Edinburgh or Glasgow for Central Place to Stay in Scotland

[4cordelia]

We are a family of 4 adults traveling to Scotland prior to the cruise.   Trying to figure if Edinburgh or Glasgow is a better "central home location" for doing day trips to Highlands, Isle of Skye, Loch Ness, Loch Lomand, Blarney Castle, Stirling Castle, Jacobite Train (Harry Potter train ride) Trossachs, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. We would prefer to not have to change hotels and stay in a central location.  Other options? 

 

Thank You!

 

 

[Cotswold Eagle]

I’ll defer to our Scottish friends for more definitive advice, but my instinct from your list is Glasgow would be best of the two (not necessarily best in the absolute). How do you intend to travel around?

 

But I can definitely tell you neither Glasgow nor Edinburgh is particularly convenient for Blarney, which you will find in the south-west of the Republic of Ireland....

[Globaliser]

10 hours ago, 4cordelia said:

Trying to figure if Edinburgh or Glasgow is a better "central home location" for doing day trips to Highlands, Isle of Skye, Loch Ness, Loch Lomand, Blarney Castle, Stirling Castle, Jacobite Train (Harry Potter train ride) Trossachs, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. We would prefer to not have to change hotels and stay in a central location.

 

I agree with Cotswold Eagle, and add that some of this is really not going to work even from Glasgow if your intention is to use it as a central location for day trips. The Isle of Skye is a 6-hour drive from Glasgow, Loch Ness is a 4-hour drive, and Fort William (where I think the Jacobite Train starts) is 3 hours away. Also, "the Highlands" is a pretty nebulous concept, and much depends on exactly what you mean by it and where you want to go; strictly speaking, "the Highlands" is half of Scotland, and half of "the Highlands" are beyond Loch Ness.

[FSU Girl]

I just came back from my honeymoon where I planned a land trip to England and Scotland. Originally was going to do a cruise and then changed my mind. We did pretty much exactly what you want to do. 

 

We stayed in Edinburgh for a week, like you I didn’t want to change hotels and instead have a home base. We stayed at the Hilton Carlton just off the Royal Mile it was a great location to everything. 

 

For getting around Scotland I booked multiple one-day tours. I’m sure you could take trains or drive and do things on your own, but we really liked having the tour companies take us everywhere. I had never booked a tour outside of a cruise before and was a little apprehensive, but they were all fantastic. 

 

We used Rabbies and Highland Explorer Tours. They had options for multi day trips, but we only did one day tours. It was nice coming back to the city and the same room every night. 

 

We went to the highlands, saw a ton of castles including Stirling Castle. We also went to the borders, into England (actually walked into the country that was fun) and visited Alnwick Castle where Harry Potter was filmed, gorgeous castle. Did hiking, saw waterfalls, went to St. Andrews and did a tour of a working whiskey distillery. Was a fantastic week I loved each tour we did with both companies. Rabbies only uses small buses of no more than 16 people and Highland Explorer Tours were slightly larger with around 30 people. Some days had smaller or larger groups, but both companies guarantee you will go no matter how many actually sign up. 

 

For Loch Ness I wouldn’t do it. It’s really far from either Glasgow or Edinburgh and if you are doing it in a day you’ll spend the majority of your day getting there and back. We were going to originally until I realized almost all complaints for these companies were for this specific tour and how much time is spent on the bus and how little actually there. 

 

If you have any other questions let me know, I just got home from the trip so it’s all still fresh in my mind

[Cotswold Eagle]

1 hour ago, FSU Girl said:

 We did pretty much exactly what you want to do. 

 

 

That’s really good advice for the OP on what is realistic from Edinburgh (and Glasgow to an extent), thank you. Sounds like a great week. 

 

But it excludes Isle of Skye, Loch Ness, Blarney Castle, and the Jacobite Train from their original list, and we don’t know what is most important to them. Which reinforces the point Globaliser and I made 🙂

[tartanexile81]

On 5/25/2019 at 1:03 AM, 4cordelia said:

We are a family of 4 adults traveling to Scotland prior to the cruise.   Trying to figure if Edinburgh or Glasgow is a better "central home location" for doing day trips to Highlands, Isle of Skye, Loch Ness, Loch Lomand, Blarney Castle, Stirling Castle, Jacobite Train (Harry Potter train ride) Trossachs, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. We would prefer to not have to change hotels and stay in a central location.  Other options? 

 

Thank You!

 

 

 

Hello 4cordelia, Well as a local I am always going to recommend Edinburgh and certainly, as others have said, it would be quite possible to visit some of the places you mention as day tours.  Edinburgh is such  good base for you because it is so geared up to tourists and is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

 

 The Highlands is a generic tourist area  and from Edinburgh you could certainly visit the Trossachs in the Perthshire Highlands and Loch Lomond in a day using one of the companies already mentioned or others highly rated on TripAdvisor. You could also combine a visit to Stirling with Falkirk to see the Falkirk Wheel and Kelpies.  If you were keen to see Loch Ness there are day tours there also from Edinburgh. It will be very long but you would go to Glen Coe which I love and the Cairngorms, both with high (for the UK) mountain ranges! One example https://www.rabbies.com/en/scotland-tours/from-edinburgh/day-tours/loch-ness-glencoe-highlands-day-tour. Glasgow is a short train ride from Edinburgh and you could easily spend a day there. I'd highly recommend The People's Palace, The Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum and the Hunterian Museum with the Charles Rennie Mackintosh house.

