In February 2024, I traveled solo across Scotland by train (and one bus). I had read that the Scottish Highlands had some of the most scenic train rides in the world, so my goal was to experience as many as possible. I also wanted to visit its large and small cities and gain the confidence and enjoy the freedom to do so independently. It was one of the most naturally beautiful places I have ever seen, with snow-covered mountains and deep blue lakes (lochs).
Here are the highlights and itinerary from my trip. I hope it helps you plan your visit to Scotland!
The Route
While I will focus on Scotland in this article, my trip started and ended in London. There were several reasons for this. I could get an affordable direct round-trip flight to London from my local airport, while the flight to Edinburgh would have required a stop in London anyway. I also wanted to visit Bath as part of this trip so I could walk up Solsbury Hill. Lastly, I was not bothered by the distance. I love to travel by train, especially by sleeper, so I planned for my Scotland journey to end in Inverness so I could take the Caledonian Express sleeper train to London. There are also high-speed trains that make the London-Edinburgh journey in four and a half hours during the day.
I traveled on ScotRail for all of my trips within Scotland. Their mobile app is easy to use, and it holds your electronic tickets.
If you are not interested in taking a train from London to Scotland and back, you can fly to Edinburgh and start my route there.
It is also possible to take this trip by car. Indeed, many travel writers recommend a car when visiting Scotland due to the remoteness of much of the Highlands. I prefer to take a train, but if you want the freedom of having a car and are not bothered by driving on the left, then driving might be for you.
Edinburgh
This was my first visit to Scotland, and I started in the capital city of Edinburgh. Though it looks similar to the word “Pittsburgh” (for my US readers) it doesn’t rhyme, there is an extra syllable at the end that is not obvious based on the spelling.
It is the most visited city in the country and is the seat of the Scottish Parliament. It is also famous for the Royal Mile and the castles on either end, Hollyrood and Edinburgh. These are the dominant tourist destinations in the “Old Town” of Edinburgh. These are must-see attractions in the Old Town, at least once. I also visited St. Giles Cathedral, with its blue ceiling (located on the Royal Mile), and walked to the top of Calton Hill to take in the views.
Be sure to book the tour of Edinburgh Castle in advance as it is extremely popular. It was well worth it for the views and the Scottish history on display.
Even though I was there in February, Old Town was full of tourists and the shops that cater to them. While I was glad I saw it, I was also relieved when I left for quieter places.
I walked from my hotel near Waverly Station away from the town center, along the Water of Leith Walkway through the picturesque Dean Village. This was a pleasant respite from the crowds. I only encountered a few joggers and families with baby strollers. At the far end of my walk, I visited the Modern One gallery of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Admission was free and it was a good conclusion to my morning walk through the quiet neighborhoods.
I only had one full day in Edinburgh, but I managed to squeeze everything in. Another half day probably would have been enough to allow for a more leisurely visit. I took the tram towards Leith for a pint at Malt and Hops in the evening. It is a small historic pub located on the water, with hops hanging from the ceiling and a warm fireplace.
My destination for the next day was Glasgow, which was a short (45-minute) ScotRail train from Waverly Station.
I had enough time in the morning for one last walk, to see the famous statue of Greyfriars Bobby. This is a legend of Edinburgh, a faithful dog who refused to leave the side of his owner’s grave, where he stood guard until his own death 14 years later.
Edinburgh Waverly station is conveniently located near The National Gallery of Scotland, close enough to serve as a waiting area. Like all the museums, it is free to enter. Rather than spend 30 minutes in the station, I did a short tour of the art gallery until a few minutes before my train departed.
Glasgow
I arrived early in the day at Queen Street Station for my visit to Glasgow. I had only two nights there, one full day, and unfortunately, it rained on and off both days, which limited my walking around.
Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city, with nearly 600,000 inhabitants. It feels more like a real city and much less of a tourist destination than Edinburgh. Glasgow reminded me of Manchester, in a good way. I immediately liked it better. Glasgow is famous for its murals. I decided to see the city by following the map of the mural trail. This took me through most of the city and many of its popular destinations, Glasgow Cathedral, The Gallery of Modern Art, The Kelvingrove, and Glasgow University. I took time to go in and visit each of them.
One of the highlights of my stay in Glasgow was the tour of the Clydeside Distillery. In the evening I enjoyed a few pints at the popular Ben Nevis bar, followed by a long tipsy walk on the pathway along the River Clyde back to my hotel.
My next destination was the seaside town of Oban, famous for its distillery. This would be the first of the scenic train rides on my journey.
