Exploring Scotland: Unforgettable Day Trips from Edinburgh by Train

In episode 73 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast Tracy and Doug Collins provide travel inspiration by train from Edinburgh. 

They offer six exciting day trips that can be enjoyed from the city, allowing you to explore more of Scotland's stunning landscapes and historic sites.

From the majestic Kelpies sculptures to the charming town of St. Andrews, they delve into the highlights of each destination and share their personal experiences.

With recommendations for tours, attractions, and transportation options, Tracy and Doug's insightful tips make it easy to plan your own unforgettable day trips.

Whether you're a whisky lover, a history enthusiast, or simply seeking breathtaking scenery, this episode is packed with valuable insights for exploring Scotland by train.

Show notes - Episode 73

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast. Your host is the founder of the UK Travel Planning website, tracy Collins. In this podcast, tracy shares destination guides, travel tips and itinerary ideas, as well as interviews with a variety of guests who share their knowledge and experience of UK travel to help you plan your perfect UK vacation. Join us as we explore the UK from cosmopolitan cities to quaint villages, from historic castles to beautiful islands, and from the picturesque countryside to seaside towns.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Hi and welcome to this week's episode of the UK Travel Planning Podcast. This week, doug and I thought we would chat about some of the places you can easily visit on a day trip from Edinburgh by train. Hello there, if you are considering basing yourself in Edinburgh for a few days, then why not incorporate a day trip or two into your itinerary? Obviously, there are quite a few tour options available, but we thought we would share our favourite trips by train that you can take independently. We do have a detailed article which Doug wrote which covers even more day trips from Edinburgh by train, but for this podcast we've picked a selection from the article and I will link to that full article. In this week's show notes at uktravelplanetcom, forward slash episode 73, so do pop over there for even more Scottish travel inspiration. But for this episode, let's talk about some of our favourite day trips from Edinburgh by train, shall we?

Speaker 3: 1:32

Yeah, that's a good idea. We've taken all of these ones at some point. So the first one we looked at was the train trip to St Andrews, which we asked about a great deal don't we?

Speaker 2: 1:43

I think, so it seems to be probably one of the most popular, definitely day trips from Edinburgh. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:49

So it's a university of town north of Edinburgh, and it's well. St Andrews is the home of golf.

Speaker 2: 1:56

I was going to say it's really famous for golf, and it's also really famous because that is where Prince William met Kate. So there's a lot of associations with that, and, I believe, in the new episodes of the Crown, I think. Well, we were actually in St Andrews this summer, weren't we? And they had been recording the new episodes of the Crown on the Netflix series. So I know a lot of people enjoy having a wander around around St Andrews and I mean, I think probably the biggest draw card is definitely the golf course.

Speaker 2: 2:25

Almost definitely, and we did have to stand at the Swilcann Bridge and get that iconic photo of the Stambridge. Yeah, so I will put that in the show notes, actually, so you can check that out. So getting to St Andrews, though, is actually surprising easy, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 2:41

It is. It's really easy. It's a single train journey from Edinburgh, so there's no actual train station at St Andrews, which seems to catch a few people out. The name of the train station is Lukas, or Lukas for non-annual pronunciation, and it's just over between 55 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes in each direction by train, and it's a very straightforward. And there's so many trains daily so it's no, no problems at all. So what you need to do, you Jump on your train with your ticket and then, about 10 minutes into that, you go over the very famous fourth rail bridge, which is over the stretch ward, called the further fourth, and it's not easy to say that's the UNESCO World Heritage, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 3:22

That's right yeah, and it's a cantilever bridge which was completed in 1889 and it is.

Speaker 2: 3:29

It's a beautiful bridge to go over as well, and there are plenty of trains every day from Edinburgh Waverly to Lucca, so don't worry about that. And it's actually it's a direct service, so no changes. So you get on the train and you get off at Lucca's at the other side that's right.

Speaker 3: 3:42

It's on the same train line as you take from Edinburgh if you're taking the coastal around Aberdeen, Dundee and obviously up to Inverness yeah, and actually when you arrive at Lucca's as well, there's plenty of buss.

