New Member travelling to Scotland

aldessam

Guest
Have been reading the forums for a while now and have just became a full member. We are Australian and the plan is to take our family of 6 on a Scottish motorhome holiday for about 4 weeks in May 2020. My FIL and his ancestors were from the Scottish Highlands. We have owned a caravan here in Australia for nearly 10 years and we spend most of our holidays travelling and free camping. We are looking to do the same for our Scotland trip given there will be two adults and four kids to cater for and thus we are hoping the full membership and tips will be of great benefit. Current plan is to fly into London, spend a few days there and then fly over to Paris for a few days then fly back into London and hire a motorhome and travel to Scotland via Bath,Cotswolds and the Lakes District. We will then travel clockwise around Scotland visiting Galloway Forest, Galston (family history!) Edinburgh, Falkirk, Loch Lamond, Glenfinnan, Isle of Skye, John O Groats, Orkney Islands, down to Alvie/Kingussie/Aviemore/Tominutoul areas for more family history exploring. Not sure how we are going to fit in everything within a total of 5 weeks even though we are used to travelling long distances for our holidays over here. Cheers!
 
Hi and :welcome::camper: the POI map will be of great help to you and someone will come along and give you some advice enjoy your travels
 
aldessam said:
Have been reading the forums for a while now and have just became a full member. We are Australian and the plan is to take our family of 6 on a Scottish motorhome holiday for about 4 weeks in May 2020. My FIL and his ancestors were from the Scottish Highlands. We have owned a caravan here in Australia for nearly 10 years and we spend most of our holidays travelling and free camping. We are looking to do the same for our Scotland trip given there will be two adults and four kids to cater for and thus we are hoping the full membership and tips will be of great benefit. Current plan is to fly into London, spend a few days there and then fly over to Paris for a few days then fly back into London and hire a motorhome and travel to Scotland via Bath,Cotswolds and the Lakes District. We will then travel clockwise around Scotland visiting Galloway Forest, Galston (family history!) Edinburgh, Falkirk, Loch Lamond, Glenfinnan, Isle of Skye, John O Groats, Orkney Islands, down to Alvie/Kingussie/Aviemore/Tominutoul areas for more family history exploring. Not sure how we are going to fit in everything within a total of 5 weeks even though we are used to travelling long distances for our holidays over here. Cheers!
Click to expand...

Welcome aboard & good luck on your travels:welcome::goodluck::camper:
 
Hi welcome and enjoy,you will be made most welcome over here plenty places to see and stay
Keep watching g the forum for tips whichWILL help on your travels
 
You will love Scotland although motorhome and traffic in general have increased a lot due to the success of the NC500.

Getting off of the main routes will give you far more chances for wildcamping, but try and include the odd stopover at sites to get rid of waste etc. I can thoroughly recommend the site at Rothiemurchus near Aviemore as a stopover, but you would need to book in advance.

I would also include Applecross which is my favourite place. The inn there does superb food and the scenery is stunning. If you don't mind travelling long distances in one hit, I think your itinerary is perfectly doable, in fact we are travelling to Applecross tonight (577 miles) and then on to Mellon Udrigle (a first for us), then back down to Glencoe and then Rothiemurchus before heading home to Cambridgeshire and we will be doing this in 10 days.

Stay online during your trip and advice will be readily available as you travel.

Enjoy!
 
Welcome from the six countys,scotland is v/good and well worth seeing,do think of crossing to n/ireland and donegal if you do wish to wild.:banana:
 
Gooday blue, and welcome, don’t forget the tinnies. Good bunch on here, and always there to help.
 
Ambitious

HI from a Scot in Scotland.

Yes it's doable... sort of. Its honestly pretty ambitious in reality so I would suggest that you priortise what you really need to do and what is a "bonus"

Here its not the distance that is really the issue but the time it takes. Today we travelled from Stonehaven (just south of Aberdeen) back to here in the Scottish Borders and that was 160 miles. Time was a bit over 4 hours with a stop for lunch. Take into account 2/3ds of that was on dual carriage way roads with a top speed of 70mph. A lot of the roads you are considering will be a legal top speed of 60 with some being realistically 40 in a large van.

Not being negative, just practical. :)

B2
 
I’m sure you will manage to fit in your must do destinations but rather than zig zag across the country do a bit map studying and plan your adventure. Missing Orkney would free up time to maybe explore more of the highlands. The NC500 route is worth a look but gets a bit busy. I’m sure you’ll have a great trip.
 
Borders2 said:
HI from a Scot in Scotland.