Glasgow to Oban
The journey was scheduled for 3 hours and 10 minutes, and it left Queen Street Station on time. Overall I found the Scottish trains to be efficient and punctual. However, train prices in the UK seemed higher than in Europe. Before boarding, I stopped at a grocery store to buy food for the journey. This ritual of buying my food and eating on the train became one of my favorite things to do on the trip.
The train experience I had been waiting for finally started as we left Glasgow behind on our journey northwest. The line ran alongside numerous lochs and towering snow-covered hills. They aren’t terribly high, nothing in the UK is, but they are stark and abrupt and seem much larger than they are. For this part of the trip, I spent a long time staring out the window at the landscape outside. There were green hills dotted with sheep, with only the occasional small village stop. This part of the country reminded me of Iceland, remote, sparsely populated, and stunning. Of course, here there were no glaciers, but there were trees everywhere. I kept changing sides of the train to get a better view and as many pictures as I could.
It was cold with wet snow falling when I disembarked in Oban. It is a quaint seaside village that is very quiet in winter. I would have enjoyed a walk along the waterfront but the weather was a bit too Scottish. Instead, I took refuge in a coffee shop near the station and eventually google mapped a restaurant that was open for dinner. In a few of the small seaside villages I visited in February, many of the restaurants and hotels were closed for the winter. After a steak pie and a pint, it was time for me to find my room for the one night in Oban. It was a small B&B, the Blair Villa South. I struggled to find it and had to knock on the wrong door and get help from a resident of the same street who pointed out the house I was looking for.
It was still relatively early, I was contemplating a visit to Oban’s namesake whisky distillery, but the weather was grim and it was already dark. In contrast, my neat little B&B room was cozy. It was warm, had a teapot and cookies, and a heater in the corner next to the table. I liked it so much I chose instead to stay in for the night.
Here are some pictures from the train, and a few from Oban.
Besides, the next day promised a long train journey. I had a 9 AM train to the coastal town of Mallaig. This was a journey of 4 hours and 41 minutes that included a change of trains in Crianlarich. I couldn’t book a hotel in Mallaig ahead of time, but I still wanted to take the train there, as it is one of the prettier ones in Scotland. It also goes over the Glenfinnan Viaduct, famous in the Harry Potter movies. In Spring and Summer, a popular steam train runs along this route, but in winter it is just a standard ScotRail train.
With no accommodation in Mallaig, I booked the last train of the day out, to Fort William in an hour and 23 minutes, where I would stay for the night. Altogether it was six hours on the train, but they were worth it.
Oban to Mallaig, Mallaig to Fort William
After a large breakfast (full Scottish) it was time for my day on the trains. Due to the hub and spoke nature of the Scottish train network, with large cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh at its core, train rides from one small coastal village to another sometimes involved backtracking over ground covered the previous day. I was fine with this, I was here to ride the trains.
The train climbed steadily and the landscape went from coastal green to hilly, winter white. I had a change in Crianlarich to make that was causing some anxiety as it was a tight connection, only 10 minutes. I was thinking about this when I passed through Crianlarich the previous day, it looked very small. I was not sure it was a good place for me to be stranded for a day.
The train was waiting for me when I arrived though, on the other side of the platform in this small two-track station, I walked across as a light snow fell.
The train left the station and continued climbing, on its way to Mallaig. As it did, the landscape outside gradually turned from green to completely white. Snow was still falling and the surrounding country was a largely uninhabited winter wonderland. I stared out of the window taking pictures. at the Corrour station travelers got out and took pictures of the tiny snow-covered station building. Several others, hardier and better-prepared souls than me, were carrying large backpacks and were leaving to embark upon a hike across the snow-covered landscape. I was a little bit jealous I wasn’t one of them. This leg of the journey was easily the prettiest and most memorable.
Eventually, we descended out of the snowy hills and passed through Fort William, where I would later return to and stay for the evening.
The train then turned west, through more stunning countryside and eventually over the Glenfinnan Viaduct In truth, the view of the viaduct from the train is not that great. If this is a sight you really want to see, you should consider spending a night in Glenfinnan and having a hike around the area.
Here are some of the many views from the train on this leg of the journey:
I arrived in Mallaig early in the afternoon, along with a few other travelers. It was the end of the line. We were all deposited in a small, seaside town that was largely deserted in the off-season. I realized why I couldn’t book a room in Mallaig, all the hotels seemed closed for the winter. Myself and several others who rode the train out eventually ended up in the one open restaurant in town. Fortunately, it was a good one and I took my time with a large plate of fish and chips before the weather cleared and I walked along the waterfront. I had a few hours to occupy before the train back, the way we came, to Fort William departed.
