenir you should taste before you buy.
A tasting room on the Royal Mile teaches you the regions in an hour. A distillery day gets you to the still house. Somewhere in between is a food tour with haggis on it, and you will need the walk afterwards.
The days out more Edinburgh visitors take than any other.
Every Edinburgh tour we have reviewed →The tours that fill first from this city, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Loch Ness, Glencoe & the Scottish Highlands Tour
Travel from Edinburgh to Callander, Glencoe, Fort William, Loch Ness, Urquhart Castle, and Pitlochry by comfortable coach. A live guide such as Adam, Brian, or Stevie B fills the long drive with Scottish history, music, folklore, and humor. Add a castle visit, whisky tasting, or loch cruise.
From · $62
Read our review →
2
Loch Ness, Glencoe & Scottish Highlands Tour
from $61
3
The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour
from $26
4
Underground Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh Old Town
from $33
5
Loch Ness, Scottish Highlands, Glencoe and Pitlochry Tour
from $67
6
Loch Ness & Highlands Small-Group Tour from Edinburgh with Cruise
from $84
7
Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticket
from $51
8
Edinburgh Castle Guided Walking Tour in English
from $52
Edinburgh built its second city underground, then locked the doors.
The vaults beneath South Bridge were storage, then slum, then sealed for a century. Above them the closes run down off the Royal Mile past a kirkyard where the guides still lower their voices. Nothing here is invented for tourists. It just photographs badly, which is why it happens at night.
Three things that happen in Edinburgh and nowhere else.
Castles and old towns exist all over Europe. A sealed city under a bridge, an extinct volcano behind the parliament, and a viaduct with a steam train still crossing it do not.
The Blair Street Vaults
South Bridge was thrown across the Cowgate in 1788 on nineteen arches, and the chambers inside them were let as workshops and cellars. Damp ruined the trade within thirty years, the poor moved in, and the whole level was filled with rubble and forgotten until the 1980s. You go down by lamplight into rooms with no daylight and no ventilation, which is exactly how they were lived in.
- 1The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 9,272 reviews
- 2Underground Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh Old Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 8,506 reviews
- 3Haunted Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,183 reviews
Arthur’s Seat
The hill behind the parliament is the plug of a volcano that stopped erupting about 340 million years ago, then had the top scraped off it by ice moving west to east. It is 251 metres, about forty minutes up from Holyrood, and the view takes in the castle, the Forth bridges and Fife. Take the Salisbury Crags path if the wind is up, because the summit ridge is exposed.
- 1Hill & Nature Hike – Discover Real Edinburgh With a Local Expert★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 158 reviews
- 2Arthur’s Seat Hike with Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 76 reviews
- 3‘A wee pedal’s’ E-bike tour of Arthur’s Seat and beyond★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 28 reviews
Glenfinnan Viaduct
Twenty-one concrete arches curve above the head of Loch Shiel, built in 1898 by a contractor who could not get stone quarried fast enough. A steam locomotive still crosses it twice a day between April and October, which is why half the people on the hillside are holding a phone rather than a camera. Day trips from Edinburgh reach it by lunchtime with Glencoe on the way.
- 1Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Fort William★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,337 reviews
- 2Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Fort William★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,366 reviews
- 33-Day Isle of Skye Inverness Highlands and Glenfinnan Viaduct Tour from Edinburgh★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,351 reviews
Within an hour of the city there are more castles than days in your trip.
Stirling holds the crossing everyone fought over. Doune is the courtyard from every television series you have watched. Rosslyn Chapel carries carvings nobody has fully explained, and the Borders run south through abbeys to Hadrian’s Wall. All of it is a day trip, and most of it comes with the admission included.
- 1Loch Lomond, Stirling Castle and the Kelpies Day Tourfrom $63
- 2West Highlands, Lochs and Castles Day Tour Including Admissionfrom $68
- 3Loch Lomond, Kelpies & Stirling Castle Tourfrom $57
What a day out of Edinburgh actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best days in this city cost less than a round at the bar.
Old Town walks, ghost tours, audio trails and the whisky tastings on the Royal Mile.
The full-day coaches: Loch Ness and Glencoe, Stirling, St Andrews, the Jacobite line.
Multi-day runs to Skye and the isles, private drivers and the once-a-trip splurges.
Four Edinburgh bookings that will not wait for you to land.
Most of this city can be sorted the night before over a pint. These four run on timed slots, a steam timetable and an August calendar that takes no interest in when your flight arrives.
- 01Scottish Highlands Day Trip and Edinburgh Military TattooThe Tattoo runs on the castle esplanade for three weeks in August and nothing else. Seats go months out, and every hotel bed in the city goes with them.
- 02Magical Highlands Tour with Jacobite TrainThe steam service over the viaduct runs roughly April to October, twice a day, and the carriages are finite. Out of season it is a concrete arch and a good view.
- 03Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketCastle entry is timed and capped. The morning slots go first, and they are the only ones where the esplanade is not shoulder to shoulder.
- 043-Day Isle of Skye and The Highlands TourThe Skye runs are small coaches over three days with beds booked at the other end. When they are full in summer they stay full.
Skye is five hours away, which is why you give it three days.
The Cuillin ridge, the Quiraing, the Old Man of Storr and a bridge that killed the ferry. Nobody does Skye and back in a day from Edinburgh and enjoys it. The trips that work run two or three nights, usually with Glencoe on the way up and the Jacobite line on the way home.
Every trip to Skye →
Edinburgh weather changes faster than your plans do.
The haar rolls in off the North Sea and the castle disappears; an hour later it is bright again. Locals do not cancel, they go under a roof for a while. Vaults that have never seen daylight, a still room, a bus with a top deck under glass, and a dinner with a fiddle in the corner.
Old Town, castle, one glen and a hill: the week almost everybody does first.
The Old Town
The Castle
Arthur’s Seat
St AndrewsBy place, city and the country beyond it
By kind of day, on foot, on a coach or in a cellar
The newest Edinburgh tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
The Royal Military Tattoo Edinburgh City Tour Rosslyn Chapel and Dinner
Read our review →
Dinner and Private Tour with your Personal Scottish Sommelier
Read our review →
Highland Cows, Walk Alpacas & Scottish Wildlife Centre from Edin.
Read our review →
Ghosts of Edinburgh: Bloody Past Exploration Game and Tour
Read our review →
Edinburgh City of Wizards Exploration Game and Tour
Read our review →
Edinburgh Photo Shoot – capture your memories !
Read our review →
4 Day Mull, Iona and Staffa Puffin Experience from Edinburgh
Read our review →
Edinburgh to Scottish Highlands: Whisky, Views & Hairy Coos
Read our review →
Royal Mile, Edinburgh Walking Tour with Audioguide
Read our review →
Privately Guided Day Tour of Glasgow in Luxury Minivan
Read our review →
Isle of Skye Private 4 Day Tour From Edinburgh or Glasgow
Read our review →