Speaker 2: 3:55

When you come out the train station, you have this bus. There's actually taxis if you want to get a taxi but there are also buses.

Speaker 3: 4:02

That's right, yeah, and there's multiple buses, there's taxes there, and it's literally right next to the car park, next to the station, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 4:08

yeah, yeah and I think it took us about 12 minutes to get into St Andrews. So what we did is we booked a walking tour of St Andrews. So I'd recommend doing that as well, because that was a great way to have a look around St Andrews and learn a lot about history and obviously some of those kind of famous places where where Kate and William would hang out.

Speaker 3: 4:30

That's just quite cool and obviously go and have a look at the golf course as well and that's another thing that actually in St Andrews itself there's the ruins of the cathedral and there's a castle there as well yeah, it was.

Speaker 2: 4:41

It's a really pretty little city, city town it's a town so it's probably a town yeah okay a town to visit and yes to say, we know that's a really popular place for visitors for Edinburgh to go to and there's some really nice ice cream as well that you can buy there as well. Can you remember the name of the place we went?

Speaker 3: 5:01

I can't.

Speaker 2: 5:01

It's very famous, we'll link to that in the show notes. Yes, I think. Oh, I can't remember now you've said it. Oh, I've got it, so Antoinette's or something was it?

Speaker 3: 5:10

yeah, it was really nice. Yeah, every flavour under the you can think about, yeah, very famous and a lot of people were.

Speaker 2: 5:16

We were there in June and the queues were just about the door, weren't there it certainly weren't yeah so what's the second choice that we've decided to talk about in this episode?

Speaker 3: 5:25

well, it's again one that comes up very often. It's the short train journey from Edinburgh to Glasgow, so that takes about 50 minutes to an hour and a half, depending which train you catch, how many stations it stops off, but it's very, very straightforward and, again, there's multiple services each day yeah, there's loads of things to see in Glasgow.

Speaker 2: 5:46

In fact, it's a fantastic city to visit. To be honest, I know everybody goes to Edinburgh. Really, glasgow also deserves to be on your itinerary and I actually have got a full one-day itinerary for Glasgow on the website. Again, I'll link to that in the show notes. But seriously don't write off Glasgow, because everybody goes Edinburgh, edinburgh, yes, edinburgh is beautiful and you will enjoy it. But actually going to Glasgow is totally worth it. There's some fantastic museums there. The Kelvin Grove Art Gallery and Museum is worth going to. We went to the Riverside Transport Museum didn't?

Speaker 1: 6:19

we went there which was brilliant.

Speaker 2: 6:22

We did the hop on and hop off bus to get ourselves around Glasgow, which we really enjoyed. And you really can't miss either going to the Cathedral and the Necropolis, which is on the top of the hill overlooking Glasgow, which is fabulous, very interesting place to go and visit, very atmospheric, and so don't miss that off. And there's some wonderful street art in Glasgow, as well, isn't there?

Speaker 3: 6:43

It is, and we took in the street art, and then we actually found ourselves in the Willow Tea Rooms as well, didn't we?

Speaker 2: 6:47

We did, yeah, we did so. If you're a fan of Art Deco and Charles René Macintosh, you really need to go to the Willow Tea Rooms. I highly recommend it. I think you had had guess one there, didn't you? Of course, I did, yeah, so Glasgow. So you can literally just go and have have a day or half a day, really in Glasgow, if you want to do from Edinburgh, but one other destination you could incorporate into that day, or actually you could do it on its own if you wanted to, and, to be honest, we've done Glasgow on its own and the other destination that you're about to talk about.

Speaker 3: 7:17

Yes, at Falcourt you've got the famous Kelpies, horses.

Speaker 2: 7:21

Yes, so they're 30m high equine sculptures and they can find it in the Helix Park. Actually, you can see them. You can see them from the train on the right hand side if you look out from Edinburgh, and there are short taxi ride away from the train station. There are buses as well. Actually, the first time we ever went, I think either the buses weren't on or we'd missed them or something, so we decided that we walked to the Kelpies.

