Scotland Adventures: Edinburgh Black Cab Tours with Charlotte Golledge

In episode 87 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast Tracy chats with special guest  Charlotte Golledge from Edinburgh Black Cab Tours.

Charlotte brings over 20 years of experience in the tourist industry and a deep understanding of Scottish history to the conversation. She discusses the range of tours offered by Edinburgh Black Cab Tours, from Outlander-themed excursions to Highland experiences, providing valuable insights into the diverse tour options available for visitors to Scotland.

She discusses the practical considerations of booking with Edinburgh Black Cab Tours including their flexibility in accommodating different group sizes and supporting visitors with mobility issues.

Charlotte also shares her tips for first-time visitors to Scotland and emphasizes the importance of comfort and preparedness for visitors exploring Scotland, especially in varying weather conditions

Tune in to learn how to book these exciting tours and embark on unforgettable adventures through Scotland with Edinburgh Black Cab Tours.

Guest - Charlotte Golledge of Edinburgh Black Cab Tours
Show notes - Episode 87

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast. Your host is the founder of the UK Travel Planning website, tracey Collins. In this podcast, tracey 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: 0:42

Hi and welcome to episode 87 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast. This week I am joined by a special guest, Charlotte Gollidge, one of the fabulous driver tour guides with Edinburgh Black Cab tours. Charlotte is also a published historian with a specialism in graveyard, cemeteries and burial sites in Scotland and has appeared in an episode of Men in Kilt entitled Spooks and Scares with Sam Hewan and Graham McTavish. I started by asking Charlotte to introduce herself and share a little about her background.

Speaker 3: 1:13

So my name is Charlotte Gollidge. I work with Edinburgh Black Cab tours. I've been working in the tourist industry for about 20 years now, which is kind of strange for me because in my head I'm still 25. I'm not in my 40s, so that's kind of, admitting, a bit of an age thing going on there. My background first of all started off in a tourist information centre on the Royal Mile. It then moved into ghost tours in St Andrews, where I went to school, and then obviously also City of the Dead, which is based in Edinburgh. I was with them until about 2019, when I finally jumped ship and went to work for Historic Scotland, because castles are a big thing for me and Ingecombe Island out in the middle of the fourth is somewhere that I've always wanted to work.

Speaker 3: 2:02

So the job came up and I decided to change direction from the ghost tours, basically Going out on the waters, being out in the fresh air, being surrounded by so much history and nature, and it was fantastic. Then COVID happened and the Scottish tourism industry. Just completely there was nothing. There was absolutely nothing there at all. There was nothing I could work as. My only other thing I can do is I'm a qualified painter, decorator, but you weren't allowed in people's houses. So I went and got a job in care and I completely take my hat off to anybody who works in care. It's a very hard job, it's very underpaid and there's very little gratitude to what you do.

Speaker 3: 2:46

So back in the tourist world again. I went to Black Ness Castle, which some people do know from Outlander as being Fort William, and while I was working at Black Ness Castle the lads made over Black Cab tours would often turn up and I'd sort of have a chat with them. I kind of chatted to Steven Maloney more than the other two, and after a little while Steven knew that I was doing my own tours. I'd sort of set up doing my own tours basically a lot of genealogy stuff and I'd started doing my own thing and I was trying to get really hard to break into the market. I knew I was good at what I did, but it was quite hard to break in. So I think the lads had a bit of a chat together and asked me if I wanted to go on board. At first I was a little bit unsure and I think they were a little bit unsure as well. But yeah, now we're just one big dysfunctional family.

Speaker 2: 3:43

That's so funny, charlotte. So I know there's you and there's the three lads because you mentioned so so tell us a little bit about Edinburgh Black Cab tours, about the lads and what makes them so special.

Speaker 3: 3:55

Well, I can only say the nice things about them yes, no. So basically believe it was around about 2018 that Steve so that Steve Greenhorn he got chatting with a few other like-minded people and they went and did like their tour guide tests or qualifications, which I think a lot of taxi drivers were kind of doing at the time. So after doing that, steve basically decided to turn his 23 years as a taxi driver into this whole new thing of like doing tours, being able to, you know, just promote Scotland and promote the wide history that we have. And, of course, for the guys as well, kevin came on board, stephen came on board and obviously COVID happened. So all these great ideas that everybody was having, you know, everybody was put on hold with it. So we came out of COVID and then, basically, as I said, I was at Blackness Castle and it was a very strange time because I'd see the tour guides all turning up and, you know, we still had the things in place where you couldn't be more than a meter away from someone else, and it was a difficult time.

