UK Travel Planning

Planning a visit to the Isle of Skye Scotland [Itinerary and Essential Tips]

• Tracy Collins • Episode 125

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In this week's episode of the UK Travel Planning Podcast, join host Tracy Collins as she recounts her recent journey to the enchanting Isle of Skye. Following a thrilling itinerary that took her and Doug from Birmingham to Cardiff, Chester, Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, they finally arrived at Skye, one of the UK's most sought-after destinations.

Tracy and Doug delve into the details of their Skye adventure, sharing insights on their ferry ride from Mallaig to Armadale and their stay in charming pods at Edinbane. 

The episode is packed with practical tips for travellers, such as the importance of pre-booking ferries and restaurants, and the need for patience when navigating Skye's single-track roads.

The couple explores Skye's breathtaking landscapes, including the Quiraing, Staffin Beach, and Neist Point.

They also highlight must-see attractions like the Fairy Glen, Dunvegan Castle, and the Talisker Distillery, providing listeners with a comprehensive guide to making the most of their Skye experience.

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Speaker 1:

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:

Hi and welcome to episode 125 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast. So this week we are here talking all about our trip to Skye. So if you listened to last week's episode where we talked about Belfast, and episode 119 where we went through our entire two and a half week itinerary around the UK, then you'll know that Doug and I recently did a trip. Basically we went all the way from Birmingham to Cardiff to Chester, over to Dublin, from Dublin to Belfast, belfast to Glasgow, glasgow to Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh we went to Skye. So we're trying to cover certain parts of that trip in a little bit more detail, and one of those is Sk. You know the isle of sky is one of the most popular destinations for people to head to.

Speaker 2:

So this week Doug's here again, hello, um, because we're going to talk a little bit, uh, with you about what we did. Um, as I said, we know that sky is extremely popular. So my intention, or our intention in this episode is to talk kind of briefly over what we did, how we got over there, a little bit about what we did, and then to share some tips, because I think that's probably really vitally important. So if you're planning to visit Sky, do hang on to the end of the episode so that you get those top tips, things you need to know before you go to Sky. Yeah, does that sound good?

Speaker 3:

It sounds great.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so the first thing we did, let's just say that we stayed in Malik overnight because we decided that we wanted to take the ferry over to Armidale.

Speaker 3:

We did, and we arrived on a beautiful sunny day. We did. We arrived in Armidale about quarter past 12. We pre-booked the ferry. Obviously we couldn't give them our registration number, but there's a part on the book that says you don't know the registration number just yet.

Speaker 2:

But it's really easy. Honestly, other bookings are saying we don't know the registration number just yet.

Speaker 2:

But it's really easy, honestly, you know. I know people say that it's that they can find a bit nervous, and we've done it before, but again, it's all very, very well organized, very easy. It's a really short, it's not very long, crossing. Um, again, we were very lucky actually, the weather was uh was. It was very calm, but you've got some beautiful views as well on the way over the sky. So we arrived at armadale and then we had a couple of hours drive to our accommodation we did.

Speaker 3:

We had a. We kept stopping off here, there and everywhere. We took a picnic as well with us yeah, we did.

Speaker 2:

We bought some food in fort william so we were able to sit and have a picnic and just enjoy the views. And again in the show notes you'll see some of the photos that we we took and just how beautiful it was yeah, we did.

Speaker 3:

We started off at the curling bridge.

Speaker 2:

Go the pictures and photos of that yeah, yeah, I mean honestly, there's just so many places you'd just be, you're blown away.

Speaker 2:

But just how gorgeous it is. But I will also say we had the most incredible weather that I think sky's ever had. We just had. Honestly, we're there for four days and we had three days of perfection, absolute perfection, beautiful blue skies, sunshine. It was wonderful. So basically the first day I guess if you want to consider that a traveling day, catching the ferry over, driving to our accommodation so we decided we'd stay in pods. Now we've stayed in pods before in Scotland, haven't we?

