Easter holidays Scotland road trip

[Mumbythesea1]

DH and I have some leave that we will need to use up in the Easter holidays next year so can have the full two weeks. We’ve deliberated about where to take DC but it’s also a big wedding anniversary for us so wanted to do something extra special. We’ve always wanted to visit Scotland and do a road trip. We’ve only just decided this so haven’t started research yet. We live in the south of England. Any recommendations to help us narrow down our options? Thank you

The West coast scenery is much more spectacular than the east coast . But the east coast has better weather ( drier usually) with some beautiful beaches.
Driving through Glencoe is pretty special , and then you can travel on up to Skye. Lots to do on Skye but it does get busy.
Oban is nice and you can hop over on the ferry to Mull. It’s great for wildlife and you can go over from there to Iona and Fingals cave.
The nc500 is also spectacular. Ullapool is a great wee place for a couple of nights and the drive North from there is amazing .
On the East coast there are lots of pretty villages in the East Neuk of Fife, and then amazing beaches on the moray firth in places like Findhorn. It’s supposed to be good for spotting dolphins but I’ve always seen them more on the West coast .
I would avoid Loch Lomond. It’s not that special (imo) and it’s so near Glasgow that it gets very busy. Likewise Loch Ness isn’t as lovely as some of the less well known lochs.
Fort William isn’t great and personally I wouldn’t stay there .
It just depends what kind of things you want from your trip

Easter is early next year and weather could be seriously rough still, especially on Skye. I wouldn’t want to do Skye in March.

Easter I would do cairngorms. You could do Edinburgh on the way up?

Agree. Skye is heaving. Such a pity as it is lovely but there are lots of other places just as lovely which are totally overlooked.

In your situation OP I would drive to Edinburgh, have a day there to look around the city, but think about where you are going to stay because you need a car in Edinburgh city centre like you need a hole in the head. Then head north, stay somewhere like Aviemore which has lots of accommodation options and you can easily reach Inverness, the Cairngorms, and depending on the age of your kids there are places like the Highland Wildlife park, the folk park museum, Go Ape and similar, the reindeer herd, the steam railway which often features in The Traitors.

I agree with pp I would do cairngorms in Easter especially around glenclova and glen prosen I was just up glen clova this week and by 7 it was dark raining and blowing a gale but the scenery is second to none there is a hotel and there are many little cottages up the cairngorms that you can book for a day or two we just booked a cottage up glen prosen for a week in August and it was beautiful just a week of pure relaxation with the kids running about in nature with sheep and pheasants although I will say the Internet is usually spotty depending where u go so if you need it just double check but its definitely worth checking out.

being brutally honest though (grew up in the highlands) if you want two weeks in Scotland I’d do middle of the year and do something else with the Easter break.

You could do an amazing west coast road trip, but March is not the time to do it.
Last Easter (2025) was late April and there was still a surprising amount of snow on the high ground.

We did similar with our kids and loved it
One no regrets splurge was we took the sleeper train up to Inverness then hired a car for the road trip bit. Dropped the car back to Inverness, took a train to Edinburgh, car free couple of days in Edinburgh (where public transport is good and parking is hideous) then normal train back to London at the end.

I don't know if it's changed but you could book adjacent cabins in the sleeper and fix the doors open so in effect we had a 4 berth cabin for the family.