10 Days in Scotland: Edinburgh, Skye & the Highlands

This 10 day Scotland itinerary takes you north in one line, with a base for each stretch. Fly into Edinburgh and out of Inverness, or the other way round. In between: Edinburgh (2 nights), Loch Lomond (1 night), the Isle of Skye (3 nights) and Inverness (3 nights). The drives are part of the trip. Rannoch Moor, Glencoe and the road over the Skye Bridge are the best hours of the journey, so the plan leaves room to stop.

Compared with our 7 day route, this one adds Skye and two more nights in the Highlands. It does not reach St Andrews, Speyside or the north coast. If one week is all you have, read the 7 day Scotland itinerary first.

Give Edinburgh two full days. The city sits on a ridge of volcanic rock, with the Castle at the top of the Royal Mile and the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the bottom. Day one is the Castle, where the Scottish crown jewels are on display, then the Old Town closes that drop steeply off the Mile.

Day two covers the lower city. At Holyroodhouse, Mary, Queen of Scots lived from 1561 to 1567, and the supper room where her secretary David Rizzio was murdered in 1566 is still there. Climb Arthur's Seat, the old volcano in the park, if the weather allows. Then walk the Georgian New Town, laid out from 1766, and finish in the National Museum of Scotland, which is free to enter.

A guide makes the biggest difference in the Old Town. Our Essence of Scotland tour includes a guided Old Town visit, and every one of our Scotland tours opens with a welcome dinner.

Stirling sits at the narrowest point of the Forth valley, which is why so many Scottish battles were fought close by. Stirling Castle was a favourite royal home, and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned there in 1543. The Wallace Monument, a Victorian tower on Abbey Craig, looks over the ground of the 1297 Battle of Stirling Bridge.

From Stirling it is about 45 minutes to Loch Lomond, the largest lake in Great Britain by surface area. Stay on the western shore, in Luss or Tarbet, with the water and the hills in view. Spend the afternoon on a shoreline walk or a boat trip. This is the first real Highland landscape of the trip, so slow down here.

Day four is the longest drive, and the most striking. From Loch Lomond the A82 runs north across Rannoch Moor, a wide, empty plateau of peat, lochs and heather with almost no settlement. Then the road drops into Glencoe, a glacial valley with steep walls and the Three Sisters ridge in view. In February 1692, 38 members of the MacDonald clan were killed by government soldiers under Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, who had been staying with them as guests. The visitor centre tells the story well. Give it time.

Fort William sits below Ben Nevis, at 1,345 metres the highest mountain in Britain. A short detour west, on the road to Mallaig, brings you to the Glenfinnan Viaduct, the curved stone arches the Harry Potter films used for the Hogwarts Express. From early summer to October, the Jacobite steam train crosses it on the Fort William to Mallaig line. Book the train well ahead, and check the timetable before you plan a stop.

The Skye Bridge carries you onto the island and into Portree, the main town. From Loch Lomond the drive is about 4 hours without stops, so allow most of the day. Our Highlands and Skye tour runs this same drive as its own day, with the Glenfinnan stop built in.

Skye needs three nights. The island is large, the roads are slow, and the south and north are each a full day.

Give the south one day. The Fairy Pools sit in Glen Brittle under the Black Cuillin, reached by a walk across open moorland that is longer than it looks on the map. The water is clear and cold, with the mountain walls rising straight above. On the western shore, Talisker Distillery has been making whisky since 1830. Take the tour, and pack a waterproof.

The north is the other full day. The Quiraing, on the Trotternish ridge, is a landslip: a landscape of tilted grass tables and rock pinnacles that looks built rather than formed. Nearby, the Old Man of Storr rises from the hillside as a tall column of basalt. Both need walking shoes. The single-track road to the Quiraing has passing places, and a local driver knows where to use them.

Keep the third night for the light. On Skye it changes every twenty minutes, and a spare morning is the best way to catch it.

Inverness is the Highland capital, a compact city on the River Ness. Three nights lets you do three different days from one hotel, with no packing in between. The drive in from Skye takes about 3 hours without stops. Eilean Donan Castle is the stop on the way: it stands on a tidal island where three sea lochs meet, and it was rebuilt in the early 20th century. Give it an hour.

Day eight is Culloden Battlefield, east of the city. The battle was fought on 16 April 1746, and it ended the Jacobite cause in under an hour. The visitor centre explains what followed, when the clan system was broken up. Then cross to the Black Isle, where bottlenose dolphins feed in the Moray Firth. Chanonry Point is a good place to look for them from the shore.

Day nine is Loch Ness. The loch is 36 km long and about 230 metres deep at its deepest, and it is often said to hold more fresh water than all the lakes of England and Wales together. Urquhart Castle is a ruin on the shore, and the Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit covers the monster story. Take the quieter road along the southern shore, with a stop at the Falls of Foyers. A sighting is not guaranteed.

Day ten is the last morning. Walk the River Ness and the Victorian market, or drive about an hour into the Cairngorms National Park, the largest in Britain, if your flight allows. Then your driver takes you to the airport.

Choose each base for the walks you want. Edinburgh: the Old Town or New Town, both walkable to the Castle and the Mile. Loch Lomond: a lochside hotel in Luss or Tarbet, with a view across the water. Skye: Portree, the island's main town. It has fewer rooms than you would like, so book early, especially for July and August. Inverness: the city centre or the river bank, with restaurants a short walk away.

A private vehicle is the easiest way to run this route. Buses between the Highland stops are infrequent, and Skye is far from any railway station.

Late May, June and September are the best months for this route. Midges, the small biting insects, are worst from late May to early September, especially on still, damp evenings. June gives you the longest days, with light lasting well into the evening. September brings cooler air, fewer people and fewer midges than July.

July and August are the busiest months. Hotels fill early, and Edinburgh is very crowded during the Festival Fringe in August. April and October also work, with shorter days and some attractions on reduced hours. Our Scotland tours run from April to October. From November to March, daylight in the Highlands is short, and some roads and sights close.

The route bends easily. If distilleries are the point, swap the Loch Ness day for a longer stop in Speyside, the heart of Scotch whisky. The Whisky and Castles tour builds its nine days around private distillery visits and the castles of Aberdeenshire. Pick it if whisky is the reason you are going.

If you want more time for the castles and the coast, the Epic Scotland tour runs 11 days. It adds St Andrews, Balmoral and the Castle Trail, with three nights on Skye.

If you want a slower pace, add a night in Inverness and cut the Skye stay to two nights. You keep the island, but you lose one full day of walking. Choose which day matters most to you before you book.

For a week more on foot, add a ferry from Uig in northern Skye to the Outer Hebrides. Ferries run to timetables, so fix that crossing before you book the rest of the trip.

We build this route around your dates. We arrange the private vehicle and driver, the hotels in each base, and guides for the Old Town and the main castle and battlefield visits. We also keep a wet-weather option for each day, because Scottish weather changes quickly.

We are a small team, so we take a limited number of Scotland trips at a time. You have one planner from the first email to the flight home. To see our options, browse the Scotland tours. For the wider picture of the country, read our Scotland travel guide.