If you only have around 3 days to spend in Scotland, here is a perfect travel itinerary to make the most out of your trip! I will cover Aberdeen, Loch Ness Lake, Huntly Castle, Balvenie Castle, Elgin Cathedral, Falls of Foyer, Urquhart Castle, whiskey tasting tour and more!
Make most of your trip in Scotland in 3 days!
Scotland was everything I imagined from the movies! Beautiful, wild nature and breath-taking landscapes. A place where you can have long road trips and never get bored with the beauty around you. I especially decided to go to Scotland in August to enjoy the place during nice weather but to my surprise, it was still so cold! I can’t even imagine how cold it is there in January. So be prepared, if you want to enjoy beautiful Scotland you need warm clothes at any time of the year. I, of course, wasn’t prepared for that so needed to include a shopping day to buy a coat and boots – yes in August!
I know it is impossible to see all of Scotland in 3 days, but as I only had that much time, I tried to make the most of it and include all the most symbolic things to see and do in Scotland. I definitely wanted to have a road trip through the highlands, see the Loch Ness Monster, visit some historical sites, try the famous fried Mars bar and explore a bit one of the big cities. I managed to squeeze that all in 3 days so if you are interested in a travel itinerary like that, continue reading.
3-day travel itinerary around Scotland
My road trip started by stopping at Huntly Castle and after that Balvenie Castle.
Scotland is famous for its whisky, so although I am not a massive whisky fan I decided to go on one of the whisky distillery tours. There are plenty of them, so you just need to choose the one you prefer and is on your way. As I don’t know much about whiskies I simply decided to follow my friend recommendation and go with the best one – Cardhu brand. They showed us the whole process of how whiskey is made, where it is kept etc. To book the tour visit this page: https://www.malts.com/en-gb/distilleries/cardhu/tours/ After the tour we were guided into a beautiful old-style dining room, with an impressive interior, this is where we had the whiskey tasting. I am still not a fan of whisky but it was definitely an amazing experience to have in Scotland.
The next stop was Elgin Cathedral, also known as the ‘Lantern of the North’, a majestic, historic ruin situated in Elgin.
The goal was to finish the day and stay by Loch Ness Lake. Loch Ness is the second largest Scottish loch and you can walk all the way around it. For details on what you can do, see and where to stay check out this website:
Next to the lake is a wonderful waterfall – Falls of Foyer. This waterfall has "a fine cascade", with a fall of 165 feet (62 metres), making it the ninth-highest waterfall in the United Kingdom. You can take a nice walk around the Foyers Falls area and enjoy the waterfall from many sides.
A must-see by the loch is Urquhart Castle because it has a very distinct Highland heritage and the site has witnessed some of the most dramatic chapters in Scottish history.
I personally didn’t take a boat trip over Loch Ness, but this is an option.
Next to the loch, you can find a museum about the famous ‘Nessie monster’.
After visiting Lock Ness we went on a road trip through the Cairngorms National Park. We ended up on this long road in the middle of the highlands, with rivers and fields full of sheep and I just felt like I was in a movie!
By the way, during this trip I was so close to the Royal Family, one of their summer residencies is in Scotland called Balmoral Castle and exactly on that day they were there. Unfortunately, for us because of this fact, we couldn’t get into the residency and have a tour, but if you visit Scotland in any other time of the year you can include an excursion around an actual Royal summer residence.
On a way to Aberdeen, we visited Stonehaven. A very cute and peaceful place just 20min away from Aberdeen. During my trip, I saw a lot of castles but the one in Stonehaven, Dunnottar Castle, was my favourite one. You can read more about this castle here: https://www.dunnottarcastle.co.uk/
Stonehaven is the place where the famous fried Mars bar was born. I tried it and loved it!
As my big city, I chose Aberdeen, but Edinburgh and Glasgow are definitely other ones I have in mind to visit in the future. The architecture in Aberdeen is impressive!
On a Saturday night, we hit the streets and the place where everyone should go for a drink is “Soul” – a bar inside a church! An epic feeling, the interior and atmosphere were just so so cool. Other places I really enjoyed were “Prohibition” and “Tippling House”.
I can’t believe I didn’t know about this before - Rhubarb Gin! Honestly, it’s my new favourite drink from now on!