Speaker 2: 7:43

Not a good idea A mistake yeah, they're a little bit further away than we had anticipated, weren't they? Yes, most definitely yeah and also close by, you've got the Falcourt wheel, which is a rotating boat lift which connects the fourth and Clyde canals with the Union canal. Really worth seeing, quite amazing, isn't it.

Speaker 3: 8:03

Whether you have an interesting engineering or canals, it's still worth looking at because it's actually a work of art. It's very, very clever.

Speaker 2: 8:11

Yeah, and honestly, the Kelpies are so beautiful and everybody really should try and get an opportunity to see them. They really are. I remember the first time I saw the Kelpies on television and I turned to Doug and said I have to go and see them. And they are magnificent, really they're magnificent. So there are two horse head sculptures. They're 30m high, so just imagine that and they are stunning. Again, I'm going to put some photos in the show notes, but really, definitely, if you can get yourself out to Fall Cook, go and see the Kelpies.

Speaker 3: 8:42

I'll set them up as well at certain times.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Yeah, yeah yeah, and the evening time you're gonna get them as well, beautifully lit up. So hopefully we'll. We're hoping in January that we'll get a chance to go to Edinburgh and Glasgow and we'll definitely try and visit in to Fall Cook to go and see the Kelpies at night.

Speaker 3: 9:00

Yeah, most definitely.

Speaker 2: 9:01

Because they'll be absolutely fantastic. So that kind of covers three. So we've already given you possibly Edinburgh to St Andrews via Lucas, Edinburgh to Glasgow as its own day trip and then Edinburgh to Fall Cook. You could kind of do Edinburgh to Glasgow and incorporate Fall Cook.

Speaker 3: 9:20

Yes, you can do it both, yeah, if you really wanted to Depends on how early you start in the morning.

Speaker 2: 9:23

Yeah, yeah, so that's kind of that's three that we've talked about. So the fourth trip that Doug wanted and this is because you wrote this article, so I'm kind of deferent to you on these but the fourth yeah, this is a journey I've done quite a few times.

Speaker 3: 9:38

It's from Edinburgh to Inverness. Now you've got the two choices. You can go more or less more of a central route via Perth, pitlockery and Avymore, or you can take the coastal route, which is the northeast and it's via Aberdeen, and it takes much longer. It can take up to about five hours that way, but part of the way that you're hugging the coast and you've just got spectacular views. So that's one way and you can also get to Inverness if you take as I say. You can go via Pitlockery and Avymore.

Speaker 2: 10:11

Yep.

Speaker 3: 10:12

And so there's plenty to see that way lots of parks.

Speaker 2: 10:14

How long does that take, that one?

Speaker 3: 10:16

Well, the Aberdeen route takes the longest and that's about five hours each way, or via Perth and Pitlockery and Avymore. That could take about three to three and a half hours to four, depending on which ones you catch.

Speaker 2: 10:28

So they're probably best done in the summer then, but when you've got the, that's right, I mean alternatively, you can.

Speaker 3: 10:34

I mean it depends on which you like sitting on the trains. Well, I know you'd just go there and back in a day, quite happy with that I would happy to do that, but you can also, if you have an early start, you can actually do a circular trip.

Speaker 2: 10:45

Oh, okay.

Speaker 3: 10:45

You can take the coast well, whichever way you want to the coastal trip up to in Venice and then come back down the more central route.

Speaker 2: 10:52

Oh, okay, so I suppose if you did that that would give you. So that's five hours, so that's about eight and a half hours on the train, so you can probably still give yourself a couple of hours in in Venice oh easily, easily.

Speaker 3: 11:02

Yeah, it depends how much you want to do there. I mean, I took you, take your refreshments with you. But there's multiple train options really Okay, and some with changes and some without changes. It depends, because some people love to change trains, it depends. Yeah, but you know there's options.

Speaker 3: 11:19

So if I decided to take the route via Aberdeen to Venice, you say that's a coastal route On and off until you get right to the Doctoral Forest in Elgin. It sort of comes in and land a little bit, but part of the way it's hugging the coast yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:33

Okay, and then if I decided to go, I mean, I know you also mentioned that there's a scenic heritage railway, that's right particularly for the whiskey lovers amongst us I don't drink any more, but yes.

