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Travel is on everyone’s minds right now – including mine. I am absolutely dying to go somewhere that isn’t my office or the park next to my house. Although it’s likely that I’ll focus on staycations and UK holidays for a while after it’s safe to travel, I really don’t mind because I absolutely love exploring the UK!

Photo by Bryan Walker on Unsplash

I have so many UK destinations on my travel wish-list, including Edinburgh and exploring more of Lincoln. My boyfriend and I are already planning our trip to Blackpool (I’ve never been to the pleasure beach, can you believe it?) and I’m also thinking about booking myself onto a outdoor Yoga retreat in my home county!

Although I am being VERY cautious. As I think we all need to be right now. I’m definitely only going to go to places that I feel comfortable going to. And I’ll certainly be taking a ton of precautions when booking my next trips, including ensuring that refunds will be available if we end up in lockdown again.

It’s also important to go at your own pace. Not just with travel but with life in general right now. Whilst some people might be very happy to travel straight away, it might take others some time. And that’s okay. There’s no right or wrong way to deal with a pandemic!

So in today’s post, I’m going up North and sharing some things I would love to do in Scotland. Can you believe I’ve NEVER visited Scotland before? It’s a long ol’ drive from me, down in the South East but from what I’ve heard, it’d be totally worth it!

Visit Edinburgh

Of course the first thing I think would be to visit the city of Edinburgh because it looks beautiful and I definitely need to start exploring more cities. There’s so much to see and do and I think it’d make a lovely change from London – which I’ve grown up exploring and visiting. Edinburgh Zoo would definitely be on that itinerary.

The Royal Yacht Britannia

I’m a bit fan of boats and ships so I think I would absolutely love to spend the day exploring the Royal Yacht Britannia! I know my boyfriend would as well – we both dream of having boat one day! There’s also a tea bar on board so I’d have to stop there for a treat, too.

Ben Nevis

This is on my list because I think it’s beautiful (from photos I’ve seen!) I love nature and mountains and I don’t think I could go to Scotland without seeing it. Would I walk up it? Perhaps after some training and working on my fitness! I’d like to think I would because that would be an incredible experience.

Jacobite Steam Train

As well as a boat nerd, I’ve also become a bit of a steam train nerd thanks to my boyfriend. So riding the Jacobite steam train through the Highlands and experiencing a bit of Harry Potter magic would have to be on my to-do list for my Scotland trip!

NC500

The North Coast 500 is definitely high up on my list because I love the idea of travelling so far and seeing so much beautiful scenery all in one trip! Granted, we’ll probably need a better car for this one but as soon as we can, I’d love to do this! 7 days of road trip? Yes please!

Have you been to any of these places in Scotland? Where would you recommend for a trip? Let me know!

81 Comments

  1. Ahh. I love Edinburgh! All the little cafes and bookshops are great. It took me an 11 hour coach to get there but it was worth it.
    Hope you have a great time if you go there 🙂

  2. We are the same as you, desperate to get away but also take the necessary precautions. Abroad trips certainly seem out of the window this year so we are currently now planning an Autumn trip to Scotland in a camper for the NC500 😊. Can’t wait and I hope you manage to get on all of your planned trips. I look forward to reading about them

  3. Finally I get to read this! I am happy I did. Thank you for sharing this. I would love to share my list of places to go to after this pandemic. I hope we can travel more soon!

  4. What a fab list, there’s so much to see in Scotland isn’t there?! We were supposed to go to Edinburgh at Christmas for the Xmas markets so I’m really hoping we can do that this year instead. I’ve got such a long list of places I want to visit after lockdown! Really hope you get some of these ticked off your list this year xx

    Tiffany x http://www.foodandotherloves.co.uk

  5. I can’t wait to be able to travel again, but I’m also not going to hop on a plane the second it’s safe to travel either.
    I haven’t been to Scotland, but it would be nice to visit Edingburg & I’ve seen photos from Ben Nevis too & I think it would be nice to see. Riding the Jacobnite stream train sounds fun too!

