Field notes
Scotland
Get acquainted with the character and the corners of Scotland.
The character
Scotland delivers affection as insult and weather as personality test, with scenery as compensation for both. The locals are some of the funniest people alive and will deny this while proving it. If someone mocks you in a pub, relax. You're being welcomed.
The land does most of the talking. Glens and lochs arranged with a drama that the people then refuse to match, on principle. The national style is understatement in front of overstatement, a shrug at the foot of a mountain.
Come prepared to be rained on and laughed at, frequently at the same time, and you'll have one of the best trips of your life. Bring a waterproof, not an umbrella. Umbrellas die here.
When to go
May and June are the move. The days are long and the sun is plausible. The midges, the tiny biting flies of the west coast, haven't fully mobilized. They peak in July and August and they aren't a joke, whatever size suggests.
Edinburgh in August is the festival, the biggest arts gathering in the world, and the city doubles in attitude and price. Book a year out or come in September when the locals get their streets back.
Money
The currency is the pound, and Scottish banks print their own notes, which are legal currency and occasionally confuse cab drivers in London. That confusion is regarded locally as a bonus.
Scotland is cheaper than England's south but not cheap. The great free things compensate. The national museums in Edinburgh and Glasgow charge nothing, and neither do the hills.
Getting around
The West Highland Line from Glasgow to Mallaig is regularly ranked among the most scenic railways anywhere, and the ticket costs the same as a boring train. It crosses Rannoch Moor and the Glenfinnan viaduct on the way to the ferry ports.
Driving the Highlands means single-track roads with passing places. Use them and wave. Let the local in the van past. The wave matters. People remember vans and faces both.
Do this
Ride the West Highland Line to Mallaig
Moor, loch, viaduct, sea. Sit on the left going north. Buy the tea. Stay on for the ferry to the Small Isles if you have any sense.
Climb one Munro, any Munro
Scotland's 3,000-foot mountains number 282 and bagging them is the national outdoor hobby. Pick an easy one and check the forecast. Pack like the forecast is lying, because it is.
Use the right to roam
Scotland's access law is among the most generous in the world. You can walk and camp across most of the country, responsibly. The hills are legally yours for the day.
Spend a night in Glasgow
Edinburgh got the postcards. Glasgow got the music and the best curry in Britain, by local insistence. The friendliest abuse you'll ever receive.
Skip this
Loch Ness
A long, dark, deep loch with a gift shop economy attached. Fine from a car window. The Highlands hold a hundred lochs more beautiful with no monster and no queue.
The Royal Mile's tartan shops
Made-in-elsewhere kilts and shortbread tins between you and a genuinely medieval street. Look up at the buildings, duck into the closes, buy the whisky somewhere else.
Worth knowing
- Scotland's national animal is the unicorn, chosen centuries ago by a country that has never once worried about being asked why.
- The deep-fried Mars bar was first sold, by the standard account, at a Stonehaven chip shop in the early 1990s, as something between a dare and a menu item. The nation committed to the bit.
- Scotland has nearly 800 offshore islands. Fewer than a hundred are inhabited, and the inhabited ones hold strong opinions about each other.
The notes end here, for now.
We're writing the books one country at a time. The Norway guide shows what the full treatment looks like, and the quiz doubles as our mailing list.