driving in Scotland

In the summer of 2024, we took a trip to Scotland with our two children, ages six and three. After a longer than expected journey getting there, and two nights in Edinburgh, we rented a car and took a road trip through the Highlands.

Glencoe

After checking out of the hostel in Oban, we drove north along the coast. Our next stop was Glencoe (also written as Glen Coe), a beautiful valley in the Scottish Highlands. If you have watched Outlander, you have seen this beautiful area in the opening credits. There is a highway that provides for a scenic drive through the valley and a number of hiking opportunities along the way.

We stopped at the Visitor Centre to get more information about the area and what hikes would be best to do with kids. They also had a reconstruction of a 17th-century turf house showing what life was like in that era.

Nice views of Glencoe from the turf house

The rain seemed to have cleared slightly, so we next did the nearby Signal Rock hike. It involved some mild up and down through a (planted) conifer forest. There was lots of mud and some puddles we had to help the kids get around. The rock itself is now surrounded by trees, so you don’t get the visibility you would have had when it was supposedly used to signal the start of the Glencoe Massacre. It did start raining again on our walk back so we tried to move quickly.

For lunch, we stopped at the recommended restaurant of the nearby Clachaig Inn. We were impressed that even with a number of other visitors our food came quickly. We were also excited to hear that the music that they were playing matched many of the songs on our road trip soundtrack.

After the welcome chance to dry off and warm up, we got back in the car, cranked up the Outlander theme song, and drove the scenic road through Glencoe. The views did not disappoint!

We stopped at the Three Sisters Viewpoint where there are great views across at the Three Sisters mountains, plus up and down the valley.

We stopped one other place where Rick Steves had recommended a hike, but it seemed too windy to be enjoyable. We did get some great views from the parking area though.

Once we got to an area called Rannoch Moor, the hills flattened out. We turned around and drove back through Glencoe, getting to see the beautiful valley coming from the opposite direction.

We stopped at one more overlook, but had to take turns getting out because our younger kid had fallen asleep.

Glenfinnan

After driving back through Glencoe, we got back on the bigger coastal highway and continued north through the town of Fort William (and its many roundabouts). Our next destination was the Glenfinnan Monument. This is again another location of particular significance to fans of Outlander. The monument marks the spot where Charles Edward Stuart (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”) landed in Scotland in 1745 to start the 1745 Jacobite Rising – the conflict featured in the novel and show.

Before checking out the monument, we walked over to see the attraction that perhaps draws even more visitors to the area: the Glenfinnan Viaduct. This expansive railway viaduct was popularized when it was used as a filming location in the Harry Potter films as part of the tracks that the train to Hogwarts takes. There is a steam train for tourists that makes a few trips daily over the viaduct, and it has become a very popular destination for fans looking to get a picture. We debated trying to see it, but we would have either had to cut our time in Glencoe short or arrive late to our hotel in the evening, and we ultimately decided it wasn’t worth fighting the crowds anyway.

Next, we learned more about the monument in the small visitor centre, and then walked across the road to walk around the monument. The Highlander soldier at the top seems especially evocative.

To wrap up our time, we took a short trail up to a viewpoint with good views of both of these attractions.

Arisaig

When we were putting together our road trip itinerary, the toughest puzzle was figuring out where to stay between Oban and Skye. We thought about staying near Glenfinnan itself, but there aren’t any budget options near there. Ultimately we had the revelation that it might be good to stay as close to Skye as possible so that we could spend as much time as possible there the next day. With that goal in mind, we looked near the port of Mallaig where we could catch the ferry the next morning. We found a reasonably priced hotel in the town of Arisaig.

The drive from Glenfinnan to Arisaig along the “Road to the Isles” was quite scenic. The sun came out and made for nice views over the water. We could see the train tracks for most of the way too, and we even briefly saw the steam “Harry Potter” train when we went under it on a bridge – too quickly for pictures unfortunately.

We stayed in the Arisaig Hotel in one of the family rooms with bunk beds for the kids (booked directly with them). We had a nice dinner at the attached restaurant (making sure to make reservations ahead of time because it was quite popular). Probably our favorite feature came the next morning: our room rate included a full Scottish breakfast! The adults really enjoyed getting to try some of the specialties including blood sausage.

Over the Sea to Skye

Merry of soul s/he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.

The line above is from both the Outlander theme song and the poem/song it is based on, the Skye Boat Song. It is describing Bonnie Prince Charlie escaping on a boat over to the Isle of Skye after the defeat of the Jacobite Rising. It was interesting for us to make the same journey just a day after seeing the monument to the beginning of the Rising.