The train to Fort William covered all the same ground as it did on the way, in, the viaduct, the lochs and hills and fields and forests and sheep, but by now it was starting to get dark. When I arrived in Fort William it was a short walk to my hotel for the night, the Alexandra Hotel. Too early even for me to go to bed, so I walked along the high street and found a quiet table in the corner of a lively pub for my pint of Tennents.
My destination the next day was the small coastal village of Kyle of Lochalsh, on the coast near the Isle of Skye and the bridge that connects it to the mainland. This part of the journey required a bus, as there was no feasible rail connection between the two towns. However, my bus did not leave until the early afternoon, which allowed me the morning in Fort William. I poked around the shops and had a wee walk around the town, which appeared to cater to hikers and outdoor activities. It is near Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the UK. There were sea birds along the shore by the remnants of the old Fort William. On the high street, I visited the Highland Bookshop and had a pot of tea at The Wildcat until it was time for the bus.
Fort William to Kyle of Lochalsh
I was one of a few passengers on the bus to Kyle. It took two hours to wind through the countryside which was as attractive as ever, I had started getting used to it. I enjoyed the bus ride as well, alone near the back I stared out of huge windows at the passing scenery. While I had seen many sheep on the journey, on the bus ride I spotted my first highland cows in a field. This leg of the trip was as nearly as impressive as my train ride through the snowy hills the previous day.
Fort William and the view from the bus:
We rode along the coast for a few miles and then eventually reached the small village of Kyle of Lochalsh. The bus deposited me at the harbor on a bright sunny afternoon. I was the only person who got off the bus, and there were no other people around. It was eerily quiet, a little disconcerting. This was the first and only time on the trip that I sensed being alone. Fortunately, it didn’t last long. I stared out at the snowy hills across the water on the Isle of Skye for a few minutes, then hoisted up my heavy backpack and walked the short distance to my accommodation for the evening, the Kyle Hotel. It appeared to be one of the few places open in the small village.
The weather was good and it was early, so I dropped off my bag in my small and sparse but clean room and headed out for a walk. At the harbor, I saw a sign for a local park, The Plock. It was less than a mile away so I walked along the main road out of town and eventually arrived at the park. This was one of the nicest surprises of the whole trip. I climbed up a hill to the park’s viewpoint, which provided stunning 360-degree views of the coast, the bridge to Skye, and the wetlands. I stayed there for a few minutes as the sun was setting, while several other groups of people made the walk up to the top to get a sunset picture. It was such a surprise, the kind of thing you stumble upon once in a while when you take a chance and book a night in a small town you had never heard of.
I traveled to Kyle because it was the starting point for what was supposed to be the most epic of all the train rides, from there to Inverness. I didn’t know what to expect and was a little worried in the lead-up to it, wondering what if anything I would find there. But I had stumbled upon this amazing park. On the way back to the hotel I passed the supermarket I would stop at the next day for food on the train to Inverness. It was time for dinner, but nothing appeared open. Fortunately, the hotel restaurant and bar were open and lively, it might have been the only one in town that night. It had a good crowd of people watching Scotland versus England in a rugby match, and many of them were wearing kilts, in an unironic way.
I spent a good while there, eating another plate of fish and chips (everyone was eating fish and chips) and having a few pints while I watched the rugby match and the Premier League football match that followed. It was a great day and night. I decided I liked Kyle of Lochalsh.
I had several hours available to me the next day, my train to Inverness did not depart until the early afternoon. After yet another full Scottish breakfast, including haggis, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would, I decided to go for a long walk. The weather was fine, clear, and chilly. I had been seated on trains for a long time, and it was exhilarating to be out walking. I proceeded out of town, past the Plock, and walked over the Isle of Skye bridge to the town I had been looking at across the water, Kyleakin.
The walk over the bridge provided more great views, herons were flying back and forth overhead. I arrived in Kyleakin after about an hour of walking. I had hoped to find a coffee shop or some other place for a wee potty break, but Kyleakin was even smaller than Kyle and it was completely shut down.
After poking around for a few minutes I retraced my steps back over the bridge and fortunately found a restaurant by the harbor in Kyle that was open. Feeling better with a few more hours to kill, I went back for one more walk around the Plock and then stopped in the supermarket to pick up dinner for the trip. My train was waiting at the end-of-the-line Kyle of Lochalsh station. It wasn’t departing for another 30 minutes but I got on and grabbed a seat by the window.
