Don't Do This In Scotland! Mistakes When You Travel To The Scottish Highlands

Don't Do This In Scotland! Mistakes When You Travel To The Scottish Highlands

Thanks for watching our Scotland travel guide. We hope it is helpful as you are looking for Scotland road trip ideas. We also have a Scottish Highlands tour and Scotland road trip itinerary online.

Summer is the best time to visit Scotland, but make sure you book your rooms early! The biggest of our Scotland travel tips is that rooms can sell out a year in advance. In our Scotland travel vlog and Scotland road trip guide you can see where we stayed, a pod near Eilean Donan Castle.

We visited Isle of Skye Scotland and Glencoe Scotland on our trip.

Thanks for watching our Scotland travel diary.

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[brianmacdonald]

I'm scottish from the Highlands and like to say there are plenty passing places, you say cutouts, on single roads! The car that arrives first goes into the passing to let the other car pass by! Tourists who don't know this etiquette or not brought up to this are the dangerous ones!

[kumasenlac]

9:51 Particularly in the Highlands, Brits have a work/life balance which is biased to life rather than work.
12:57 Eat a relaxed meal in late afternoon/early evening and enjoy the gloaming and sunsets.
13:15 Given that sunset in the summer is close 11:00 p.m. - go eat then wander round. The sunsets are fantastic...

[cmykategirl]

WONDERFUL tips, guys!

My biggest piece of advice is that the most important thing you can pack is patience. You’ll be so much more relaxed if you let other harried, busy groups go in front of you and let the locals get on with their day. You are vacationing and giving others space gives you times to soak it up in peace.

Just taking your time on those roads and carefully moving out of the others ways is important. Pay attention to your laybys so you can backup if necessary.

[sukottora]

Single track roads are fine when you get used to them.. There is almost never a coming together - a lot of it comes down to timing. Don't stress too much though we can usually spot the tourists and we will cut you a little slack - unless we are having a really bad day.

(We also have a big list where we write down the names of everyone who pronounces Edinburgh as EdinBURG or EdinBRO it is pronounced EdinBRAH so watch out!)

Glad you have a good time.

[iancampbell]

I found placing a sticker in the form of an arrow, pointing left on the windscreen, to be a very effective reminder of which side of the road to be on. It only takes a moment of confusion for instinct to cut in which could be potentially disastrous

[dwalker]

Good information thank you for sharing onto the next video

[justinfeldman]

1. Book accommodation well in advance
2. Book an automatic car if you're not comfortable with manuals + get insurance (there are a lot of 1 way roads)
3. Grocery stores are cheap - pack picnics
4. Take a drone with to catch great landscape footage
5. Most places/tourist attractions get emptier in the late afternoon

[morganmcgregor]

I'm watching a lot of these videos and realising I'm not going to have much trouble in Scotland because all its quirks we have in New Zealand once you get out of the city hahaha

[rachelbudelsky]

All of these ideas were fantastic! Thank you so much. So glad we watched this before traveling.

[hrvjp]

Thank you so much for all the useful advice. We plan to visit the Isle of Skye in September. I was surprised to find that many hotels were already fully booked, even though I booked a hotel four months in advance. Glad we booked early. We also have to be careful about procuring food. The only good thing is that we are Japanese, so we are used to driving on the left side. Thank you.

[lisawiehe]

I’ve driven over 4000 miles in Scotland as an American, and it takes several days to acclimate to the driving on right side of car on the left side of road. Parking is also a challenge when sitting on the right side of the car. It’s best to have someone sitting up front that will keep an eye out for hazards and slip ups with staying in the correct side of the road and even with speeding or doing any unsafe maneuvers. You’ll be coming into a lot of small towns where the speed is reduced greatly and there are speed traps with cameras everywhere. I have received speeding tickets from driving there before and it took about six weeks for them to come through my Hertz rental company to me when I was back home in the states. So be very aware of the speed in which you’re traveling in the speed marked on the road because they will send you a ticket in the mail.

[donhathaway]

Highlands and Islands of Scotland are extremely beautiful. It really is a very compact area for the amount of visitors they get. I was lucky enough to fulfill a lifelong wish to visit family spots in the highlands but, didn’t have time to visit the outer Hebrides which was where my MacDonald family side emigrated to America from. Also, we went in September to avoid crowds but, most everything is closed by then.

[Parkhopper]

Hey Guys, we love your channel. We took our first Amtrak trip in June 2021 from Chicago to LA (Southwest Chief). We loved it. haha, my wife said 'we'll know if the first 10 minutes if this was the best or worst decision of our lives'. We're planning a Scotland trip and stumbled over this video - very helpful.

[scottdunham]

Thank you those were great tips. We are heading to those areas in June

[Jonboyx]

Most Pubs (public houses), inns and hotels will serve meals at lunch time or in the evenings.

[AnneMB]

Sat nav is our friend when navigating roundabouts. On the one lane roads there are cutouts regularly. The polite way is for the vehicle closest to the cutout gives way to the oncoming car. Always acknowledge each other. Thx for all these pointers. We’re going back to UK in October from Australia. 🇦🇺 This vid adds to the excited anticipation. 👋🏻

[jenniferb.]

Thank you SO much for this information!! I've been to Scotland years ago but it was on a guided tour. I'm planning a trip now and I'm trying to decide if I will drive or not. Very valuable information! Thank you!

[lisawiehe]

Bicyclists are also riding on all roads, no matter how remote those roads are. You’ll come over a hill and a bike will be there. You have to just slow down and wait for the ability to pass them. Be patient. Don’t crowd them and put them in a position where they could be hit or run off the road.

[kerrythompson]

We toured Scotland in June this year, but I didn't see this video until now. I didn't take my drone, I wish I had seen the video and found a spot in my luggage for my tiny drone!

We stayed almost exclusively in AirBnBs, which was great. But yes, they were booked well in advance of the trip. We were a "large" group, 9 people in two cars, so we rented houses in Conwy, Glencoe, and the Inverness area, and that aspect of the trip was awesome.

The biggest driving challenge for me as an American in Scotland was keeping the car properly centered in the lane, especially on curves on the narrow roads around Glencoe (with 60 mph speed limits - it can be intimidating to have a truck on your rear bumper and a tour bus coming at you at 60 mph that seems to be touching the lines on both sides of its lane!). After a couple of days I figured out that if I consciously looked at where I wanted the right side wheels of the car to go - the right side of the lane - all was well and I stopped hitting curbs and going off the left side of the pavement. (I figured out that I was unconsciously looking at the left side of the lane, which is how I drive here at home. 🙂)


Be aware that Scotland is about as far north as Alaska, so there is a lot of variation in the length of the day depending on the season. In June we were seeing sunrise at 4:30 AM and sunset at 10:30 PM. I can only imagine how short the days are in December!

[spaninja]

Glad I've stumbled on this one. I want to visit Scotland soon and Eilean Donan is on my list.