We had pre-booked the ferry to Skye out of Mallaig for the 9:00 sailing. The breakfast at the Arisaig Hotel would only be served starting at 7:45, so we made sure to be all packed up and at the breakfast area right at the beginning. From there it was only a ten minute drive to the ferry terminal, and we ended up making it on time.

The ferry was run by the same company we had seen in Oban, Caledonian MacBrayne. We drove our car onto the ferry, then got out and headed up to the observation area. The sun came out so we spent most of the ride out on the deck, watching mainland Scotland recede just as Bonnie Prince Charlie had.

Skye: Portree

The ferry from Mallaig goes to the town of Armadale on the Isle of Skye. Here we drove off of the ferry and then drove up the large island to its largest town, Portree. This scenic drive took about an hour and a half.

In Portree we parked in a public lot in the main square and then got out and explored the town. We explored some souvenir shops and walked up to a viewpoint to get a nice view of the harbor and the colorful houses lining it. On the way back we stopped at a cafe for a hot drink and some snacks. The kids also had fun chatting with a talkative local.

Skye: Trotternish Peninsula

We got back in the car and started our trip around the scenic Trotternish peninsula north of Portree. We used the Rick Steves guide to help us figure out which of the places along the loop to get out of the car and see.

Unfortunately, the weather was not very cooperative, so we didn’t linger at many of the stops. We didn’t get out at the trailhead for the Old Man of Storr (rock formation) because we couldn’t even see it. We made brief stops at the overlooks for Lealt Falls and Kilt Rock.

The Old Man of Storr is back there somewhere

We drove on a smaller road off of the main path to get to An Corran beach. We had been interested to come here because there are dinosaur footprints you can supposedly see when the tide is right. A sign on the beach confirmed that they were there, but did not give great directions as to how to find them. The adults scrambled over the slippery rocks to try their best to spot them, but the kids were more than happy to just play in the black sand. The rain let up a bit as well so we ended up spending a while here.

The rain returned as we got back to the car, so we decided to eat our lunch (of picnic supplies purchased in Portree) in the car.

Our next stop was The Quirang, a series of rock formations in the center of the isle, accessible via a somewhat steep single-track road. We had been looking forward to viewing and maybe even hiking in this area that looks so scenic on the cover of the Rick Steves guide, but blowing clouds and rain in huge winds meant that we didn’t want to do much more than get out for a few pictures.

It took us a while to drive down from the area – this was the incident we mentioned in the Driving in Scotland discussion where someone coming up ignored the rules of the single-track road and never pulled over. A car coming down had to keep backing up in front of them something like half a mile until we and some others helped work the puzzle for how to squeeze them into a passing place.

We continued on around the peninsula loop. Due to the weather we didn’t think it was worth it to get out, so we just enjoyed the views from the mostly single-track road.

Single-track road, Trotternish peninsula. Note that we shouldn’t use the closest passing place because it is on the right!

Skye: Broadford

When searching on our own, we had a hard time finding any place reasonable to stay on Skye. Thankfully, the staff at Hostelling Scotland was able to book us a room at their hostel in Broadford on the island. We had a private room with two bunk beds. One downside was that we did not have an ensuite bathroom, so we had to walk down the hall for toilets or showers. However, the kids did fine with this and overall we enjoyed our short one night stay.

For dinner, we took a short walk into town to Cafe Sia. We all enjoyed the pizza, and the kids also appreciated that theirs came with ice cream.

This was a nice way to wrap up our two days traveling along the coast, both on the mainland and the Isle of Skye. The next morning we would head back to the mainland to Loch Ness and Inverness!

Itinerary

We mostly based our itinerary on what Rick Steves recommends here, with some modifications for what we thought would be most interesting for our family. Along the way, we almost exclusively stayed in hostels run by Hostelling Scotland, which were nice, affordable options for our family of four. We also found it easy to work with them to book all of our stops ahead of time.

Day 1: Pick up car and drive to Stirling. Visit Stirling Castle. Drive to Oban and spend two nights there.
Day 2: Sightseeing in Oban. If the weather cooperates, consider a trip to the islands of Mull and Iona.
Day 3: Drive from Oban to Glencoe. Explore the scenic valley and do some hiking. Drive on to Glenfinnan and visit the monument (and maybe see the steam train on the viaduct). Spend the night in Arisaig (to be near the ferry port of Mallaig).
Day 4: Catch a ferry from Mallaig to the Isle of Skye. Drive to Portree, then around the Trotternish peninsula, stopping at scenic spots along the way. Spend the night on the island in Broadford.
Day 5: Drive off the Isle of Skye on the Skye Bridge, headed towards Inverness. Stop at Loch Ness attractions including Urquhart Castle. Arrive in Inverness. Spend two nights there.
Day 6: Explore Inverness and the surrounding area, including Culloden Battlefield.
Day 7: Leave Inverness. Head first to Nairn and play on the beach. Drive south to Newtonmore and visit the Highland Folk Museum. Spend the night in Perth.
Day 8: Drive from Perth to Edinburgh in the morning, leaving enough time to explore the city in the afternoon.