Speaker 3: 5:09

But everybody started trying to get back into it as much as possible and it was great because a lot of the companies and the sites would all work together, you know, just to try and get things up and going again. And to be honest, now it's like COVID never happened, you know, and in fact I would say this year is probably going to be one of our busiest years to date. I think last year we still had people who were a little bit nervous, and then that whole fear of missing out thing kicked in, and so now you know, we have lots of inquiries. I think it's going to be, it's going to be busy, it's going to be really busy. So I think, pretty much from April to October, we are cancelling sleeping, we're cancelling our lives, we're just going to be continuously touring.

Speaker 2: 5:54

So there's the four of you that do tours, so do you all specialize in different tours, or can you all deliver all the tours? Or do some of you do day tours and some of you do the longer, because I know you've got multi-day tours? How does it work so pretty?

Speaker 3: 6:08

much. We've all kind of got our favorite, so we've all got our areas of expertise. Steve is very much Harrison, lewis Sky, those sort of tours. Stephen loves the borders and you're going over into Bambura, things like that. Kevin is a really good all-round one. He's like Kevin's Kevin, kevin's lovely and he pretty much can turn himself to anything and he uses humor a lot as well, so he's a popular one with everybody.

Speaker 2: 6:39

What about you, Shalil? Do you have a particular favorite or particular area that you like to tour on?

Speaker 3: 6:45

I do love doing the Outlander ones because I can talk Outlander inside out back to front. I grew up in Fife, so the guys they're all from Edinburgh and I'm over the water in Fife, so I do enjoy doing Fife ones. But I think for me, the ultimate favorite for me is doing Perthshire, like going to the Hermitage, things like that. I love all the nature ones. I do love my castles but I do love being out in nature as well. So you know, but we can all turn our hands to pretty much anything. I think the most unusual one I had was when Steve contacted me to say that I had a tour in Edinburgh the next day and I needed to become an expert on tenement buildings, which I still haven't forgiven him for.

Speaker 2: 7:28

but that was quite a lot of reading up overnight.

Speaker 3: 7:34

It was quite a lot of reading up. I now know the difference between the bay windows being for the higher classes, who are living in tenement buildings, and the ones with the flat windows who are the lower classes. And yeah, but I managed to pass that tour. I don't think I'll ever need that knowledge again, but you know you've got it.

Speaker 2: 7:52

You can put it in a book at some point, Charlotte. I don't think anybody would want to read that book. Well, I don't know. I have to say I always find the history of the Royal Mile fascinating, just like how people lived, where they lived, all those different little alleyways off it.

Speaker 3: 8:07

The Royal Mile is amazing, I mean pretty much when you think about it. At one time Edinburgh went from the castle to where the world's end pub is. That was Edinburgh. The Canon Gate was a totally separate area. So I should probably say the guys are really really good at all the Edinburgh tours as well.

Speaker 3: 8:26

You're brought up on it. You know stories. A lot of things have passed down through the generations as well. It might not always be the sort of stuff that you find in the history books, but the only thing about Scottish history that people have to remember is it is quite dark. We have a lot of dark things going on. A lot of the times, periods in history, such as the Covenanters, which was the rise of the Presbyterian face. You know a lot of things were very brutal in those days and looking back with modern eyes it's quite hard to imagine people going through these sort of things, but at a time they believed in that more than anything else. So a lot of people are quite happy to die for their beliefs and I think sometimes people sort of come to Scotland and they sort of think, oh, where's the happy stuff? It's like you're here, that's happy.

Speaker 2: 9:15

Yeah, exactly, and it's a little bit happier now than it was then.

Speaker 3: 9:18

And then you also get people saying oh, I wouldn't have gone to a witch trial, I wouldn't have gone to a witch burning. I was like you would have done. You would have gone because that would have been entertainment for you, and if that person was getting burnt it wasn't you.

Speaker 2: 9:30

So yeah, exactly Exactly, and so one of the most popular tours that people choose because I know we've got the data that you do and you've got the multi data as well where you can go away for a few days, and I know on the website that kind of, you've got the themes, so are there particular ones that you know are the top ones that people want to do?

Speaker 3: 9:50

I mean, obviously Outlander is a big one. You know we have the ultimate Outlander tour. We also have the Outlander for locations, which kind of hits the highlands. We have the Outlander five locations for people who have not as much time. You know they want to have the six hour tour, but then we're also now doing the Outlander five day tour, which that one does come back to Edinburgh, so you stay in Edinburgh and you go out each day, but that brings in as many of the sites as possible.