Speaker 3:

We have once before, and we've thoroughly enjoyed it, haven't we?

Speaker 2:

So that's what we decided to do. So if you've never stayed in a pod before, I would head over to the show notes and have a look, and also on our Instagram, you'll see pictures there of the pod that we stayed at the Kilcam Pod in Edinburgh. So pods, that's where we stayed.

Speaker 3:

Loved it, loved it, absolutely loved it. And we have an additional reason for staying there, because last time we visited sky, we had several meals at the edinbane inn. We did, and we loved them. So we decided we're gonna visit there again, so we booked in for dinner. We pre-booked that, so we booked in there for about six o'clock yes, we did so.

Speaker 2:

I think it was about 6, 30 actually, and I that is kind of one of the tips, so we're kind of giving that away a little bit early, but that's one of the things that you really need to do if you're going to Sky, because it's so popular that you need to book ahead. But I will kind of probably repeat that at the end. So I had booked ahead our dinner. So we arrived on Sky, went to accommodation. Leisurely drive had taken a picnic with us, so we had some food with us. I've taken a picnic with us, so we had some food with us. We arrived at accommodation the pods are around about three o'clock Chilled out, unpacked everything, enjoyed the weather, enjoyed the views and then just had a leisurely stroll down to Edirne for dinner. So basically, the first full day of our itinerary I guess, if you can take away that day that we're traveling over and getting settled was basically Friday. It was a Friday and we had a full day. This was a kind of full, busy day, wasn't it?

Speaker 3:

It was, yeah, but we planned the day out and when we left our part of the morning it was lovely clear skies, sun was shining it was Actually.

Speaker 2:

It's a Saturday morning. I'm getting the day wrong. It was a Saturday morning, yeah, so the weather was absolutely beautiful. However, what was really interesting, what we hadn't counted on is, when we kind of got round the headline from where we were and drove a little bit, that there was a lot of mist.

Speaker 2:

We were heading to the Kirrang and we hit thick mist, thick fog well, we wanted to go to the fairy glen which was on the way, but we had to basically give that a skip because it was far too misty. So we actually ended up sitting in the car in a little side lane for about what 30, 40 minutes or so. Yeah, uh, waiting for the sun to burn the mist off because, honestly, you didn't really want to be driving on those roads, because, honestly, you couldn't see anything for the start off because it was so foggy it was, I should point out.

Speaker 3:

We were actually off the road, we were not parked up on a passing point.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Because these are single track roads. You do not park up in those.

Speaker 2:

No, no, we weren't. It was a proper parking space. So we parked up there and then we kind of hung on until the mist went, and then we went to the querang, didn't we?

Speaker 3:

We, we went to the quarrying, didn't we? We did the mist cleared about midday, which was pretty much exactly what the forecast. It did say that, yeah. And then, yeah, we arrived there and that's a paid car part down the querang which we played with contactless and then my, the views absolutely stunning.

Speaker 2:

It is absolutely everything that you'll have seen if you've seen the pictures of it, and it is absolutely highly worth going. But I am going to say parking was a nightmare. We were very lucky that we got parking. I mean, this is the kind of middle end of september, so it was. It was still incredibly, incredibly busy. We spent what? About 40 minutes I would say yeah, again parking with contactless and then we headed from there down to staffing because staffing beach, because the actual tide was out, which meant we could see the dinosaur footprint I should point out, we drove down there in sunshine yes, yeah beautiful.

Speaker 3:

Whilst we're on that beach at staffing, the mist started rolling again it did.

Speaker 2:

It was actually quite, quite eerie actually. And also, what was interesting is, even though it was pretty chilly I mean it was sunny but it was still chilly there were plenty of people cold water swimming. Um, hats off to you guys, because that's not something I would want to do, no Again. Lucky to get parking. And then from there we went to Kilch Rock to see Milt Falls. Now, I would highly recommend that you look at the show notes for this picture, because it was amazing. It was like the mist rolled in and kind of met the waterfall with a rainbow, which was incredible, absolutely incredible. So that was probably only a five-minute stop. Now, by this point, I really needed the toilet.

