In the summer of 2024, we took a trip to Scotland with our two children, ages six and three. Our trip started and ended in the country’s biggest tourist draw, the city of Edinburgh.

We originally planned to spend three nights there at the beginning of the trip and one night at the end (with a road trip in between), but our travel troubles getting there meant we missed out on our first night. We ended up adjusting our road trip itinerary some to give us extra time in Edinburgh on that final night.

Arrival and Settling In

As mentioned in the post about getting there, we took the tram from the Edinburgh airport to the flat we had booked through Airbnb, located just to the northeast of the city center. We loved the location, which was right off a road with grocery stores and bus lines to help us get around. It was definitely nice to have multiple bedrooms for the first nights as we were fighting jetlag.

After getting settled, we decided we needed to get out and enjoy the sunshine to try and help adjust. We caught our first of many double-decker buses, which the kids really enjoyed.

We rode the bus to the middle of the Royal Mile, the main tourist and historic road which runs through the city center. From here we walked downhill, using the second half of the Rick Steves’ self-guided walking tour to help describe what we were seeing. Some of the highlights were Canongate Kirk, Dunbars Close garden, and an alley where some scenes from Outlander had been filmed. The kids did not have a lot of patience for sightseeing though, so we were a little more rushed than we would have liked to be. We ended at the bottom of the Royal Mile by looking through the gates of Holyrood House palace.

From this point, we decided it was actually just as easy to walk back to our flat. On the way, we stopped at a grocery store and got some breakfast supplies and some prepared food for a simple dinner. We watched the movie Brave, then all crashed pretty early!

Exploring Edinburgh

After a good night of sleep, we were mostly rested and ready to explore Edinburgh on the only full day we would have in the city.

Our first destination was Edinburgh Castle, which sits at the top of the Royal Mile. To get there, we took the bus again and got off by the National Museum, then walked up the hill to the castle, passing by scenic Victoria Street in the process.

We had followed the advice and booked our tour online ahead of time, which turned out to be a good idea because the tickets had been sold out by the morning of. Instead of just buying entrance to the castle, we had gone ahead and purchased Explorer Passes, which are good for 14 days and would allow us entrance to many of the historical sites we were planning to visit.

To tour the castle grounds, we again followed Rick Steves’ self-guided walking tour to provide a route and context. The castle staff also gave us a kids activity guide that provided some information for their age range. We enjoyed touring the grounds, which provided great views over the city. The kids especially liked climbing on the cannons. We did stand in line for some of the interiors of the buildings as well.

After the castle, we headed down the Royal Mile. Almost immediately we decided to stop at an attraction called Camera Obscura and World of Illusions. We had wondered if it was a tourist trap, but it ended up being an enjoyable visit. We got to travel through different floors filled with many interactive optical illusions. On the top floor is a 19th century device called a camera obscura which uses lenses and mirrors to project images from outside onto a table, looking almost like a video feed.

We took a break from the Royal Mile and went back to Victoria Street for lunch at Bertie’s Fish and Chips. Eric got the fish and chips, and Della tried her first haggis of the trip (fried this time).

We returned to the Royal Mile and did the first half of Rick Steves’ self-guided walk, taking us past more scenic older buildings and atmospheric closes (alleys). It had gotten a little damp so we did pause for a bit in St Giles Cathedral. We made it back to the middle of the Mile and caught the bus back to our flat for some nap / quiet time.

Then, for dinner we went to a food hall called Edinburgh Street Food. Here we met up with our friend Christine from Denver along with her niece, who were coincidentally visiting Edinburgh at the same time! We were able to order an eclectic mix of food: plant-based tacos for Della, bao buns for Eric, and pizza for the kids. The kids also got some interesting flavors of soft-serve ice cream for dessert.

Before heading to bed, we decided to try one other amenity of our flat: a chest full of dress-up clothes to allow us to dress like Scotsmen!

The next morning, we had to check out of our flat and go pick up our rental car for the Highlands road trip. Stay tuned for a future post about that!

Return to Edinburgh

After a fun trip in the Highlands (foreshadowing!), we returned to Edinburgh for one night. Since we had missed some of our sightseeing time at the beginning of the trip, we made some changes to the road trip itinerary to allow us to get back to Edinburgh in the morning so we could have most of the last day to explore as well. We were able to drop off our luggage at our accommodations for the evening (more on that in a bit), and then headed out into the city to explore.

We caught a bus (double-decker!) back to the National Museum area. We first got lunch at MUMS Great Comfort Food, a homey diner serving some traditional Scottish food. Eric got the haggis tower which came with mash (mashed potatoes) and turnips. Della got two different types of sausage with mash.

From there, we walked through the nearby Greyfriars Kirkyard to find some of the headstones with names that appear in Harry Potter, like Thomas Riddle.

We then visited the National Museum itself. It is free which was a nice perk, although that did mean it was crowded. We once again used the Rick Steves self-guided tour to help us chart a path through the varied exhibits. We walked through the technology section to a separate wing with different eras of Scottish history on different floors. The floors were ordered chronologically, but we found ourselves a little frustrated that within each floor there was not a well-defined path to follow for a good story of the era. We had to just poke around randomly on each floor, looking at items that interested us. After finishing on a nice rooftop terrace, we went back into the main wing and explored some of the exhibits on animals. We paused to rest our legs, and then decided to head back to the hostel to relax.

We were staying at the Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel, part of a network of hostels across the country called Hostelling Scotland. We had stayed at a number of these hostels on our road trip (more foreshadowing), so we knew what to expect. The Edinburgh Central hostel was definitely the fanciest one we stayed at! We got a private room with an ensuite bathroom, so it was basically the same as a hotel room, except that the beds were bunk beds. The kids’ favorite feature of the room was that our window looked out on a major road where they could watch the trams and buses go by.

For dinner we walked to Vittoria Italian restaurant (the “on the Walk” location). We had seen this on lists of good restaurants for families in Edinburgh so we thought it would be a good stop for our final meal out in Scotland. Both the adults and kids found some good things to eat, including some nice ice cream for dessert.

After dinner, we debated taking advantage of the late light of Scottish summer evenings and doing one last Rick Steves walk in New Town, but we could tell the kids would probably rather just go back and relax in the room, so we listened to our parenting side over our traveler side and called it a night.

The next morning, we got the breakfast at the hostel which was included in our rooming package – called the “Wee Breakfast,” it was your standard continental breakfast of cereals and breads with some fruit. Each hostel did it slightly differently. The main difference at Edinburgh Central was that we had to fight through swarms of other travelers trying to eat at the same time – it’s a big and popular hostel. After fueling up, we caught the tram to Waverley Station, where we caught a high-speed train to London. We would spend the night there and then catch our flight back to the US the next day!