Speaker 3: 10:20

Our Sky tour is very popular. A lot of people want to go to Sky. It's not an easy place to get around if you don't have a car and obviously if you're not used to driving on the side of the road that we all drive on, then it takes the enjoyment away from people. So by doing the driving we take away a lot of that problem for people. So it's definitely a popular one and the guys have all been really really good last year that they took these tours and this year I'm going to have to kind of step up to the mark a little bit because I can't be, you know, the Pamford Princess, staying at home and not actually doing my fair share of things. So I am yeah, I'll be out doing a lot of these tours as well.

Speaker 2: 11:01

So tell us about the Highland Experience Tour Charlotte. The Highland Experience.

Speaker 3: 11:05

Tour takes in Glencoe, because nearly everybody who comes to Scotland they want to see Glencoe and Glencoe is beautiful. And obviously if you get to Glencoe some people want to carry on and go to the Glenfin and Biaduct which is like famous by Harry Potter. So that is a lot of things. I mean often people they want that, they want to do Edinburgh. You know, if they get chance they want to go to Sky and that's a lot of what people you know. They're kind of like the main areas that people want to go. But that's also the areas that have been made so popular over the years.

Speaker 3: 11:39

Long before Outlander, you know, when you had Sir Walter Scott writing his stories, you know he romanticized a lot of the Highlands at a time when the Highlands were kind of more or less forgotten about. So as it's come down through the years, I mean you say to someone a jack-o-bike, people will have a fair idea of what a jack-o-bike is. You say to someone a covenanter, they don't have a clue and that's because Sir Walter Scott didn't write anything about covenanters, you know, and they were the people that were persecuted before the jack-o-bites. And it's also the covenanters who, because they had been persecuted for their religion. A lot of them didn't want a Catholic king back on the throne, so they went on the side of the British and there was actually more lowland Scots on the side of the British at Culloden than there were actual jack-o-bites, and sometimes people find that quite hard to deal with. Unfortunately it's history, can't change it. That's what happened and it can upset people a little bit when they sort of think that it wasn't. You know the jack-o-bites and the English you know.

Speaker 2: 12:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a bit more. It's just a bit more messy than that, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 12:47

It is. I mean there's so many different factors that come in. It wasn't necessarily that the lowland Scots particularly, you know, wanted a rule you know from London, or anything else. It's just they didn't want a Catholic king who might come along and take their religion away from them again. You know, and we're only talking about just over 100 years and at a time where your religion was just really important to you.

Speaker 2: 13:09

So but I think actually, you know, just talking to you now like it kind of highlights the advantage of going out with you guys, and this is what I saw a lot of time, when people book tours and you've got the driver so you can relax, you can sit back, you can enjoy the scenery and be driven through those places through sky and enjoy the scenery and also learn about the places from you guys at the same time is invaluable.

Speaker 3: 13:36

We put a lot of ourselves in territories as well. You know you're talking about experiences. You're talking about, you know, childhood holidays, because a lot of times people they want that all-round experience. But what we're really, really keen to put across to people is our visitors are the star of the show. You know they're the stars. Scotland is their stage and we are merely the directors who just maneuver them around the stage, so to speak.

Speaker 3: 14:04

And I think, a lot of time it's lovely when people say you know we meet them on the first day. You know it's all very like hello, how are you? And it's a very lovely relationship that you make in a very short space of time. I mean, you're responsible for these people going away with such magical memories and it's something that's really quite important to all four of us that people go away with these memories. And it's lovely because people, you know they'll talk to us on social media. You put up a post. You know it's got Kevin in it. It's like you know people be like oh, I had such a good time with Kevin, or had such a good time with Steven, with a pH or Steve, you know, and we obviously have made such an impact on them.

Speaker 2: 14:48

It's that relationship because you're actually spending time with somebody from Scotland who is Scottish, who can tell you about what it's like to live in Scotland. You think you know answer a question about do you all eat haggis, do you all enjoy deep fried Mars bars, all those things that come up in conversations. You know you can have those conversations when you're touring with them and that, again, is invaluable, wherever in the world, being able to have the opportunity to spend time with the locals, which is exactly what they get the opportunity to do.

Speaker 3: 15:22

And the thing is as well, we can give a lot of recommendations. You know it's not necessarily anything that would benefit us as a company, but we want people to have the best time. We want people to shop locally. We want them to have the experiences that you know we have. You know we'll give recommendations of restaurants that we'll eat in ourselves.

Speaker 3: 15:42

It's all that sort of thing because Scottish tourism, I think we realized after COVID we shouldn't be working against each other. We should all be working together and, at the end of the day, our customers and visitors. They're the ones that really matter in all this. So you know, if you know somewhere good to go or, for instance, I'm friendly with quite a lot of the walking tour guides and sometimes I'll say you know, yes, you've been out on tour with us, we've done all this.