 

I'm afraid you really will have to move North if you want to visit the Isle of Skye and do the Jacobite train. 

[4cordelia]

Thank You so much everyone for the awesome itineraries and suggestions.  I forgot my geography and included Blarney in the Scotland list.  That's now on  the Ireland must sees.  Thanks for helping me figure that out!

It looks like we will be staying in Edinburgh and using points at the Marriott.   What would we all do without Tripadvisor and our friends on CruiseCritic!  I've already looked at several day trips and multi day trips.Scotland is beautiful and unique.   Other great perk of Marriott is they will store your luggage for a day while you are away and check you back in upon returning. 

This year's trip will be easier to plan as we can just add more days before the cruise to fit in all of our must sees and just relax days.   So nice to not have a time constraint. 

Cheers Everyone and Happy Planning

[djh1959]

We had our first trip to Scotland last year and like the poster above, we spent five nights at the Hilton Carlton near the Royal Mile.

 

We loved our time in Edinburgh and visited the Royal Yacht, Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument by ourselves on train and bus.  We also hired a private driver for a day trip throughout the West Highlands which was fantastic.  The driver then dropped us in Glasgow, where we spent a further three nights.

 

Really one longish day would have been plenty for Glasgow.  We really didn't enjoy the city that much and ended up quite bored by the last day.  We would have been much better spending the extra time in Edinburgh and simply doing a day trip to Glasgow.

 

I hope I haven't offended any Glaswegians here, but that was our personal opinion.  Having said that, we found lots of great restaurants in Glasgow, lots of shopping (but I hate shopping!), and the people were lovely and friendly.

[CanEcosse]

Did you answer the question as to how you intend to travel around Scotland? If it is by car, I would not recommend either Edinburgh or Glasgow. Like any big city they are congested and difficult to get in and out of.

I would recommend STIRLING. Central location, easier driving. Good train connections to Glasgow and Edinburgh if you want to visit the cities.

 

[Host Bonjour]

You'll be thrilled in Edinburgh and as Tartan mentioned, you can always do a day trip to Glasgow if you wish. We had a member here, and on our sister site, Independent Traveler, whose tag line after her signature was "If you've seen everything, you've seen nothing" and so while I can understand the enthusiasm one feels to see a lot when one travels, I also (eventually) learned that trying to see or do too much on a trip can detract from all that one sees and therefore negate the effect of having seen anything at all.

 

Being based in Edinburgh, you have access to so many wonderful parts of Scotland (well, it's ALL wonderful!) as well as an incredible home base. I used Rabbie's too, they were wonderful and made the experience better than I could have imagined because I'm not usually one for taking tours but I know my place when it comes to opposite side driving with manual transmission on small, winding, hilly roads - do not attempt. But it also frees me to see the distinctive beauty and magical look of Scotland. 

 

You will have an incredible experience. Everyone always comes through here on CC!

[LuckyStar]

On 5/26/2019 at 9:14 AM, FSU Girl said:

I just came back from my honeymoon where I planned a land trip to England and Scotland. Originally was going to do a cruise and then changed my mind. We did pretty much exactly what you want to do. 

 

We stayed in Edinburgh for a week, like you I didn’t want to change hotels and instead have a home base. We stayed at the Hilton Carlton just off the Royal Mile it was a great location to everything. 

 

For getting around Scotland I booked multiple one-day tours. I’m sure you could take trains or drive and do things on your own, but we really liked having the tour companies take us everywhere. I had never booked a tour outside of a cruise before and was a little apprehensive, but they were all fantastic. 

 

We used Rabbies and Highland Explorer Tours. They had options for multi day trips, but we only did one day tours. It was nice coming back to the city and the same room every night. 

 

We went to the highlands, saw a ton of castles including Stirling Castle. We also went to the borders, into England (actually walked into the country that was fun) and visited Alnwick Castle where Harry Potter was filmed, gorgeous castle. Did hiking, saw waterfalls, went to St. Andrews and did a tour of a working whiskey distillery. Was a fantastic week I loved each tour we did with both companies. Rabbies only uses small buses of no more than 16 people and Highland Explorer Tours were slightly larger with around 30 people. Some days had smaller or larger groups, but both companies guarantee you will go no matter how many actually sign up. 

 

For Loch Ness I wouldn’t do it. It’s really far from either Glasgow or Edinburgh and if you are doing it in a day you’ll spend the majority of your day getting there and back. We were going to originally until I realized almost all complaints for these companies were for this specific tour and how much time is spent on the bus and how little actually there. 

 

If you have any other questions let me know, I just got home from the trip so it’s all still fresh in my mind

So glad I found your post.  We are looking at Scotland/Ireland for a month next Summer and I have checked out Rabbies and will check out Highland Explorer.  Did you all rent a car at all?  

 

[FSU Girl]

42 minutes ago, LuckyStar said:

So glad I found your post.  We are looking at Scotland/Ireland for a month next Summer and I have checked out Rabbies and will check out Highland Explorer.  Did you all rent a car at all?  

 

I started a travel blog where I’m writing about my trip if you’d like to read it. Travelswithalysia.com 

 

We didn’t rent a car, figured it would be complicated driving on the other side of the road. We took the train from London to Edinburgh. We found the city of Edinburgh very walkable everywhere. For the rest of Scotland we saw it by the tours. Their train system seems very easy to use to get to other cities in Scotland if we didn’t do tours I would have done it that way. 

 

I know Rabbies has some tours in Ireland as well I’ve looked into them if we ever go there.