My Tour of Scotland: Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye

My second weekend in the UK, I took a train to Edinburgh for an incredible tour of Scotland with Haggis Adventures. I was nervous when planning it because, (1) it felt like I would hardly be able to adjust to London before it would be time to pack up and travel, (2) I had to write an eight-page research paper in three days before I left, and (3) I was going by myself. Despite my worries, I had the best weekend! Scotland, especially the highlands, is beautiful, with a unique culture and heritage, and I think everyone who can should visit!

The three-day tour was focused on the Isle of Skye, a beautiful and popular island in the west of Scotland. I traveled to Edinburgh Friday morning and spent the day exploring by myself, then the tour started early Saturday morning. We drove across Scotland to Skye, spent two nights in Portree on the island, and drove back to Edinburgh the last day, seeing many beautiful sights along the entire way. Our driver and guide kept us entertained by telling us about Scottish history, the landscape around us, and fun trivia like filming locations. I would definitely recommend Haggis Adventures (the tour I did was the “Skye High” three-day tour). This trip was my first real solo traveling experience, and I enjoyed it a lot! I also stayed in a hostel for the first time - I didn’t sleep much the first night, but I adjusted well enough. 

One of my favorite parts of the trip was finding travel buddies to hang out with on the tour. I’m an independent person and I know what I want, and I didn’t necessarily expect to find people I meshed with on the trip. I usually don’t make friends quickly either. However, I hit the travel buddy jackpot when I met two solo travelers from Australia at the very beginning of the tour. We were all different - besides the nationality difference, we were all in different stages of life, and both of them were older than me - but it worked well. We had many memorable experiences, such as trying Mackie’s chocolate and Irn Bru soda, eating lunch by Loch Ness, wandering around picturesque Portree, and criss-crossing the town to try to find a restaurant that wasn’t full. I also appreciated the times when we split up, each of us wandering off to explore whatever we were interested in. At the end of the trip, I honestly felt sad to leave the Scottish highlands and to part from my new friends. 

My top sights in Scotland

I had many favorite sites in Scotland, so it’s hard to pick my top ones, but here are a few that I particularly enjoyed. 

First, my Edinburgh list. Edinburgh is a relatively small city, unlike London, so you can see a lot of the main tourist sites in a day without having to walk too far.

• Calton Hill - A beautiful park not far from the city center with landmarks, memorials, and an art museum on the top. The views were my favorite part - probably the best I saw anywhere!
   

• Victoria Street -  cute colorful shops, supposedly inspiring Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. I wandered down this during my evening in Edinburgh. It also has a Knoops, which sells chocolate drinks in a huge variety of percentages. (I thoroughly enjoyed it) 
• Princes Street Gardens - These gardens are down in a former loch close to where Edinburgh Castle sits on the hill. There are great views of the castle and it’s a pretty park! You can also see the world’s first flower clock, if you’re interested. 

• Thomas Riddell’s and William McGonagall’s graves - These were famously the inspiration from some of JK Rowling’s character names. I had a hard time finding them, but if you wander around looking for the spots where the fence allows you to stand right in front of the plaque, you’ve found them. 
• The Elephant House cafe -  This cafe is where JK Rowling spent a lot of time writing the Harry Potter books. The original was closed because of a fire when I visited, but they’ve opened a new location on Victoria Street. 

Isle of Skye and the Scottish Highlands list 

• Glencoe - a valley or “glen” with many beautiful mountains surrounding it. We didn’t stop there, but I got amazing pictures even out the bus window! It was incredible and I’d love to hike there.

• Cuillin Mountains - I love mountains, so I’m probably biased, but this mountain range on Skye was impressive and beautiful. We stopped at a scenic spot near the meeting of the black and red Cuillins. I couldn’t see the difference on the map, but apparently some are composed of black rock and the others are red rock, so they’re different. 

• Portree - the town on Skye where we stayed. It was a cute, quiet little town, but there were so many tourists there that we tried about five different restaurants Sunday night before we found a restaurant that wasn’t full! The colorful houses, the view, the cute pub with decor celebrating traditional Scottish culture, the really good fish and chips, the gift shops with amazing local arts and crafts - it was all lovely.
• Dunvegan castle - the home of the MacLeod clan chief for centuries, even today. The castle was pretty and had lots of history on the inside. It had beautiful gardens as well. Learning some of the history of Scotland was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I learned about the Gaelic language, which only 1% of Scots now speak, and about efforts to rewild the ancient Scottish forest that used to cover much of the landscape. I also discovered that Bonny Prince Charlie - Charles Edward Stuart - and Mary Queen of Scots are huge heroes.
• Taste Perthshire - We didn’t eat anything here, but we did see some cute highland cows (or “coos”) and a sheep! You can even feed the cows, and they love it! A bit touristy, but it was cool to see them up close. 

• Riding the “Hogwarts Express” - as part of our tour, we had the option to take a train ride along much of the route filmed in the Harry Potter movies, pulled by a Jacobite steam train very similar to the Hogwarts Express. It goes across the viaduct featured in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (when Ron and Harry catch up to the train in the flying car), which was very cool to see. It was raining while we rode the train, so it was a little hard to see the scenic view, but it was still cool. I got to eat a chocolate frog from a trolley too! Thankfully, it didn’t jump out the window.

Visiting Scotland was an amazing four days. It was  one of the best trips of my life and I can’t wait to go back!