Speaker 2:

You really did, and there's not many toilets. So we were heading there and we're thinking, well, we'll try to find on Google, trying to find toilets. But we were struggling a bit, weren't we?

Speaker 3:

We were struggling. Yeah, that's right. We went somewhere because the map had told us they were open to the public, but they weren't. But they were not.

Speaker 2:

So we're kind of looking at, thinking, all right, where are we going to find toilets? Now we're heading at this point to the Old Manor store and luckily there are toilets there, that's right, yeah, the car park was pretty full, but we managed to park pretty easily and that's a paid car park there as well. Again, all contactless. Paid car park very, very busy. A lot of people walking up to the old manor store.

Speaker 3:

Um, we didn't walk all the way, so hands up again, I'm not a hiker no, we walked about 20 minutes off now, yeah, on a path, and that wasn't continuous walking.

Speaker 2:

We're stopping off taking photos and that's again a pretty, pretty uphill. There's a different route you can take on that one as well.

Speaker 3:

I think the blue route is the hardest one there yeah, so take water.

Speaker 2:

You know, if you're there in summer, make sure you've got a hat, sun cream, all that sort of think about all those things in your footwear for doing these sort of hikes. To be honest, you really need to think about that. And then after that, we headed to Portree we did, and that road was incredibly busy yes, it was it was really, really busy and got to pay attention.

Speaker 2:

I think Sky was very busy and I know we had seen a lot on social media in the weeks leading up to going to sky just how busy it has become. It's become a bit of a victim of its own success in that uh, you know we'd seen pictures of the ferry pools. Now we did not include the ferry pools this time in our itinerary because we'd seen pictures of the roads and there'd been a lot of rain in sky up up until the time we were there. I mean, we're lucky that it didn't rain at all when we were there, but there had been months and months of rain so we knew there was a lot of mud so that we had kind of knocked that on the head. But we had been there on a previous visit, so that was a full day and a lot of driving for you a lot of concentration for you.

Speaker 3:

A lot of concentration for you, wasn't it? Yeah, and we were driving back. We thought we'll try the fairy glen again but by this time the mist was again rolling in, so we pulled the plug on that one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, to leave it till the following day? Yeah, so I think we just grabbed a meal from the co-op, didn't we that night? Something really straightforward an easy back tab at the pod. So that's what we did. So then the Sunday so this is our second full day we had booked a roast dinner. Again, you must book, and we booked it at the Edinburgh Inn because we know they do a fabulous Sunday roast which we thoroughly enjoyed. So thank you very much to the Edinburgh Inn for just having fabulous food. That's so nice.

Speaker 3:

We took it easy. For a couple of hours we had a saw around the village itself. Yeah, we did Some photos of the Edirne Inn and the Edirne Lodge, which is nearby, and just generally took it easy. Sat outside. We were actually talking to the owners of the pods for a couple of hours. Yeah, yeah, making a fuss of their dogs.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was lovely, really relaxing Sunday morning, which is what you want before you know, going and having your roasted dinner traditional sunday roast dinner, yeah, so that afternoon we decided we would go and try and see the fairy glen, because we knew we weren't going to be able to fit it in the next day. So that's what we did, didn't?

Speaker 3:

we did, and that was actually turned out to be the part of the best time, because we got there. The car park was only about half full yeah, it's pay park again as well, and yeah, we had a nice little stroll around there, didn't we? We?

Speaker 2:

We did, we did. Actually it's quite steep, though I mean it's steeper than you think. Getting up to that fairy glen, I was a bit surprised actually, because the last time we'd been I'd sat in the car because the weather was so bad and I was quite amazed at where you had actually walked up to in that weather, because it is quite steep yeah. I can imagine, I can't imagine, I really can't imagine. So you really need to take your time. It's not? I don't think it's easy.

