Book nowSkye's beds, the Mallaig–Armadale car ferry and the Talisker tour sell out for June months ahead: book them first.
Hours, prices, timetables and coordinates are from general knowledge; re-check them before you go and on the day.
Seven days: Stirling and Glencoe, the Road to the Isles and Skye, two days on the island, castles and Loch Ness, Culloden and the Cairngorms, Edinburgh before the flight.
Land at 10:00, the car, and 3 h 15 min to Glencoe. Stirling Castle on the way, Loch Lomond's shore, then across Rannoch Moor into the glen.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →45 mindrive on the left
Over the Queensferry Crossing and the M9. The first roundabouts are the hardest part: go clockwise and give way to the right.
The royal castle on a volcanic crag where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned, guarding the old crossing between Lowlands and Highlands.
about £20 eachday's highlight
Park on the esplanade, paid. The Great Hall is limewashed gold as it was in 1503; the Royal Palace has the Stirling Heads, carved oak portraits, and weavers' copies of the Unicorn Tapestries.
From the walls you see the Wallace Monument and the field of Bannockburn. Lunch at the castle café. Allow two hours.
Britain's largest lake by area, and Luss, a conservation village of slate cottages on its western shore.
parking about £5
Fifty minutes west. Walk the pier and the cottage streets, 30 minutes, then north along the loch on the A82, narrow and twisting by Tarbet.
The valley of steep green mountains where the MacDonalds were massacred by government troops in 1692; the Three Sisters are its three ridges.
free
The big lay-by on the A82 faces the Three Sisters. A short path drops to the river for the view up the glen. Then ten minutes down to the village.
£20–30 each
Check in, then the Clachaig Inn up the old glen road, a pub of climbers and walkers since the 1800s: stone floors, a wall of malts, venison burgers and haggis. Busy; arrive by 19:00.
Glencoe to Portree, about 2 h 30 min on the road plus the ferry. The Jacobite steam train over the Glenfinnan Viaduct at about 10:45, the ferry from Mallaig, Skye by evening.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →1 h
North on the A82 to Fort William, then west on the A830, the Road to the Isles. The visitor-centre car park fills by 10:00 on train days.
A curved 21-arch railway viaduct of 1901 at the head of Loch Shiel, crossed by the Jacobite steam train, known from the Harry Potter films.
free; parking about £5day's highlight
From the visitor centre, 20 minutes up the path to the viewpoint on the hill. The morning Jacobite crosses at about 10:45 heading west; check the day's times on the operator's site.
Below, the Glenfinnan Monument stands at the loch's head where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard in 1745.
£15–25 each
Forty minutes on, a café or hotel bar in Arisaig, facing the sea and the islands of Eigg and Rum.
A run of white-sand beaches and turquoise water between Arisaig and Morar, under the islands.
free
Park in one of the lay-bys and walk on the sand, 40 minutes. The water is about 11°C.
about £20 car and twobook ahead45 min
CalMac's car ferry; book on calmac.co.uk and check in 30 minutes before. If the sea cancels it, the Skye Bridge at Kyle of Lochalsh is the way round, two hours more.
£30–45 eachbook ahead
Restaurants round the harbour of painted houses; book in June. Langoustines, Skye scallops and mussels.
The Old Man of Storr at 8:00 before the car park fills, Kilt Rock's waterfall, the Quiraing's pinnacles, the Fairy Glen. Back to Portree by late afternoon.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →A 50-metre pinnacle of rock standing out from the landslip cliffs of the Trotternish ridge, Skye's best-known landmark.
parking about £5day's highlightsteep path
Fifteen minutes north of Portree. The path climbs steadily, about 45 minutes up and 3,500 steps, gravel then rough. At the top the pinnacle stands over lochs and the mainland.
The car park is full by 9:30 in June. Waterproofs: the weather on the ridge changes in minutes. Allow two hours.
A sea cliff of basalt columns folded like a kilt's pleats, with a waterfall dropping 55 metres straight into the sea beside it.
free
Fifteen minutes north. The viewing platform is by the car park; ten minutes.
A great landslip on the Trotternish ridge, still moving, with pinnacles called the Needle, the Table and the Prison.
parking about £5drop-offs
Up the single-track road from Staffin to the pass car park. Walk the path north under the cliffs to the Needle and back, about 2 hours and 5 km; the full loop over the top is 6.8 km and steep.
