Scotland road trip - must see/ do tips

[floridapalmtree]

We are going on a Scottish road trip in May having never been before for roughly about a week but flexible.

We mainly want to see beautiful vistas, lochs, mountains, white sand beaches, forests etc with a few historic buildings. Husband is thinking of the North Coast 500 which is a 500 mile route around the northern highlands. Any suggestions for lovely places to go, so far our thoughts are;

Loch Lomond & Trossachs
Isle of Skye
Glencoe
Loch Ness
Ardnamurchan peninsula
Ben Nevis
Edinburgh
Glasgow

I realise that we would need more than a week to do all of the above so need to decide which would be best.

We will need to stay overnight along the route so also any nice places to stay or eat would be good. We could camp but need to buy new tent.

A week isn't long to do all of that! It takes a looooooooong time to drive anywhere once you're outside of the cities.

I'd consider the east too - East Neuk of Fife is gorgeous - lovely fishing villages, great walking and beautiful coast. St Andrews is a lovely city. Depending on where you're coming from, you could take in Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and the kelpies at Falkirk on the way.

If you want nice walking/forests etc, then the area around Pitlochry is lovely - plenty of amazing views to be had.

Arran is a bit more accessible than Skye. Not quite as spectacular, but still absolutely lovely.

So much of Scotland is really beautiful, but it's impossible to see much in a week. I'd pick a small part and enjoy it properly.

That is my concern trying to pack so much in and thinking it might be too far to do the North Coast 500 and we might need to concentrate on a smaller area.

Thanks for the recommendations I'll have a good look at those, Pitlochry looks lovely, as does Arran.

Where are you setting off from?

The drive through Torridon is wonderful, and if budget isn't a constraint, I'd stay at the hotel. We took a walk around the Ben Damph estate, which was beautiful on a sunny day.

We did a week, based in Shieldaig. Did Torridon, Loch Clair, Loch Maree, Applecross (the mountain pass is terrifying). The Kishorn Seafood Bar had great food. The drive up to Wester Ross is about as spectacular as it gets.

On another holiday, we really enjoyed staying at the Port Charlotte Hotel on Islay, the food was great but it was 16 years ago!

Southern England.

Torridon looks beautiful, just checked availability and the only rooms available are £925 a night! So that's ruled out!

£925?!! Wow, I didn't realise it was that expensive nowadays!

Three Chimneys in Skye always gets rave reviews (I've never been), but I think unless you're staying it's really difficult to get a table there.

I'd love to do a road trip around Scotland! Be careful of midges, everywhere on the West Coast from around July onwards. Avon Skin So Soft spray oil is supposed to keep them away.

Tourists often by-pass the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway. Both areas have lots to offer and are much quieter than the Highlands.

The NC500 is beautiful, but a bit of a victim of its own success. Traffic can be awful and you need to pre book accommodation.

Agree with Reviewingthesituation, East Neuk is lovely - Anstruther, Crail, Elie, Falkland, St Andrews.

The coast north of Inverness is worth a visit. Black Isle, Dornoch, Helmsdsle. The glens inland from these areas are beautiful and deserted, full of deer and birds.

If you have a beautiful day forecast, the foot ferry to Orkney is worth doing - there are bus tours which give you a taste of the islands, if you go on a beautiful day you'll want to go back.

If you only have a week, don't try and do too much. You could pick a small area and happily spend a week exploring.

I agree with @ReviewingTheSituation , you can't cover that amount in a week or so, best to pick an area and take your time exploring it. If you want "beautiful vistas, lochs, mountains, white sand beaches, forests etc" you'd get the lot on Skye (but then I'm biased as I live there).

Base yourself in Glasgow. You can access lots of places for day trips.

Kelpies, Solway Firth, Pitlochry

You could base yourself in Glasgow (lots of great museums and art galleries) then visit Loch Lomond (great scenery, forests, mountains, etc) or vice versa, then do day trips to Arran, Edinburgh, Ayrshire (for beaches and Culzean Castle, Burns' Museum, etc).

I would go to Tobermory on the Isle of Mull if I was going to the Ardnamurchan peninsula (check if the ferry is running from Kilchoan). Alternately take the ferry from Lochaline to Fishnish.
take a trip down the island to Iona to see the Abbey and also a trip to see Staffa and go whale watching.
Just be really aware that some A roads in the Highlands are really only single track roads with passing places. A crash on one of these roads can mean a 50 mile detour.

It can take us 6 hours from Bristol to the border and another 6 hours to Mull. That'd with 2 of us sharing driving, keeping our foot on the accelerator, and keeping pit stops to a minimum.

From the south of England you have a good 8/9hr drive just to reach the borders so I would consider going a bit alternative.

Day and night in Kirkubright then drive to Portpatrick, walk at Turnberry Lighthouse then Culzean Castle.
Stay in Ayr (Western House or Brig O’Doon) and explore Robert Burns country- poets walk, Burns Cottage, Museum, Greenan Castle beach walk etc. The Growler, Treehouse and Bareface cafe all ace).
Head to Glasgow for the night and eat in one of the many amazing restaurants (5 March, Crabshak, Anchorline, are more £££ but Peasano is £ and superb too).
Next onto Loch Lomond - Luss is beautiful, twee and surrounded by nice walks. Have lunch in the Coach House (the cakes are hard to resist). Then follow the length of the Loch and upto Glen Coe. Onto Fort Augustus area for the night. Explore Inverness, down to Aviemore/Kingussie- Highland wildlife park has Polar bear cubs at the moment.