  6. Scotland looks like an amazing place to visit. There are so many different activities to do! Nature out there looks amazing! It is so cool that there are still steam trains operating. Don’t see much of it out here with technology advancing and everything. The North Coast 500 sounds like a great activity as well! Thanks for sharing!

    Nancy ✨ mdrnminimalists.com

  7. I can’t wait to visit Scotland and I can’t believe I haven’t done it yet! My boyfriend is dying to go for the Edinburgh Fringe, so Scotland is definitely up there for us 😊 Hope we all get to start travelling soon!

  8. I am soo with you on this one. Since we’ve been cooped up, I’ve been desperate to explore the beauty on our doorstep. I’d love to do Christmas markets in Edinburgh this year!

    Rosie

  9. I’ve been to Scotland once and all I got was dragged around St Andrews’ golf courses (the perks of staying with distant relatives you don’t know!). Your trip sounds like a lot of fun though – I’d love to explore Edinburgh properly one day.

  10. I live in Perthshire and in normal times we have so many tourists that come back year after year. I love Edinburgh, it’s such a spectacular city. I’ve not done the NC500 but I have visited parts of it and the scenery up there is amazing. Hope you manage to come!

  11. Yes! I split my time between the US and Edinburgh! I am blogging about my little town of Leith, Edinburgh next week. I will be documenting all of my “must sees” that are off the tourist beat and path! Cheers.

  12. I miss Edinburgh so much! I was there this time last year (literally the week before national lockdown) so I feel super lucky to have had that last little getaway before this all went down. Hopefully we’ll all be able to travel again sooner rather than later 🙂

  13. Ireland is on my bucket list and cannot wait to go visit. Actually we have it scheduled for next spring with 3 of my traveling ladies, to visit. Great ideas. Thank you

  14. We adore Edinburgh! Yes, so many things to see there! Stay in the Grassmarket. We had a lovely time walking all through the city, taking the bus tour also, and enjoyed a jazz festival one weekend too! We sure hope to return one day! ❤️🦋🌀🌳

  15. I’ve also never been to Scotland though I had a trip booked to Edinburgh that’s been cancelled twice now. I’ll just be grateful when the trip actually does go ahead as I’d love to explore the city, haha!

    Tash – A Girl with a View

  16. I’ve never been to Scotland either! However, I would love to go to Edinburgh or Glasgow because they look like amazing places! I totally agree about taking things at your own pace because that is so important! Thank you for sharing this!

  17. Scotland is high on my list! Truly can’t wait to travel again when it’s safe., Edinburgh sounds great and will add Ben Nevis too! Honestly from the pictures everything from Scotland would be great! Thanks for sharing x

  18. I’ve actually never been up to Scotland, but it’s on mine and Alex’s wishlist for the summer! And, while I’m not particularly fussed by trains, I do know what you mean about steam trains are just cool!

    Katie | katieemmabeauty.com

  19. I’ve never visited Scotland before either, but I’m so excited to visit more places in the UK when it’s safe to do so 🙂 Me and my boyfriend were planning a trip to Edinburgh after exams last year (haha, that turned out to be a bust!) so I’d love to visit Scotland first, thank you for these recommendations x

  20. You will love the Highlands of Scotland. I live an hour from Inverness and the scenery and culture are amazing. You will also love Edinburgh, such an old beautiful city with so much history and spooky places to visit. xxx

  21. I’d love to visit Ben Nevis and possibly even attempt the three peaks challenge. I’ve walked up Snowden and it was such a lovely experience with amazing views. It’s deffinitly on my list of things to do. The steam train would also be such a magical experience. Thank you for sharing these ideas!

    Em x

  22. Great list! I definitely recommend the NC500 – I did it last year and it’s incredible. Top tip from me would be to give yourself plenty of time as there was so much we had to skip as we didn’t have time for it or the weather was against us.

  23. We usually visit Scotland every year! We have been to big cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow, but we have also visited lots of little Loch villages. We did a boat trip on the Loch Ness a couple of years ago and it was so much fun!

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