My Travellogue: Tips for Visiting Scotland.

Having been visited Scotland 3 times in different weather conditions, one in Peak Winter (Christmas time), Start of Spring (April) and Mid Summer (July), I would like to provide my 2 cents of advice for any future visitors.

Point to Note: My trips are all planned from London. As i stay in london.
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Travel: Best option to book your tickets is by National Express Bus. www.nationalexpress.com. If planned well advance, you can get tickets for as cheap as 1 or 5 GBP per head one way.

Stay: Always plan your stay to be based out of Edinburgh. In Edinburgh the B&B/Hotels cost between 30-60 GBP Per person per night. You can search many B&B in this – http://www.visitscotland.com/. It depends on the time of your travel (summer/long weekend). I would suggest you to go for Serviced Apartments rather than B&B’s (In case you are family 3-4 or more). Most of the times, you may find Apartments come for much cheaper prices than B&B’s. One of the guys with whom i stayed was http://www.scottishapartments.com/. Last time i stayed, the Apartment is in Royal Mile (Main Tourist Street - All attractions are in that Street) with my views of St. Giles Cathedral from My Bedroom Windows. It was excellent..

Tours: For Highlands’s tour, Best option, i would prefer is rabbies tour. I would suggest 2-day Tour of LOCH NESS & INVERNESS HIGHLAND. I have been on this in Christmas ’08. It was worth it. You can look out for many other tours by rabbies. But would suggest rabbies only rather than any other, as the tour guide/driver was pretty good and also the tour is very well planned giving us time everywhere and above all this – its 16 member (max) van. So makes difference!!!
http://www.rabbies.com/index.asp

In the event that you have only time for a 1 day tour- then any operator should be fine. As the third time i have been to scotland, i booked for 1 day Highlands tour from rabbies. It was OK.
If you have time, Visit Isle of Arran as well. It is good place to visit (Of course in summer). For this you may have to catch a ferry/train from Glasgow). I have not gone to this place, but heard it’s a nice place. http://www.visitarran.net/

Of course, over all of this, dont miss visiting Scotch Whisky Distilleries as part of your trip. Its worth it. And i would say, Visiting Scotland without getting to know about Scotch Whisky is Only Half-complete. :-)