Speaker 1:

I don't think it's massively accessible. No, it's still a bit slippery.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there were times where I thought it was a bit slippery and I would not say that they're very accessible.

Speaker 3:

No, but there's an alternative way which is sort of less steep.

Speaker 2:

It's a little bit longer, but still, if it had been raining, it was muddy. I wouldn't recommend it at all because I think it would be too slippery.

Speaker 3:

The views are worth it.

Speaker 2:

The views are nice when you yeah yeah, so we did that and then after that we went to dunvegan castle. Now again, I'm going to say we wouldn't really not recommend doing this because we went from kind of one side of the island over to the other side of the island past the edinburgh again, but it was the only way we we could fit this in because of the day before not being able to do the the fairy glen so it's about 40 minutes drive from the fairy glen to dunvegan castle we didn't actually go in the castle this time.

Speaker 2:

We had last time. This time we just bought the ticket for the gardens. You can actually buy the castle, iron gardens or just the gardens themselves and we decided to have a stroll around. The walled garden is beautiful, isn't it? It's lovely, so that was really nice. Again, we actually got there at the very end. I think it was shut in a hop as five, so we got there around four I think, which was actually enough time just to have a stroll around and kind of enjoy it wasn't it, that's right.

Speaker 2:

The gardens were probably slightly past the best, you know, sort of late season. Yeah, it was still beautiful, so that that was a a nice, lovely day out, wasn't it was we got back to the pod about six o'clock in the evening and we sat outside in the sun yeah, just relaxing, enjoying it.

Speaker 2:

So it was really good. So the monday was our going to be our last full day. So I'm saying like this is a kind of four-day itinerary, but I guess it's maybe three and a half if you kind of consider the getting over onto Skye itself. So on the Monday we decided to go to Neist Point.

Speaker 3:

That's right on the Neist Point, that's over on the west side. So you're going towards the Reagan Castle but then heading down towards the coastal area there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, beautiful Again, stunning scenery.

Speaker 3:

Total contrast to when we were there in June before.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Again stunning scenery.

Speaker 3:

Total contrast to when we were there in June before. Yeah, that time it was wet and rainy.

Speaker 2:

So it wasn't sunny, but it was still. It was absolutely still. There was not a breath of wind that day. So that's an interesting drive, but Doug's going to talk a little bit more about driving out of the sky.

Speaker 3:

But yeah, that's quite an interesting drive to get to these. Yeah, give me some tips about that. But suffice to say you know it's a single track road lots of bends, blind, summit and people driving in the opposite direction coming straight towards you. So you know you've got to take your time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, give me some tips on that later yeah, and then from there we decided to go to for lunch, to the oyster shed, which had been highly recommended to us. My daughter in particular was like have you been to the oyster shed yet? So we did go, had a, had a lovely lunch there, and then after lunch we headed down to the talisker distillery we did, and it's a whiskey.

Speaker 3:

I used to enjoy drinking that one, but I no longer drink so yeah I enjoyed being. That's why I bought a hat instead yeah, you did, yeah. So if you don't want to drink, buy a hat, buy a hat. Yeah, that's drugsy, but it was. It was a lovely drive down that coastline to the whole area yeah, yeah, it's lovely.

Speaker 3:

And then we just headed back to portree, I think we did and we've got some, you know, filled with petrol and some supplies and that sort of thing, and then back to the pod yeah, and then, uh, the next day, so the tuesday, we were driving over to Inverness.

Speaker 2:

Now this is when the weather broke, so we actually ended up pouring down rain. Now I guess one of the tips that I'm going to say is probably what we did. So we actually went back onto the mainland over the Sky Bridge. So I guess we could probably cover the tips now, don't you reckon?