Speaker 3: 11:46

Then the main line train station, a place called Keith and that's about 65 minutes from Aberdeen, and you can get up and break up your journey there. And you can even in whiskey country, here and in, catch the seam train or diesel train, dependent on the timetable, from Keetown station to Dufftown, and this is the famous scenic heritage railway Keetown Dufftown railway, known as the whiskey line. The line runs about 11 miles. Now Keetown station is about 20 minutes walk from the main line train station, so a little bit of a walk there. But the line takes you over the Glenphilic viaduct and to the Glenphilic distillery, not to mention beautiful scenery both sides of the train along that way, and then it's a whiskey tour. You can take the world's Malt whiskey capital and this is obviously the Glenphilic distillery and visitor center. Wonderful trip, wonderful day.

Speaker 3: 12:42

It depends. You can just stick on the train or you can just head straight to Keith, and you can do that. It depends what you like.

Speaker 2: 12:48

I was going to say so you could actually, I guess, with this particular route you could, rather than head all the way to Inverness, which you've got the option to do, you could just actually hop off at Aberdeen, or you could hop off at Keith right.

Speaker 3: 13:00

Yeah, the things to say along the way. Aberdeen is interesting as well. I've worked in Aberdeen for a little while so I know that whole area. There is beautiful.

Speaker 2: 13:08

Okay, okay, and then if I decided to take the route via Perth, pitlock, reblade, athel and Aviamore? So how what would that route be like?

Speaker 3: 13:18

Well, perth is located. It's on the river. It takes about one and a half hours from Edinburgh. This whole area. You head north through National Parks. It is just water wall beauty. We would need to do a podcast for three hours for me to just list the places you can actually get off at. But in Perth you go via there. You've got the famous Black Watch Castle and Museum there and nearby is actually the Scone Palace. Okay, and Pitlock in Blair Athel. The train stations are. You need to check the times because they don't all stop at every station.

Speaker 2: 13:53

And they're about an hour and 45 minutes from Edinburgh. Yeah, roundabout, so you could actually again just go from Edinburgh to Pitlock if you wanted to for the day.

Speaker 3: 14:00

Yes, so that's it, and I think we have.

Speaker 2: 14:02

We have. Yes, I remember going to see the fish ladder.

Speaker 3: 14:05

That's right, and there's the nearby. There is the Blair Athel distillery.

Speaker 2: 14:09

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:09

Seems a bit like whiskey here. Yes, the Everdell distillery. And yeah, Blair Castle and Gardner beautiful.

Speaker 2: 14:16

Okay, so lots of choices there, and then Aviamore.

Speaker 3: 14:20

Yeah, that's about three hours from Edinburgh and this is in the Cairngorms National Park. I don't know where to start with the beauty there, it's just stunning. I mean, that area is very much like a winter sport, a winter area, but you've got breweries that way. And there's another steam railway that way. There's the Stratus Bay railway and that steam trains from Perth to Broomhill, which is about 92 miles and takes close to a couple of hours.

Speaker 2: 14:46

Okay.

Speaker 3: 14:46

Yeah, lovely, lovely train journey.

Speaker 2: 14:48

So there's kind of loads of options on this route so those that kind of circular route that you're talking about there's lots of potential places that you could actually just go for the day.

Speaker 3: 14:58

Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2: 15:00

So but if you decided that you wanted to kind of go by train through all those, but if your intention was to go to Inverness, obviously you could just go through, take the train through all those places, whichever route, and then stop off in Inverness. Now, inverness is the largest city in the Scottish Highlands and it's where the River Ness joins the Moray Firth and it's a city that we visit very often. We've been there quite a few times.

