Inspiration

Reasons to visit Scotland this summer

Sawday's Expert

5 min read

Scotland in summer is always a wonderful trip, with long days for hiking the highlands and calmer weather for bouncing over the seas to the western isles. This year, along with those perennial favourites, there are a few events and occasions that make it an even more attractive prospect. Here are some of our top reasons to visit Scotland this summer.

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Isle of Lewis, Aberdeen, Lerwick, Fife, Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow

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Festivals beyond the Fringe

The Edinburgh International Festival and The Fringe, which both run for the whole of August, are world-renowned events, but why not try something a little different in 2023. Hebcelt, a celebration of folk music, has been going for almost three decades but still strums along under many people’s radar. It’s held on the Isle of Lewis, where a turreted castle and the sea form the backdrop to an incredible array of acts from pipers and fiddlers to big hitters like The Proclaimers, and you know how far you’d go to see them!

Way over on the east coast, Aberdeen will explode with colour again this year during the Nuart Festival, in which artists, muralists, sculptors and more decorate the city’s streets, buildings and any surface they can find, making for a day out that’ll put a strain on your camera’s memory card. Although dates have yet to be finalised, the 2022 event was in June, but keep an eye out for a concrete announcement for this year. For a total sea change, how about making the long voyage north for the Tall Ships Festival in Lerwick? Crews from around the world will gather in Shetland to race, exhibit and trade tall stories.

Real Highland Games

Be honest, you sort of believe that The Highland Games is a myth, or only staged for tourists, but it is in fact a genuine event, or rather series of events with a centuries-long heritage. The oldest is generally considered to the Ceres games in Fife, said to have been held since 1314, but if you’re anywhere in Scotland from May to September, it’s likely that you’ll find one going on nearby. Aside from the lack of bear wrestling in the modern games, the format of most events remains largely unchanged. There’s running races, throwing events and “the heavies” in which enormous solid masses attempt to lift and throw big objects. Surrounding the physical events are craft stalls and traditional food, while the whole thing usually plays out to a background of pipes and drums. If they hadn’t been going for so long, they would feel like a kitsch mockery of traditional highland life, but there’s an authenticity to the best of them that sends you reeling back through time like a well-tossed caber.

Art, tartan and tarted up arthouses

Scotland’s National Gallery sits at the end of Prince’s Street Gardens, right under the mound of the castle at the centre of Edinburgh. It couldn’t be better placed for visitors, but work is underway to really make the most of the location. A project, scheduled for completion in the summer of 2023, will redesign the gallery spaces with windows that showcase the city itself alongside an expanded capacity for displaying both the permanent collection and a variety of planned touring exhibitions. It’s worth keeping an eye on their site to see when it opens. In Glasgow, warmer weather makes heading out on the Mural Trail a more pleasant experience than when trudging through the winter rain. In 2008 the council funded a single mural that sparked a city-wide explosion of art. Now an official trail guides you round the 28 completed pieces that are walkable from the city centre. In Dundee, the only V&A Museum outside of London and the first building in the UK designed by Kengo Kuma celebrates its fifth anniversary with a massive exhibition centred on the most Scottish of textiles, tartan. The show will be in place all year, but visiting in summer gives you the chance to linger by the water and take in the building and city itself at their shining best.

Riding the rails

One of the best things about summer in Scotland, or travelling in Scotland generally, is how beautiful the landscapes are. They’re worth taking your time over and worth taking a train through, so you can watch the mountains and the sea slide by without suddenly swerving as a sheep steps into the road. The east coast line up to Edinburgh from the south makes a great start to any trip, as you trundle along by the sea before arriving right in the heart of the city, but there are many spectacular rail routes to consider for your onward journey or exploring other parts of the country. The West Highland Line, running north out of Glasgow, carries you through the hills all the way to Fort William, but also stops at Oban, allowing you to jump off the train and onto a boat to the western isles. For a little side trip, you can also take the ferry from Oban to one of the country’s newest and most remote distilleries, Nc’nean, founded and run by the innovative Annabel Thomas. The Kyle Line and The Far North Line both leave from Inverness, the former to Kyle of Lochalsh and the latter to Thurso or Wick. They make for much more relaxed, scenic ways of getting from coast to coast or to the far north, taking a few hours but removing all the driving stress as the lochs and hills roll past the window. Finally, if you’re hitting the whisky trail along the Spey, then you’re well positioned to hop on the old steam train that rattles from Aviemore to Boat of Garten. It’s more an experience than a mode of transport, with cream teas and Sunday lunches served on board as you go.

Road trips and trails

On the back of the success that the NC500 has had in drawing tourists to the far north, a couple of other road trips and routes have been established. The Kintyre 66, tracing the edge of the peninsula of the same name, is a delicious 66-mile (who’d have thought it?) loop packed with two things Scotland does as well as anywhere in the world, seafood and whisky. In the east, The Heart 200 invites you to explore Perthshire, from bagging Munros to the many ruined castles of the area’s combative history. Being so close to Edinburgh makes it possible to pick up parts of the trail and combine with it a city break, blending Munros and woodland walks with the capital’s architecture and culture. Another recently created site is dedicated to Scotland’s wealth of not-recently-created things. The UNESCO trail gives you insight and visitor information on everything from The Antonine Wall to St Kilda, with celebrated parts of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee to take in along the way. It’s a little generous to call it a trail, as the sites it lists are so spread out, but if you’re looking to add a highlight to a trip to any part of Scotland, it’s worth checking out.

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Christopher Wilson-Elmes

Sawday's Expert

Chris is our in-house copywriter, with a flair for turning rough notes and travel tales into enticing articles. Raised in a tiny Wiltshire village, he was desperate to travel and has backpacked all over the world. Closer to home, he finds himself happiest in the most remote and rural places he can find, preferably with a host of animals to speak to, some waves to be smashed about in and the promise of a good pint somewhere in his future.

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