Speaker 3:

We could do yeah, so we're heading to the Cardinal of Colstead.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, the tips You've got to be patient, You've got to know your own driving ability, you've got to drive the changing conditions of the road but, importantly, driving on the left-hand side of something you're not familiar with Trippiamo is a fascinating and really valuable tool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it really is. And to prepare yourself, even if you're used to driving on the left, to be perfectly honest, it's different driving conditions than if you're used to driving on the left. To be perfectly honest, it's different driving conditions than most people are used to.

Speaker 3:

And signage Even if you're familiar with driving on the left different. You know one country. We're in Australia. They have kilometres per hour. In the UK it's miles per hour.

Speaker 2:

And also it's not for the faint hearted, I would say to be honest. I mean, I didn't't drive so I just put my hand up. I left that to do. But just navigating those single lanes there's some quite interesting kind of drop, drop offs as well, because you get quite kind of cliffs. I guess is what you want to say, maybe. But also there's lots of, you know, animals that can be on the road, so there were sheep around and the potholes there's some very deep potholes that go all the way to Australia.

Speaker 3:

I did feel like that, but also as I mentioned before, it had some heavy rains and wet conditions before we got there. So some of the edges of the road very, very dangerous, some deep ruts where the mud's muddy, so you've got to be very careful. We hired a small SUV suv a medium size, actually medium size suv which was absolutely perfect for the conditions.

Speaker 3:

one other tip mentioned about is we hired it and included the sat nav or the gps, which was absolutely invaluable. Yeah, it was absolutely, because sometimes you know we can't get to that route, so we do this one. So we changed the routes a couple of times, but it's about being patient, being prepared, driving for the changing conditions. Like when we were on the Queerang we pulled over, it was thick fog. You couldn't see, I literally couldn't see, so you know you've got the time drive to the conditions, which is exactly what we do.

Speaker 2:

We pull away off to somewhere safe and waited out. So give yourself plenty of time to get from a to b as well. Don't assume that you're going to. You know it might only be 10 miles. It's going to take me, you know, 20 minutes. New, it might take an hour and a half, honestly, and there was actually a lot of cars on the road and when you're on those single tracks, you know there's plenty of places to pull over. But you need to be aware all the time of you know what traffic is around you and what's coming over and you know who's going to pull in, so that all of that's going on and also what's behind you as well.

Speaker 3:

So one thing I would say is yes, I've already said, I've said it several times be patient, but also be very courteous to the other drivers as well. You know, acknowledge somebody stopped and waited for you so I think that's that's really important.

Speaker 2:

So I'm just going to talk a couple of things that also I guess to do with when you're driving a car is. One is parking. So, um, all of the parking that we places that we stopped off were contactless. So you have to pay. It's not a huge amount, but I guess it adds up when you start stopping off at all these places. But this contactless getting parked we managed to get it parked in every single place that we went, but honestly, sometimes it was a little bit of a. We had to wait a little bit. I hate to think what it would be like a peak season. Uh, would be incredibly, incredibly difficult.

Speaker 3:

Another thing I would say is about petrol yes, we had a hybrid car, so quite economical. On on the energy and fuel consumption, we filled on up with petrol before we.

Speaker 2:

In Fort William, because we've been told that in Malick sometimes it runs out. So if you are going that route to Skye, don't wait until you're on Skye to fill up and don't wait until you're in Malick to fill up into Fort William, fort William.

Speaker 3:

And we know from previous visits that one particular petrol station just outside Portree, uh, on the road as we're heading out, so we knew where that one was. But also keep your eye on your fuel consumption as well yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Um. Another thing to do is, if you had no disguise, to take some supplies with you. There's, there are a couple of co-ops and and some smaller shops to get, uh, supplies. But honestly take. You know, we were staying in the pod so we had access to a fridge and little cooking facilities, but we took a couple cool bags with food in, put those straight in the fridge so we were sorted. So take things over with you we did.

Speaker 3:

We more or less planned the menu in the night. Some lunches we were eating out before we visited. We had it all mapped out, didn't?