Speaker 3: 15:23

Yes, it's beautiful yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:25

So it's actually a great base. If you're going to visit the Highlands anyway is to base yourself in Inverness. There is a hop on, hop off bus as well, so you can actually you don't actually need transportation in terms of a car. You could actually get yourself up to Inverness by train from Edinburgh and actually base yourself there and do some trips from there. So there's obviously tours available, but the hop on, hop off bus will take you to places like clave cans, which is a bronze aged can collodion battlefield, which, of course, most people always talk to us about, want to go and visit, and then you've got Loch Ness and Castle Urquette.

Speaker 3: 16:01

There's lots of tours out there as well, and boat trips around Loch Ness For George, the artillery for fortification. That's worth a visit.

Speaker 2: 16:08

Yeah. So I guess if you want to do Inverness, you can do it on a day trip, absolutely you can, or you could go and sort of base yourself up there and then from there and actually I guess we'll talk about it at another point we'll talk about our rail itinerary for Scotland you could actually base yourself in Inverness and then catch the train to the Carle of Lecouche and then what? You can't go by train to the Isle of Skye, but you can get the train lying to the Carle of Lecouche. There's buses from there and there are actually tours that will pick you up there from that point and take you around the Isle of Skye. And we've done that. I remember we did that first time. I did that was years ago and I was blown away how beautiful it is up there. So that's the fourth option. But obviously with that fourth option it's given you lots of other options yeah, lots of combinations of those.

Speaker 2: 16:58

Yeah. So the fifth option we've got is going towards the Scottish borders. So this is the Edinburgh to Tweed Bank.

Speaker 3: 17:06

That's right. It's the borders roundways, so heading in the opposite direction, back down towards the English border. So Tweed Bank is a village located southeast of Gallish Eels on the Scottish borders, so the train journey is about one hour each way. So if you haven't got a lot of time, you just want a little train excursion from Edinburgh, this is a perfect choice for you. There's no changes. It's a direct service.

Speaker 2: 17:29

Yeah, yeah. And again, is that nice scenery along that route as well?

Speaker 3: 17:33

Oh it's stunning. Yeah, it's beautiful.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Okay, so if I decided that, rather than head north, I wanted to go south, towards the borders, and I decided to do this this particular day trip? As you say, it's only an hour each way, so that's pretty good. So what could I do? What could I see?

Speaker 3: 17:51

Well, there's a very good home of Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. It's his house called Abbotford House, which is just outside Tweed Bank itself, and that is an impressive mansion house and depending on the time of year, it's got lovely gardens. And also very close by is Melrose Abbey. That's just about 15 minutes from Tweed Bank and is on the historic ruins of St Mary's Abbey, which is famous for its architecture and the interred heart of Robert the Boos.

Speaker 2: 18:23

Oh, okay, wow, okay. So is that enough to keep me busy for a day then? Oh, there's a lot to say that I mean there's other things you've got.

Speaker 3: 18:31

We'll see is that there's the leader fort viaduct and driver Abbey, which is also close by.

Speaker 2: 18:37

Yeah okay, so that's fairly easy to do. Yeah, so then that that was the fifth one. We're gonna do one more day trip from Edinburgh by train. So so so the final itinerary suggestion in this episode of the podcast though there are others, so do check those out in our article on the website is to go from Edinburgh to Stirling.

Speaker 3: 20:14

That's right. It's about an hour train journey in each direction. You go via the Kelpers Folkirk, which we've already mentioned. Alternatively, you can also stop at Linn-Lithgow, and that's the historic palace in West Lothian and it's the birthplace of Mary, queen of Scots.

Speaker 2: 20:34

Okay, and it's only 20 minutes from Edinburgh, is that right yeah?

Speaker 3: 20:36

that's right.

Speaker 2: 20:37

Okay, so that's a really easy little if you want to just go to Linn-Lithgow and not bother going to Stirling. You can see that it's our interest, yeah that's it.

Speaker 3: 20:44

And then when you get to Stirling, stirling train stations in the city centre. But it's one thing we found in Stirling, it's quite hilly isn't it?

Speaker 2: 20:52

It certainly is. Yes, it is. Well, you tend to find castles on the top of hills.

Speaker 3: 20:56

Generally speaking, and train stations at the bottom.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Yeah, that's true, that's true. So obviously, if you want to go to Stirling, I guess that you're going to want to go to see the castle, which is worth 100% worth going to see. We highly recommend that.