Yes it's doable... sort of. Its honestly pretty ambitious in reality so I would suggest that you priortise what you really need to do and what is a "bonus"

Here its not the distance that is really the issue but the time it takes. Today we travelled from Stonehaven (just south of Aberdeen) back to here in the Scottish Borders and that was 160 miles. Time was a bit over 4 hours with a stop for lunch. Take into account 2/3ds of that was on dual carriage way roads with a top speed of 70mph. A lot of the roads you are considering will be a legal top speed of 60 with some being realistically 40 in a large van.

Not being negative, just practical. :)

B2
Click to expand...
Welcome.
.
Good advice,from a local.
Remember it's a holiday, not your job.
Relax and allow some leeway for surprises and diversions.
 
Thanks everyone!

Yes probably ambitious but this will be our only chance to visit until possibly our retirement in 25 years so want to see and do as much as possible. The travel time over there is what we are trying to get our heads around - How long will it take to travel from point a to point b. On our last holiday we travelled 3478km (2161 miles) in 11 days, covering 4 National Parks over two states and also hiked over 40km in total. So travelling long distances to get to places is the norm here BUT given the expanse, most of it is open roads and we travel about 80km/hr (50m/hr) when towing the van.


I just don't know what to cull. We are going to Paris for a few days because all 4 of our children study french as their LOTE subject and we just couldn't afford to send them to the 2 week senior french highschool trip. Hubby wants to visit Stonehenge and I want to visit the Cotswolds (just might have to forgo these I think and take the suggestion of flying from Paris into Edinburgh and then working our way down to them if we get time before flying back home from London.

You are all so very right though in that the main reason we heading to Scotland is to visit hubby's Aunt and her family he has never met before for a semi reunion of the Leslie family. Hubby's great and great great grandfathers were the smithy's at Torcroy near Kingussie and previous generations were smithy's in and around the Badenoch area dating as far back as the 1770's so I would love to spend a bit of time around this area.

Are the Orkney's worth making the effort to head to the tip or are there other places that are far better to visit this time round?

Isle of Skye and Edinburgh is definitely on our to do list as there are quite a few walks I want to do (we do a lot of walks on our holidays here as well) as long as the weather plays nice.

Are there any areas that are a must see but not as touristy and are low fee or free to see?

Thanks again for all the advice, it is greatly appreciated. Once I work out out map, I might post it in here and ask for further feedback if that is ok?

Cheers,

Desiree
 
Absolutely. When visiting my Aussie friends we walked from the farm down to the "main road" and Ken said oh theres a car coming. I peered up the road and spotted a white dot. 12 minutes or so said dot arrived.... dead straight level road.

Not the case here at all. We undulate. We have bends some of which are hairpins. All that turning and climbing seriously affects travel time as does the traffic. A lot of our roads are like Melbourne in rush hour. All this affects time obviously. Further some of the places you mention are mobbed in peak season. We went to the Lake District once as I wanted to look a a famous cycle climb and it was busy. So busy we backed off the road and let the traffic sort it's self out then doubled back and went else where.

Have a look on Paltalk for foreign teaching rooms. *tip* I can ask a top admin on Pal if there is much of use if you want to know pm me.

There is a dig ongoing on Orkney which is proving that the site up there pre dates Stonehenge by some considerable time. Not trying to tempt your hubby but if he wants old, go north... The Ness of Brodgar Excavations – Investigating a prehistoric complex in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney

I had a customer once at my guest house who wanted to visit three football grounds in the UK in the one day. It was indeed possible if he was willing to pretty much drive all day. On paper it looked simple..... but....it's not. Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle for those interested. :) We were close to East Mids Airport. :)

B2
 
Just be aware the Mull roads are dreadfull. Famously so.

The devil is aye in the details.....;)

B2
 
Having just used the new road at Aberdeen I can safely disagree. Awesome!

Mull shook our rear step apart, not to mention our teeth. Geez that was the worst we have encountered and we have but a few islands to travel yet.

B2
 
I guess we all have personal favourites. I would say that Skye is a must, and the journey to the Skye bridge is stunning in itself. You’d take in the famous Elian Donan castle en route. If you are sure about Skye , I’d miss out Orkney and head to the outer Hebrides......90 mins from uig in Skye by ferry. ....stunning, just stunning and much nicer to look at the Orkney. If you like Stonehenge you will love callanish. We overnighted right outside it and took pics at sunrise and sunset.

It’s already been mentioned about the time to travel between places.....sooo slow going on the single tracks with passing places. Take time to learn the ‘rules’ , it will make for a more pleasant journey.

Good luck! I’ll be on the lookout for ya! Lolol 😜
 
Another vote for Mull. I don’t know why people complain about the roads on Mull, never had a problem.
 
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