Speaker 2:

we yeah, we did, and I guess relating to kind of food as well, like I mentioned before, make sure that you book restaurants. You have to book where you're going to eat now, obviously not at the oyster shed, that that is. You can't book that, you just turn up and it's a takeaway. But if you want to eat in a restaurant, you need to book, because it can get incredibly busy and we got caught up that our first time there a few years ago in may when we were looking for post-it and we were told, oh, did you book anything? Oh, no, so that's something we have learned. So we're sharing that because that's really important.

Speaker 2:

And I know when I got the email, when we had the pod organized, I think I was like make sure you book your restaurants. And when we're chatting to them, he said, yeah, that's one of his tips that he absolutely says to people make sure that you do. Another thing I'm going to share as well is consider where the toilets are. Honestly, that was something that I hadn't realized just how far apart the toilets are.

Speaker 3:

So there aren't a lot, put it that way no, and um, we've already said, the one of the toilets you expected to be there was no longer open to the public.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the campsite yeah, so, um, yeah. So I just think make sure that you've got an idea like somewhere, like a poultry, there'll be toilets and there's toilets at Old Manistore, I can't think where else. There was no toilets at Quaring, no toilets at Kilt Rock that I saw, nothing on Stafford Beach that we saw. So I mean, obviously you can stop off at a cafe if you need to just just be aware, because that was something that kind of I was like, oh dear, where's the toilets then?

Speaker 2:

I think the other thing as well as we're talking about this driving as well is trying to stick to one area, one part of the island, so you're not unnecessarily driving miles. Now we did mess up a little bit on the sunday in that we went to the fairyland and then all the way over to dunvegan castle, and it was literally only because we couldn't get there on the Saturday, when it actually naturally fell into that going around that part of Skye. So it would have fitted into that if if it hadn't been that it was so misty. I'm trying to think if there are any other things that we can think about. Oh yes, I would say as well, if you're going to go over there, go two different routes, go over on the ferry and then come back over the bridge so you get to see different scenery, because that's amazing to see. Another thing as well is think about clothing. We were lucky that the weather was really good, but, you know, think about your footwear, think about layers, think about having raincoats with you.

Speaker 2:

It does rain over there quite a lot I wore shorts every day that you did, you were very lucky, but I mean that was exceptional and they did say I think we'd had the best days of the year just about. And then I know you mentioned about cash.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we didn't take any, did we we?

Speaker 2:

didn't and we didn't need any. We used contactless the entire time. We had no issues whatsoever. I was a bit thinking you never know, sometimes we're parking, but it was absolutely fine. All the shops took contactless and we were never asked for cash at any point. So I think that gives a kind of pretty good overview of our itinerary.

Speaker 2:

Now on the website I have got an article about how to get from Edinburgh to Skye. I've got some information about where to stay on Skye. We've also got a Skye destination guide and we've also got an itinerary for Skye. So there's quite a lot about Skye on the website. So you'll be able to go into the show notes uktravelplancom forward slash, episode 125. And there you'll be able to find links to all those other articles.

Speaker 2:

More about Sky yeah, I mean, we enjoy Sky. We really do. I love Scotland, so it's always a pleasure to go around, and next year, I have to say, my aim would be to see some of the other islands, like Harrison Lewis, and go back to Orkney, potentially Shetland Islands. So don't yeah. So just be aware that Skye is very busy, becoming, as I say, it's a bit of a victim of certain success, and there are other beautiful places to visit in Scotland, so you can listen to North Coast Explorer Sally Ann talk about the far north of Scotland, because that's another beautiful area to visit. North Coast 500 is fantastic, isn't it? But yeah, I think those are our tips and kind of a little bit of a summary of what we did in Skye.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that's it for this week and, as always, it's happy UK travel planning. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of the UK Travel Planning Podcast. As always, show notes can be found at uktravelplanningcom. If you've enjoyed the show, why not leave us feedback via text or a review on your favourite podcast app? We love to hear from you and, you never know, you may receive a shout out in a future episode. But, as always, that just leaves me to say until next week. Happy UK travel planning.