Scotland is a diverse country - from bustling cities to popular rural outposts and small towns. In planning our 10-day road trip through the Highlands and Isle of Skye, we realized we couldn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to the five different locations where we needed to book overnight accommodations. Because we have only been to this portion of the country, we cannot speak to accommodation options outside of this region.
Read MoreLocated in the charming Cairngorms National Park, tucked away in the Scottish Highlands is an absolutely fantastic bed and breakfast. We’ve stayed in countless B&Bs over the years and while many are memorable for different reasons, a much smaller number make it to our list of the top places we have stayed. Firhall Highland Bed and Breakfast is one of those special places. We kind of wish we could move in. Permanently. Is that an option?
Read MoreWanting to stay near town and avoid a lot of driving before our long flight and trek home the following day, we spoke with the B&B’s owners to get some recommendations on local hikes. We decided on Bracklinn Falls hike, which begins just a little over a mile outside of the town of Callander.
Read MoreThe ninth day of our road trip took us out of the Corpach/Fort William area, through Glencoe Valley, to the village of Luss on Loch Lomond in the Trossachs National Park and finally to the adorable town of Callander, the last stop of our trip and where we would stay for two nights.
Read MoreAlong the route, which is 42 miles out, the train passes over Glenfinnan Viaduct, makes a short stop at the Glenfinnan station, and then passes through Arisaig and culminates in Mallaig, the end of the line and a cute coastal town. Glenfinnan, in addition to being home to the picturesque viaduct, is also where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard in Scotland, the start to his march to retake his throne that would crash down a mere eight months later at Culloden Battlefield, which we had visited earlier on this trip.
Read MoreWe had seen many people recommending this site online, and it is clearly very popular with visitors. The owners of the land have set up a large, extensive mountainside gravel parking lot which is the only real place to park. I don’t recall the exact price - it wasn’t cheap but wasn’t astronomical either. Some people try parking alongside the road to avoid paying, which given the windy nature of the roads is not the safest (in my opinion), and honestly, if this private land is being used as Scottish law permits, I think the owners should have every right to profit off of it given the significant crowds.
Read MoreOur plan for the day involved taking a roughly two hour loop road around one of the peninsulas of the Isle of Skye and doing short hikes to places of interest. This loop road around the isle that can get fairly crowded at times, and there are concerns in the area of over-tourism. In our experience, there was not anything like the traffic we have heard about, but this was certainly a fairly popular area and more populated than other parts of our trip.
Read MoreToday involved a long car ride punctuated by several stops at some amazing places; the neolithic burial mounds at Clava Cairns, Culloden Battlefield for a slice of British and Jacobite history, and Loch Ness’s famous Urquhart Castle. Looking back I can’t believe we managed to pack all of this and a four hour car ride into one day!
Read MoreNo adventure in the Cairngorms would be complete without at least one good hike. After a wonderful breakfast at our B&B we headed out to the remote Glen Feshie for an excellent day spent reveling in the Scottish countryside.
Read MoreAs a couple who enjoy the outdoors, historic spots and places (Lindsey in particular really loves castles), and interesting geology, Scotland has long been on our list of places to visit. We also both have ancestors from the country, which always piques our interest in checking out a place.
Read MoreI have always loved Ireland for its beauty, history, and accents. In the 1870s my great-great grandmother and grandfather emigrated (likely separately) from County Cork, Ireland, to San Francisco, California, where they married. So, for my first trip abroad, it’s no wonder that Ireland topped my list.
Read MoreTen days in Iceland is just enough to make it around the country’s famous Ring Road. This overview goes over the basics of our trip.
Read MoreWe booked our flight on Icelandair in September 2017, about 9 months before our June-July 2018 trip. We planned to arrive a little before midnight and spend two nights in Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavik. But, as we’ve experienced before, the risk of booking a flight so far in advance is that the airlines may shift their schedules. A few months before our trip, we learned that our flight had shifted to being a red-eye, getting us in the following morning at 6:30am local time. We contacted our Airbnb hosts, who had no problem with the delayed check-in.
Read MoreFrom Reykjavik we headed toward our first destination of the day, Þingvellir National Park. The most densely packed tourist spots on our trip were during this day. While we didn’t complete the so-called Golden Circle just outside of Reykjavik (ours was more of a Golden Half-Circle), the stops along the way are very popular for individuals and tour buses taking day trips from Reykjavik. Getting photos without inadvertent photo bombers was ranged from quite tricky to entirely impossible.
Read MoreAfter a quick run to Hvolsvöllur for some basic groceries at Krónan grocery store, we headed to the shore to catch a ferry from Landeyjahöfn to Heimaey, the only inhabited island of Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands).
Read MoreWaving goodbye to the cute cottage that was our temporary home and to the Icelandic sheep that dotted the fields and played in the roads, we prepared ourselves for a long day of driving with a number of stops along the way.
Read MoreWe were poised to love Seyðisfjörður, population 700, from the moment we saw it from high up on the mountain road. The town is quaint, walkable, and has the best setting on the water with the ring of peaks surrounding it.
Read MoreWe left the eastern fjords and headed northwest to the second largest town in Iceland - Akureyri.
The entire drive for the day was scheduled to take about 5 1/2 hours and we found many amazing places to stop along the way.
Read MoreLeaving Akureyri, we enjoyed our drive along the western side of the country, weaving in and out on the Ring Road and wished we had more time to check out the western fjords. Of course, that’s what any good trip does: leave you wanting more.
Read MoreFinding accommodations in Iceland can pose interesting problems. Check out our solution.
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