Vacation help! - Scotland

[bmccasland]

I rented a car and like the freedom of going where I wanted when I wanted. But when I got to a town/village where I wanted to stop, I parked in the first car park I came across and walked - it was safer for everyone! I did one commercial tour, at the suggestion of my B&B hosts - Oban to Iona with a pass by Staffa Island via ferry/tour coach (bus)/ferry.

Some of the more interesting places aren't on tour bus routes, and/or you can't be spontaneous. But then I don't do well in large groups either. Follow the leader never was one of my favorite games.

I ordered a tourism book from the Scottish Tourism Board (pre-internet days), and listed out places that sounded interesting, then plotted them on a map, knowing my plane would be landing in Glasgow. After that it was where the whim took me or the suggestion of people I met along the way. I used the tourism offices to help book B&B's if I had trouble getting one on my own. Their fee was nominal, and the service was wonderful.

[woohoo]

Lots of funs stuff to do in Scotland in December, as long as you expect it to be cold and wet!

I'd say Oban is a good bet - it's a fishing town on the west coast, scenic & interesting. It's accessibly by the west coast main line train - one of the most scenic rail journeys in Europe, even if I am biased

As others have said, Glasgow and Edinburgh are a must. They're only an hour apart by train, so you could stay in either one and still see the other.

Fort William is good, and has the advantage in winter of being close to both Glencoe and Aonach Mor (Nevis Range) ski areas. At nevis range you can take a gondola up as a pedestrian if you aren't skiing/boarding. Both Glencoe and Fort William have some pretty serious downhill bike tracks, although you'd need to check winter opening. Ft. William's is in the UCI world cup calendar.

Weather wise we might have snow. It's not normally that serious, but the last two winters have been much snowier than usual, with maybe 4-6 weeks with 6-12inches in Glasgow and more in the highlands.

A good website to checkout is visitscotland.com - it's just the tourist board, but it's pretty comprehensive and caters to a lot of tastes...

[Cataboo]

Re power converters - if you look at most electronics lately (laptop power supply, camera battery chargers, etc) - look at the input on the power cord - if it says 100-240 volt input, then you don't need a voltage converter, you just need the plug adapter. I just take a couple plug adapters and a 3 or 6 outlet plug to plug into that - then all my electronics can go into charge on that. I still carry a voltage converter, but very rarely do I actually have anything that I plug in that needs conversion.

[Eden]

Super info! Thanks all - now I have some places to start checking out.

I haven't downhill skied in years, but my husband was thinking renting some cross country skis or snowshoes could be a fun thing to do for our "alone time" We are going with two friends, one of whom is paralyzed - so some of our time will need to be relatively accessible activities - he's pretty adventuresome, quite flexible (mentally I mean) and more mobile than one might think though.

I'm not super worried about the weather - It will probably be not much different than what we will be leaving behind in Seattle.... yeah it might be nice to go somewhere tropical and get away from it...., but it also seems a rather romantic place to spend Christmas. We don't have any family where we live, so we usually don't do too much.