The Trip of a Lifetime

Scotland | Aug 26 - Sep 12, 2025

There will be stairs. You can't get around them but they're worth it for the excellent service and great food. The location is directly across the street from the steam engine trip and within walking distance of everything.

It's a great old house with a wing where you can get a ground floor room-- no stairs! The real jewel here is the staff. They are warm, lovely people who make you feel very welcome.

I felt like I was staying with friends. The Hawthornes are incredibly kind and welcoming people. Please do ask to meet the canine family members. They're lovely.

We had only 1 night here. I wish we'd had more. We had room 3, on the corner with the most amazing view. Do check out Highland Pottery just up the hill.

Parking was incredibly difficult but worth it. They did an amazing job with the remodel. Again, you're going to have stairs and there's no getting around that. The food was fantastic, so make reservations for dinner ahead of time.

We had one night here. I would've liked more. It's directly in the city center, right off the river. You can walk to lots of things and the train is an easy walk.

This one was my favorite. We had a suite and our windows in the sitting room looked out on High Street while the windows in the bedroom looked on the castle and the old church. Lots of stairs, be warned. 100% worth every bit of it. We were here for 4 days; I wanted to move in permanently.

The reception desk was hard to find. The vibe was for a much younger crowd than us. We had room 16. The lampshade was broken. The lights weren't dimmable so they flickered. One of the chairs had a broken bottom. The mini-bar was ridiculous. And worst of all, we were charged double for our stay. This was the only hotel I wouldn't stay at again. The high points were the breakfast staff, housekeeping, and the bartender.

This was a great way to start our trip.

Lots of narrow spiral stairs. Beautiful view of Stirling Castle and the river.

It's a necessary trip. Consider it a a pilgrimage, even if it is sad. It's a beautiful field watered with a lot of blood over a family feud between cousins.

We got there late for our original boat ride so the folks there worked out something better. We did the cruise and then got tickets for the castle at our own pace. It took of all of the pressure to do the castle within the time allotted.

Christina: Kieran was an amazingly knowledgeable and personable guide. I can't recommend him enough. There was so much here! Skara Brea was closed for high winds so we went to Gurness instead and I'm glad for it. We saw the Italian cathedral which showed the incredible talent of the Italian prisoners of war, and this is where I saw the Highland cows in person. We went to St Magnus Cathedral and it's as fine as any other I've seen anywhere.

I like whiskey so I truly enjoyed this. My husband is more a rum drinker. Our tour guide was great, I loved the look behind the scenes, and the whiskey was good.

We had fun on this one. Our tour guide, Veni, was great. After 2.5 weeks of tromping up and down castle stairs and hills and so forth, I was able to keep up. I'm definitely in better shape now than I was before this trip.

See the Welcome to Orkney review.

Scotland is just a ridiculously beautiful country. Point your camera anywhere and you'll get a beautiful photo. Loch Lomond was no exception. We went to the church yard to see the Viking burial. That was very cool.

This was not exactly what I thought. I thought we'd be going to the top of yr Wyddfa, but this was a van ride around the area, hitting 4 castles along the way. By this time, I was pretty much castled out, having realized that unless you were into castle design, one castle was pretty much the same as another. However, this one had a Welsh designed castle which was very different and the guide was very nice.

We missed the Summer Islands. A road closure/construction in Castletown made us look for an alternate route. The GPS, bless it, sent us down a two-way one lane road for 80mi. One we realized we weren't going to make it, we called and canceled (no refund) and relaxed and took our time. We ended up at Dunrobin castle in Goldspie. Sometimes going off script is better. Once you get to Ullapool, check out Highland Pottery.