Speaker 3: 16:11

But you know, have you thought about maybe going, having a walking tour? You know, just for a different sort of perspective on it? We have close connections with City of the Dead tours. So we're just like, if you want to go to tour, we know exactly where you should go with that one. It's a really nice environment to work in and I've had the very fortunate experience of being the person who has worked at the castles. You know, I used to see the tour guides when they turned up and I think it was a bit of a shock for some of them when, all of a sudden, out on the road, you know, charlotte from the castle is suddenly driving the car next to you.

Speaker 2: 16:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, just thinking. So obviously, everybody listening to the podcast is going to be checking out the website and I'm going to put links to the different tours that you do on the website as well. But in terms of, I think, people listening, I think, ok, I really want to do this. I like the idea of doing a tour. I'm going to check out the different tours, but the things that I guess that I just know the kind of practical questions that are going to come up is like you know, how many people can you accommodate? How much luggage can you take in a car? People are going to travel around for a three or four day tour. You know, how do you deal with people that need maybe a bit of assistance with mobility issues, that sort of thing? So those practical kind of considerations, charlotte, as well.

Speaker 3: 17:20

So the great thing is the guys have worked out such a good system. Stephen, stephen, you know they will often answer the emails together, so you know you've got both of them sitting looking at these emails and a lot of the questions that will be coming in. They're very quick to answer back. We often have people saying do you guys ever sleep? Because you know it's like emails come in, it's like bang straight back out again, because don't like leaving people waiting. Yeah, yeah. So I mean the first point of call is obviously going to be the website and you can book on the website straight out, just by choosing the tour you want to book, on it you put in your various details and then you can pay for it. On off you go, that's you booked. Or, alternatively, you can email in or you have comment boxes so you can put your questions in there and we'll get back to you very quickly.

Speaker 3: 18:11

So we have a number of vehicles within the company. There is the Black Cab, which we don't really use so much for touring outside of the city. There's the S-Class Mercedes. We've got the B-Class Mercedes. They take up to seven passengers, kev has got his transporter, which can take eight passengers, and Steve's got his Range Rover Autobiography, so there's a nice selection of vehicles there, so we can really take anything from one person up to eight. We also can work with people to put an itinerary together. So say, for instance, you want to be picked up at the airport, have a four hour tour. You're then dropped off at your hotel Next day, have a couple of day trips, maybe the day after that you get picked up in Edinburgh and you're going to make your way up to Inverness, so you have a whole tour going up to Inverness. You then stay overnight in Inverness and then maybe from there you'd go over to Sky. So your tour guide would actually be travelling with you and instead of trying to use trains or public transport to get from Edinburgh to Inverness, you actually incorporate it into your tour. So you get the whole best experience by being on tour with people.

Speaker 3: 19:20

We have had people with mobility issues and obviously the only thing to remember with Scotland is that we have a lot of buildings that are protected by law, that they can't have stairs and things put in. But we will obviously try everything that we can to make any difficulties as small as possible. We have had people who have hired mobility scooters once they've got here so they've come from other countries you can hire them when you get here With those. Sometimes we do need to use the taxis for those, because they have specialist ramps that the mobility scooters can go on, so that isn't a problem. Also, people have walkers. You know. We are all very happy to get them in and out. That is not a problem at all. In fact, there's nothing that's too much trouble for our guests, because we want people to be comfortable and happy.

Speaker 3: 20:08

One thing I would say is, if anybody does have a lot of mobility issues, it's very good to look up Ewan's Guide. I don't know if you have that in England, but we have Ewan's Guide, which is basically a website with people with various ability issues and maybe various like site impairment, hearing impairment. They can go on this website and they can see reviews from other people of how they've been able to deal with certain places. So that is a really good one to go and look at, because obviously we can see the problems that people have had. But these are people who have actually experienced these things. They really are the best people to ask advice from.

Speaker 2: 20:49

Oh, that's brilliant. I didn't know about that, charlotte, that's really useful and I'll definitely put a link in the show notes to that, so that's great. But I guess you have bookings from whole families that will come out and you're going to have the Outlander fans that will come out and do tours, so I think, we kind of have the whole range, don't you?

Speaker 3: 21:06

We do have the whole range, and the thing is as well, because when you're having your own private tour, there's nothing like we don't take children under a certain age. We'll take children of any age. We all have booster seats, baby seats, everything like that, so nobody is kind of pushed out, we will take anybody. It's your tour, it's how you want it to be. We can be very flexible. Even when you're out for the day, we can change things up. Or you know, as I said, the people that are doing these tours, they're the star of the show and it's our job to make sure the stars are as happy as possible.