As we mentioned in previous posts, this was not exactly the original plan. We had originally planned on spending three nights in Inverness, and then on Day 8 we would have driven from Inverness all the way to Edinburgh (stopping in Newtonmore), only arriving in the afternoon/evening. Since we wanted to have more time in Edinburgh, we asked Hostelling Scotland if we could shift that last night. They didn’t have space in Edinburgh for an extra night there, but they did have a room at the hostel in Perth. Perth is only an hour away from Edinburgh, so that was our best option for spending most of the day in Edinburgh.

We rented our car from Budget, using the location that ended up being walking distance from our Edinburgh Airbnb. We were happy to see that it was the same price (and maybe a little bit cheaper) to rent in town versus having to return to the airport.

One thing to note for travelers from the US like us is that the car selections are generally smaller than in the US. You don’t find many options for large SUVs like you might be used to! We chose a Compact SUV which we thought would be fine for our family of four (and hopefully big enough in the back for the younger kid’s car seat), plus maybe a little more able to handle any rugged roads we went on. We ended up being assigned a Nissan Juke. It felt a bit more “compact” than “SUV,” but it worked fine for what we needed.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed in one of the pictures above that the car had a manual transmission. That is another thing that travelers from the US may need to be aware of: in many cases it is easier and cheaper to get manual transmission instead of automatic. Fortunately for us, Della learned to drive a manual transmission growing up and still remembers well enough to feel confident enough to do it on this trip. Another thing to consider is that in Scotland the driver sits on the right side of the car, so they have to shift with their left hand. We did have some experience driving this way on our self-drive safari so we were pretty confident we could figure it out. Unfortunately, the UK is a little more restrictive than the US in terms of allowing multiple drivers of the car. We could have added Eric as a secondary driver, but it would have added a lot to the cost, so Della said she would do all the driving.

One big decision we had to make as traveling parents was what to do about seating for the kids. Back in the US, we hadn’t felt like our six-year old was big enough to ride in a booster, so he was still in a big car seat (and obviously the three-year old was as well). You can rent car seats from the car rental company or from local services, but the cost for eight days felt like enough to buy a brand-new nice seat! We didn’t want to bring our big seats from home, so we thought about bringing along some lightweight seats we have. Still, that wasn’t a great fit because we knew at the end of the trip we would be using the London Underground and we didn’t want to lug two seats around on that no matter how lightweight they were. Finally, we came up with a hybrid plan:

For the three-year old, we would bring a lightweight car seat that was very close to reaching its expiration date, so at the end of the road trip we could just dispose of it in Edinburgh and not have to have it in London
For the six-year old, we decided to purchase the RideSafer Travel Vest, a small harness that allows the child to be securely strapped into a regular seat. This packs down very compactly, so we thought it would be great for this trip and future ones as well

When stopping for a quick photo-op, it was easier to leave the vest on rather than take it all the way off

Yet another thing for drivers from the US to consider about driving in Scotland is that the highways may be much more narrow than you are used to, especially if you live in the western US like us and are used to wide-open spaces. Scotland does have some roads that are as big as interstates, but many of what were listed as highways were much smaller two-lane roads that we were used to. They also had in many places narrow shoulders with not much room for error, tight and blind curves, and large trucks coming from the opposite direction. Yet they still had a speed limit of 60 MPH! Not to mention the fact that we were driving on the opposite side of the road that we were used to, so we missed the intrinsic feel of where to put ourselves in our lane. All that probably combined to make the locals frustrated at us not feeling comfortable driving as fast as we could be.

Tried to capture a feel for what the highways were like

If you are planning to go to the Isle of Skye or another smaller location, you need to familiarize yourself with the rules for single-track roads. These are roads where there is only one paved line which is expected to be used by drivers going both directions! You should study how to use the marked “passing places” to yield to drivers coming from the other direction, and what the rules are for which driver yields. We saw someone (almost certainly a tourist) ignore these rules on Skye and cause a huge mess for everyone else, so they are definitely important to understand.

If someone were coming from the other direction, we could have pulled into this passing place on the left to allow them to go by. Never pull into a passing place on the right!

One final thing to think about is what you want to listen to! We thought it would be fun to put together a playlist of songs from Scotland to match the beautiful scenery we were seeing – including plenty of songs from the Outlander tv show!

We hope this overview post helped to set the scene for our Scottish Highlands road trip! Next up, we will describe the different stops along the way in more detail.

Globe Gazers

Taking the time to travel round the world…