Speaker 3: 21:08

That is really, really excellent castle to visit, that is. And then close by you've got the National Wallace Monument. That's the commemorative building for the 13th century hero, William Wallace.

Speaker 2: 21:20

Oh, okay, that's true. And also I'm just going to mention, if you were going to Stirling, that you probably would do want to go to the castle is that there are buses that you can catch up to see the castle itself?

Speaker 3: 21:31

That's right, and also out to the Wallace Monument. And there's also the Battle of Bannackburn experience.

Speaker 2: 21:36

Yeah, so is it a centre is that. Yeah, so there's plenty of things to do, so, I guess. And that's only an hour away, so, again, that's a fairly easy day trip. So if you're thinking about basing yourself in Edinburgh and we know it's such a popular city with people to stay in and you think, oh, I've given myself five days and I want to take some day trips out, certainly you can see how close and easy it is to do many, many destinations, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 22:04

That's right, and the likes of Stirling Castle, I think if it's such a thing, it's like a hidden gem of a castle, I think, because you get less people there than I think than Edinburgh.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 3: 22:15

But there's so much to see. Actually, in Stirling itself, you've got the Old Town Jail as well, right next to the castle, which is also worth a visit. And yeah, and you just one hour from Loch Lomond there as well.

Speaker 2: 22:26

Okay, so that's another great destination to visit. So I think you know we do have a podcast episode in which we share our road trip by itinerary for Scotland. But Douga actually has put together actually multiple articles about train trips around Scotland and recently they put together one which is a circular route from Edinburgh starts in Edinburgh, ends in Edinburgh by train. I will just temper that by saying that you cannot get from Malague over to Skye in the round Sky by train. There's alternative methods for that. So basically, you have to take a ferry and you can hire a car or, if you really want to, you could take a bus on Skye. The main thing is to get yourself back to the Cal of La Corte and then you can pick up the train line.

Speaker 3: 23:09

That's it. That's the way to do it. And also just word of advice is the is too long for one day from Edinburgh to Fort William? Yes, yes, that is not achievable.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Yeah, we do get asked that actually quite often because I know a lot of people want to do the Glenfinn viaduct and the. So if you actually want to do that, your best bet to do that is by tour, because you're not going to be able to do that by train.

Speaker 3: 23:33

No, there's not a lot of trains daily between Glasgow and Fort William.

Speaker 2: 23:38

Yeah, yeah, but I highly recommend that you do consider doing that. But if you are, either take, if you are pushed for time, then take a tour from Edinburgh, and I have got an article about best tours as well from Edinburgh. So, yeah, that's your best way to build that into itinerary and do book that very early on, because that they do get booked up quickly, because it's very, very popular. But it's good to know that there are so many destinations in Scotland which are within reach on a day trip from Edinburgh.

Speaker 3: 24:06

That's right. It just needs to plan it and it obviously depends on the time of the year that you're visiting Scotland to have, which you can do in one day.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Yeah, absolutely yes, because you got to remember, in winter it's going to be darker, there's less hours a day, like, and obviously the weather is going to be more inclement and you've got rain and snow and all sorts of.

Speaker 3: 24:24

And everything else that kicks off.

Speaker 2: 24:26

Yeah, so you do need to consider that. But certainly in the summer months you can travel really well by train around. Scotland. So thanks for joining us again for this episode of the podcast.

Speaker 3: 24:35

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 24:37

And, as I mentioned before, you can find the all the links to the different articles that Doug has written and more information about how to get around Scotland by train on the website. Obviously, we've got best day trip article about the day trips from Edinburgh by train to look at. We've got articles about Glasgow, about St Andrews, about Stirling. We cover a huge amount of information about exploring Scotland. So do pop over to the website UKTravelPlanetcom. Forward slash episode 73 for the show notes and for many other resources to help you plan your visit to Scotland. Anyway, that just leaves us to say for this episode and until next week, happy.

Speaker 2: 25:21

UK travel planning.