Sadly that’s a week away done!

Hi op, I've just watched a great YouTube on the NC 500. Think it's called Adventure with Shawn, he done the NC 500 in 5 days driving up from the Midlands. You could do the NC 500 anti clockwise which would bring you down to Fort William to Ben Nevis then you could drive home via Glencoe. That would tick a lot off your list. Or if you would like a city break then you could split a week half in Glasgow and half in Edinburgh.

The Scotsman hotel in Edinburgh is good.
The Kingsmill hotel in Inverness is good

You could spend a week split between Edinburgh and Glasgow with a couple of days trips if you've never been to either. It's a very long day of driving from Southern England to even reach Edinburgh or Glasgow and personally I'd be wanting an overnight stop to break the journey. It's then another day of driving to get to places like Skye and the start of the NC500. I'd also be very surprised if you can find accommodation on Skye or the NC500 at this short notice.
Note that very hotels in Edinburgh have parking and if they do it's usually by arrangement in a local NCP or similar car park and charged at a fairly hefty fee.
I don't personally see the pleasure in driving round a country, the NC500 has done some terrible things to that part of the country. I would try and get a self catering property or camp site and base yourselves in one place for a week.

Or Stirling then you’re central for both Glasgow Edinburgh and Loch Lomond. It depends what kind of holiday you want. Edinburgh and Glasgow will be city breaks but the further north you go will be much more rural and adventurous. I can see the pull for the north 500 we used to drive up to hills bay to go to Orkney to visit family following the route and yes it’s lovely but very busy now.

Perhaps decide on what you want from your holiday and choose an area you want to see most. Edinburgh and east cost is lovely or / Loch Lomond or highlands. I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time though whatever you choose. We are going up to Nairn so looking forward to that.

I've visited Scotland several times over the years

Suggest you pick one area

I did Skye & NC500 in 3 weeks & it was not enough time to see everything !

There is enough in Edinburgh to see for a week

If you travel to an island it seems more exciting, that is enough for a week, including travel there & back

You do know that Scotland is a whole country don't you OP? This is a bit like posting "England road trip - what to see" with a list covering London, Stratford on Avon, the Lake District, the Norfolk broads, Cornwall and the Northumberland coast...

Hi there we have just done a bit of a Scottish road trip - we have a van so camped- perhaps makes it a bit more straight forward as accommodation already sorted. Anyhoo, travelled to via the A83 - stunning views - to Oban, stayed overnight, then took the ferry to Mull - 6 nights on Mull then travelled back to Oban, drove up to Glen Nevis for 2 nights and then down to Cumbria (stop over) via Glencoe/ loch Lomond. Was just about the right amount of driving - once we got to Oban that was the big lump of driving done - just an hour or so here and there in between. It was fab! Have attempted other road trips with more driving in between and shorter stop overs and this was just about right - would definitely agree with others who say pick a smaller area.

Enjoy! Just starting to plan our next Biggie! Got 3 nights at the Solway Firth (Dumfries and Galloway) booked for half term but hoping to head to Harris/ Lewis in August!

Your itinerary includes beautiful places but there's no chance you can fit that in one week. I was going to suggest a route very similar to @Alwayspaintyournails although in reverse.

I'd go up via Edinburgh or Glasgow (for a day trip or overnight I'd probably pick Edinburgh although I'm from Glasgow and can confirm it's a great place to live and visit!) then onto Pitlochry then Aviemore and there's so many places to explore along that way- Stirling, Blair Atholl, Loch Tummel, etc.
From Aviemore you could go to Loch Ness and then down to Fort William and then onto Oban and continue back down to England via the West Coast (there are so many under-rated and under visited places on the south west coast.

An alternative could be to go up to Loch Ness then go east along the Moray coast then come down via the east coast. The Moray coast is beautiful and will be way way quieter than the west coast at this time of year.

I now live up north and near to the NC500 route. I wouldn't suggest anyone does it at summer as it's now absolutely heaving.

So many good suggestions here. And agree with PP, your post has a hint of the cliche of Americans "doing Europe" in a week with your list of locations all over Scotland!
I don't think you'll be disappointed wherever you pick, the south west, the east coast, the north, around Loch Lomond, etc etc, every area has its beauty and interest. You could easily do a week's city break in Edinburgh or Glasgow, but that's a very different proposition to the other ideas. If you fancy doing a road trip, pick one but don't try to cram too much in! You'll have to have a few more holidays to get everything on your list done.

And once you narrow it down, come back and we can suggest places to stay, activities, where to eat, etc. Making suggestions for the whole of Scotland or the entire NC500 route is too big a task

The beautiful white sands and blue seas you see are often on Lewis/ Harris. Lovely to visit but could spend your whole week there.

We camped on the beach at Aardnamurchan.. Amazing..
Glencoe is a must. As is Iona and Mull. We do 2 weeks in October every year (Isleofmullcottages-do many accommodationsn in the areas you want) . The only place ever I have been with no hurry to go home.