£15–25 each
Down the other side of the pass to Uig Bay. The Skye Brewery's shop and a café or two by the ferry pier.
A small valley of grassy cones, terraces and a rock tower called Castle Ewen, shaped by old landslips.
parking about £3
Five minutes up a single-track road from Uig. An hour's wander; climb Castle Ewen for the view. Please do not move stones into the spirals people make.
The Fairy Pools under the Cuillin in the morning, a tour of Talisker at midday. Dunvegan Castle and Neist Point lighthouse in the long evening light.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →A chain of clear blue pools and waterfalls on the Allt Coir' a' Mhadaidh river below the Black Cuillin mountains.
parking about £6
Forty minutes from Portree, the last part single-track. The path follows the river up, 2.4 km each way, with stepping stones across it; two hours there and back. Wild swimmers go in; the water is about 8°C.
Skye's oldest working distillery, founded in 1830 on the shore of Loch Harport, making a peppery, smoky single malt.
£20–40 eachday's highlightbook ahead
Twenty minutes on, in Carbost. The standard tour goes from the mash tun to the stills and ends with a tasting; book it on the Diageo site, malts.com.
The driver gets a sample kit to take away. The Oyster Shed up the hill sells oysters and seafood to eat on the bench. Allow an hour and a half.
£10–20 each
A shack with picnic benches: oysters, lobster rolls, scallops. Plain, outdoors, cash or card.
The seat of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod for eight centuries, holding the Fairy Flag, a faded silk banner said to have magical powers.
about £18 each
Forty minutes north-west. The Fairy Flag hangs in the drawing room; the walled gardens run down to the loch. Seal-watching boats leave from the jetty in summer. An hour and a half.
The lighthouse of 1909 on the westernmost tip of Skye, on a peninsula of sheer cliffs facing the Outer Hebrides.
freesteep path
Dinner at the Dunvegan inns first, then 25 minutes west. A steep concrete path with a handrail leads down and along to the lighthouse, 20 minutes. Sunset is about 22:15; the cliffs face it. Minke whales are sometimes seen offshore in summer. Back to Portree in the twilight.
Portree to Inverness, about 3 hours on the road. Eilean Donan on its island, then Loch Ness and the ruins of Urquhart Castle before Inverness.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →1 h
The A87 south to the Skye Bridge, free, and on to Dornie.
A castle on a tidal island where three lochs meet, reached by a stone bridge; the ruin was rebuilt in the 1910s–30s and appears in countless films.
about £12 eachday's highlight
The best photograph is from the lay-by on the A87 before the bridge. Inside, the rooms are furnished as the MacRaes lived in them.
Go at the 10:00 opening: coaches arrive from eleven. An hour.
1 h 30 min
The A87 up Glen Shiel between the Five Sisters of Kintail, then the A887 to Invermoriston and north along Loch Ness. Lunch at Invermoriston or Drumnadrochit.
The ruins of a medieval castle on a headland over Loch Ness, blown up in 1692 to keep it from the Jacobites.
about £15 eachtimed tickets
Timed tickets online in summer. A film in the visitor centre ends with the curtain rising on the castle; then the walk down to the tower, whose top looks along the loch. An hour.
A 37-kilometre loch in the Great Glen, deeper than the North Sea, famous for its monster.
free
Stop at Dores beach on the quiet east shore, 20 minutes from Inverness, for a walk on the shingle and the view down the loch.
£25–40 each
Walk along the River Ness to the Ness Islands, footbridges through the trees, 45 minutes. Restaurants by the river; book. Hootananny on Church Street has live folk music most nights.
Inverness to Edinburgh, about 3 h 30 min on the road. Culloden battlefield, the A9 through the Cairngorms, a distillery in Pitlochry, the car back at the airport.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →The moor where the government army destroyed Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobites in under an hour in 1746, the last pitched battle on British soil.
about £19 eachday's highlight
Fifteen minutes east of Inverness. The visitor centre tells the battle from both sides, ending in a room where it is projected around you.
Then walk the moor: flags mark the two lines, and stones the clans' graves. An hour and a half.
1 h 45 minaverage-speed cameras
The A9 over the Slochd and Drumochter passes, past Aviemore. Average-speed cameras cover most of it; keep to the limits.
A Victorian holiday town on the River Tummel, with a dam and a salmon ladder.