Speaker 2: 21:38

Well, I have to say it sounds absolutely amazing. I know you've got so many different tours on offer. I love the fact that you've got the different themes on offer and just to share that with all our listeners as well, is that Charlotte is going to be doing a couple more episodes. She's going to be talking about Grave Friars' Curc Yard, which I'm particularly fascinated about. We're going to be talking about that in the next episode and we are going to do an episode in a month or so looking at the Outlander tours, because I know there's a lot of interest in those as well.

Speaker 2: 22:05

For the moment, just pop over to the website. As I said, I'm going to put a link and then you can have a look at the various tours and this is a book directly or send an email to Enquirer. I will mention. It would be good if you could mention UK travel planning as well on the, where you heard about Edmmer of Black Caps Tours. That would be great Help source. I was going to ask you, charlotte, because obviously we're going to do another podcast in a minute which will be out next week. I always end the podcast. I want to say thanks so much for coming on this week, but I'm going to ask the question. I ask everybody at the end of every episode what would be the one tip that you would give somebody planning to visit Scotland for the first time?

Speaker 3: 22:39

Get walking now. Start walking, because if you're in Edinburgh, especially, and you go walking around yourself, although we are there, we can maneuver people around the city If you want to explore on your own. There's a lot of stairs, there's a lot of hills. You can look at a map. Something looks like it's around the corner. It's not around the corner. You're standing on a bridge. Even though you think you're on level ground, you're not. You're on a bridge. You look down. You can see there's a whole new level below you. To get down to that level, you're going to have to walk around a few streets.

Speaker 3: 23:11

Sometimes people say I'm getting in training for going to Scotland. Some people will scoff at that, but it's nothing to scoff at. We do a lot of walking. We don't think anything of doing 10,000 steps a day. I do know there's sometimes we have visitors that once they've done 2,000 steps, they think, wow, I've walked a lot today. A lot of people. They end up doing 15, 16, 17,000 steps in a day. It's not what they used to. They eat anything they like and they still go away with losing weight and everything else.

Speaker 3: 23:45

If you're wanting to get the most out of it, you really need to get your steps in before visiting. Don't leave it to the week before and go right. I better do it now. You've also got to remember Scotland. The weather changes a lot. Comfort over fashion it's the important thing. You want to be comfortable. You want to have the memories. You don't want to be walking around with blisters. You don't want to be walking around freezing cold and soaking Comfort, comfort all the way. I think in Scotland we all suddenly realise we get to an age when all of a sudden, we don't want to be blue anymore when we go out at night. We want to be comfortable, comfort is the big thing, you're going to enjoy Scotland a lot more.

Speaker 3: 24:24

If you're warm, dry, cool, if it's the right time of year, your feet are comfortable. Layers, wear layers. Everyone says wear layers. We're not joking. Wear layers. Have a scarf, have gloves.

Speaker 2: 24:37

You can take them off, put them back on again Absolutely Any time of year as well. I know from my experience from that.

Speaker 3: 24:44

I had the same group of ladies I had last year. I'd had them the year before. They were here in just at the end of June, early July. They didn't get into their summer things once. It was so cold Following year when they were telling everyone it was really cold, we had blistering heat. Everybody was boiling to death up here.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Whether.

Speaker 3: 25:02

I say boiling to death, boiling to death for us. We hit 26 and it's almost like that's it. We're cooking at that point up here. But yeah, year to year things can change.

Speaker 2: 25:16

It's expected, though, and expected that unpredictable, that's it. I remember being in Edinburgh two years ago and arriving on the Sunday and actually getting a bit sunburnt it was so hot and then there's photos and video of me the next day, covered head to foot in rain gear and my jumper on because it was that cold, and that was one day to the next. So I know exactly what you mean. Thank you very much, charlotte. Thanks so much for coming on to this week's episode, and I'm about to chat with you for next week's episode. So if you're listening to this week's podcast, stay tuned for next week, because we're going to have a really interesting chat with Charlotte, all about the history of one particular area in Edinburgh.

Speaker 3: 25:52

Thank you so much for having me, tracy. It's been a lot of fun getting to chat, and while people are walking, they could be listening to this podcast.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Oh, thanks, charlotte. That's a really excellent suggestion to give to everybody. You can find the links to everything we talked about in today's show notes, which be UKTravelPlanningcom forward slash episode 87, including a link to the Edinburgh Black Cabs website. Remember, if you do book, please just mention that you heard about them on our podcast or via Facebook group or on a website. That just leaves me to say until next week, happy UKTravelPlanning.