Kyle of Lochalsh to Inverness
I was looking forward to this train ride. In my research for the trip, it was billed as the most beautiful in the highlands. It was the only reason I visited Kyle in the first place, though Kyle was a pleasant surprise and I would happily return.
The 2-hour and 45-minute journey was enjoyable, through lochs and hills and vast highland landscapes, but I didn’t feel as though it lived up to its top billing. I saw a few more highland cows. Who knows, by now I might have been normalizing the sights I was seeing. But for me, this leg of the journey was not as picturesque as Oban to Mallaig. I arrived in Inverness after dark and in the rain. I made my way to the AC Marriott Hotel Inverness a little too tired for anything other than some British television in my room and an early night. My room had a view of the River Clyde which shone in reflected streetlight at night.
I had two nights in Inverness, a relief after a few one-night hotel stays. Also, I was leaving at night on an overnight train which meant I had an extra day there. I enjoyed another excessively full Scottish breakfast at the hotel before I left for my first full day of walking around Inverness. Fortunately, the weather was good, clear, and cold. Inverness is much smaller than Edinburgh or Glasgow, but much larger than the coastal villages I had just visited. It is a perfect-sized city for a day or two visit.
I spent the first day mostly walking. I walked along the river to the Ness Islands. At times it felt like I was the only foreign tourist for miles. Locals were out with their dogs, who mostly were not on leashes, but were well-behaved. Dogs were everywhere in Scotland, in restaurants, in shops, on trains. I liked that.
I then walked back through the center of the city, on my way north. Inverness Castle stood out prominently near the River Ness but unfortunately was closed for renovations when I was there. I walked to the water, stopping for a few minutes at Carnarc Point to look for seabirds. This area along Beauly Firth is the Merkinch Local Nature Reserve and I spent considerable time walking along the banks trying to identify the various ducks and gulls in the water.
I walked back to town in a different direction along the canal until I eventually found the city again. I stopped in at the Victorian Market, near the train station, for a late afternoon bakery stop.
After that, it was time for another stop on my list, Leaky’s Bookshop. It is a highlight of Inverness, an enormous used bookshop two stories high, and a jumbled mass of books and prints. It was freezing inside the building unless you were near the wood stove in the middle of the shop. I looked through the vast collection for some time before settling on a travel book for my flight home, “Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere” by Jan Morris. I think it cost 5 pounds.
I stopped in for an early dinner at Blackfriars on Academy Street and a pint or two, then called it a night.
For my last day in Scotland, I decided to skip the full breakfast. I had been eating it nearly every day. While it was helpful in that it generally allowed me to go all day without needing to eat until dinner time, I had over-indulged enough. I did spend a leisurely breakfast in the hotel’s dining room overlooking the river, though.
Since my night train did not depart until nearly 8 PM, I had the whole day free. I decided to take a short trip to Culloden. If I had a car I might have considered a drive to nearby Loch Ness. Culloden is easy to reach by city bus from Inverness, the number 27 bus drops you off at the site after a short drive.
It is a museum on the site of the last battle of the Jacobite Uprising in 1746. It is an important part of Scottish history.
I toured the museum and learned the history of the Jacobite uprising, I was not familiar with it. Interestingly, two sets of displays stand alongside each other in the museum. One describes the events from the Jacobite and the other from the Government perspective.
The battlefield is somber, and I walked much of it despite the wind and cold. Flags show the position of each side in the barren field. Numerous memorials and markers commemorate the many men lost that day, and gravestones mark the graves of fallen Jacobites and other members of their respective clans.
Upon returning to Inverness, I got something to eat just as the Victorian Market was shutting down. It does seem to close early in the day. After that, I walked into Inverness Cathedral and sat long enough for someone to ask me if I was waiting for the prayer service.
I had time for one last stop before the Caledonian Express lounge opened in advance of my train that evening. So I opted for a wee dram of whisky at the Wee Bar. It was a pleasant end to a great trip around Scotland.
In the dining car, as we pulled out of Inverness Station, I looked out of the window past the wee bottle of Prosecco I ordered and thought about how far I had gone and all that I had seen. I enjoyed a few moments of satisfaction for making it so far. With that, I settled into my wee cabin for a good night’s sleep.
Final Thoughts
Scotland was one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, and I can’t wait to go back. Taking the trip by train allowed me to enjoy the journey as much as the destinations. I traveled in February, which allowed me to see snow in the mountains and avoid the peak of the tourist season. If you can tolerate some chilly weather (highs in the low 40s Fahrenheit) this is a good time of year to visit.
I hope this itinerary helps you plan your own visit to the Scottish Highlands!