£15–25 each
Cafés and pubs on the main street. Afterwards, the salmon ladder at the dam, ten minutes' walk, where fish climb in pools past a viewing window.
A distillery of white farm buildings in a glen above Pitlochry, among the smallest in Scotland, where a handful of people make the whisky by hand.
£15–25 eachbook ahead
Five minutes' drive. An hour's tour ending with two drams; the driver's are poured to take away.
1 h 30 min
The A9 and M90 over the Queensferry Crossing. Return the car, then the tram into the city, 35 minutes, card at the stop machine.
£30–45 eachbook ahead
Restaurants off the Royal Mile and in Victoria Street; book. A walk up Calton Hill afterwards for the sunset, about 22:00.
Check out, bags at the reception. Edinburgh Castle at 9:30, down the Royal Mile, lunch, and the tram to the airport at 14:45 for the 17:00 flight.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →The fortress on the volcanic rock above the city, holding the Honours of Scotland, the oldest crown jewels in Britain, and the Stone of Destiny.
about £22 eachday's highlighttimed tickets
Book a 9:30 slot online. Go first to the Crown Room, before its queue builds; the crown, sceptre and sword lie beside the Stone of Destiny.
Then St Margaret's Chapel, the oldest building in Edinburgh, and the view from the Argyle Battery. Allow two hours.
The street of tall stone tenements and narrow closes running a mile downhill from the castle to Holyrood Palace.
free
Duck into the closes, the steep alleys off it. St Giles' Cathedral, free, has the carved Thistle Chapel.
£15–25 each
Pubs in the Grassmarket under the castle. Cullen skink, the smoked haddock soup, and a last pint.
Driving on the left, single-track roads with passing places, and no tolls.
Drive on the left; at roundabouts give way to traffic from the right. Speed limits are in miles per hour: 30 in towns, 60 on single carriageways, 70 on motorways and dual carriageways. The alcohol limit is 50 mg per 100 ml, stricter than England's: do not drink at all if driving. No tolls; the Skye Bridge is free.
Much of Skye and the west is single-track with passing places. Pull into the passing place on your left to let oncoming cars by, or wait opposite one on your right; let faster cars overtake. Never park in a passing place. Sheep and deer stand on the road, especially at dusk.
Expect 10–18°C, sun and rain in the same hour, and wind on the ridges. Waterproof jacket and trousers, boots for the Storr and the Quiraing. Midges, tiny biting flies, swarm on still damp evenings in the west: bring Smidge or a similar repellent and a head net. Daylight lasts until 22:30.
Tours must be booked in summer. Drivers are given their drams in sample bottles to take away. Skye's Talisker is peaty and peppery; Edradour's Highland malt is sweeter.
Cards and phones are taken almost everywhere, including car parks by app or machine. Scottish banknotes are pounds sterling; spend them before you leave. Tipping is 10% in restaurants where service is not added.
For two, 7 days and 6 nights in Scotland: Glencoe, Portree, Inverness and Edinburgh. Covers the car, fuel, the ferry, the rooms, castles, distilleries, every meal and a buffer. Flights are not included.
| Item | Economy | Comfort | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rental car, 6 days | £300 | £480 | |
| Fuel and parking | £150 | £170 | About 900 km |
| Mallaig–Armadale ferry | £20 | £20 | Car and two |
| B&B in Glencoe, 1 night | £110 | £170 | |
| B&B in Portree, 3 nights | £390 | £600 | Skye is the dearest stop |
| Hotel in Inverness, 1 night | £110 | £180 | |
| Hotel in Edinburgh, 1 night | £150 | £250 | Edinburgh's visitor levy included |
| Castles and Culloden | £210 | £210 | Stirling, Dunvegan, Eilean Donan, Urquhart, Culloden, Edinburgh |
| Distilleries | £70 | £130 | Talisker and Edradour |
| Lunches | £200 | £280 | 7 lunches for two |
| Dinners | £300 | £450 | 6 dinners for two |
| Coffee, snacks, midge spray | £50 | £80 | |
| Buffer | £120 | £250 | A bottle of malt, a seal boat |
| Total | £2,180 | £3,270 |
Realistic figure: About £2,500–2,900 for two, without flights
Cards work almost everywhere. Keep £40 in coins and notes for honesty-box car parks and small cafés on Skye.
All of them: the WayFriend guide library.
