This morning started with quickly grabbing breakfast and then driving down to the Fort William Train Station. We were very excited to ride the Jacobite Steam Train (also known as the Harry Potter train) from Fort William to Mallaig and most notably over the Glenfinnan viaduct. We got to the station pretty early even though our GPS wanted to take us to the hospital across the street instead. This was the first train station we’ve visited in Scotland, and honestly it looked so unassuming that we missed it a couple of times. It was very surprising to see that behind this little building were tracks that big trains came and went from. The waiting room was quite small, so we decided to hang out in our car and put our makeup on. We hadn’t had the chance that morning and wanted to make sure we made it to Fort William in time. When you’re driving on unfamiliar roads that are small and windy, sometimes, if you’re a careful driver it takes you longer than what the estimate on the GPS is. We’ve been lucky not to encounter any traffic really, but we definitely can’t take some of those curves at the suggested 60 mph and we sometimes had to pull over for speedier drivers to pass. Still though, we arrived about 2 hours early so we had some time to kill. When we went back into the station about 30 minutes before boarding the station was packed with people! On the Jacobite Steam Train you’re assigned a seat, so I guess that people were hoping to be first to get a picture in front of the steam train! There are a couple of first class cars, and the rest are coach. I found the coach car to be very comfortable with really great head rests. Here is an insider tip- for the best views, if you’re going from Fort William to Mallaig you want to be on the left side of the coach. If you’re going from Mallaig to Fort William of course you want to be on the right. The further back you are (we were in the second to last car) the better your view of the viaducts will be when you pass over them (at least if you’re going from Fort William to Mallaig.) I’m not sure about the other way, because I was so tired that by the time we reached the viaducts I had actually fallen asleep.

The journey on the Jacobite Steam Train costs £30 pounds for a single (British for one-way) and £35 for a day return ticket ( British for both ways.) You can check out tickets here. When we bought our tickets, unfortunately they were not able to sit us together on the return trip from Mallaig to Fort William so we opted to take the regular Scots Rail train back instead, those tickets were £7.20 a piece so we ended up paying £2.20 more . Both trains have the same views, and they are gorgeous gorgeous views. If I were to do it again though, I wouldn’t take the steam train, I’d save money and take the Scots Rail train and here is why:

• ​The Steam Train is fine, but the inside doesn’t look anything like the Harry Potter train , so you’re not missing out on that experience.
• The Steam Train does boast on its website that it has stops in Glenfinnan and Arisaig, but these stops are very quick (about 15 minutes) and it will take you at least five of those to get off the train as they only open one door towards the front. The stations aren’t close enough to the town to allow you to walk around and see anything in that short period of time, so honestly the stops are really just a waste of time in my opinion.
• There is nothing stopping you from going to Fort William station while the Steam Train is boarding and taking a picture with/of the outside of the train.
• You can get the same picture of the viaducts from inside the regular Scots Rail train (just follow my tips above)
  
• If you are interested in seeing the viaducts from below and watching/photographing/videoing the steam train going over the viaducts you can definitely do that by stopping in Glenfinnan and then continuing the journey later, just make sure to pay attention to the schedule on the Steam Train website to see when the train is expected (about an hour after it leaves the Ft. William station.)
  
• You will save money! The Scots Rail train is £14.40 to go both ways instead of £35. ​

The ride took about 2.5 hours to get to Mallaig. When we got to Mallaig, we spent most of our time checking out the parking lots, we needed to find a place to park our car next Saturday! We know we’re going to the Isle of Skye and then directly to Knoyndart. Our car can’t come to Knoyndart with us, so we will have a short window to park our car and then get back to the ferry terminal so we can catch our boat to Knoyndart. Lucky for us, there are two separate places where you can leave your car for up to 7 days so we should be fine on the day of! The town is VERY small, so it’s a quick walk pretty much everywhere. We were able o get some snack food at the co-op and have little yogurt/carrot/hummus dinners on the Scots Rail train home. Word to the wise: If you plan on eating cheaply and getting a lot of grocery store lunches while you are traveling, try to bring a small cold pack. If you’re staying in Airbnb’s you shouldn’t have any trouble freezing it. We didn’t do that, but when we were sitting there with our melty cheese sticks, we wished we had. All in all it ended up being a pretty slow day. The journey was quite beautiful, but I’m not sure it was worth spending an entire day doing that route. We still had a car, so we could’ve use it as transportation, but if you don’t have a car and need to get from Fort William to Mallaig, the train ride is definitely one of the most beautiful in the world. ~Annette

​(photos and captions by Kim)

A trip around Scotland couldn’t be complete without trying to hunt for Nessie. The drive from Dingwall wasn’t too bad and was on the way to our next Airbnb in Inverness. We didn’t do a lot of research, so we decided to head to the Loch Ness Center and Exhibition and start there. We are still surprised at how easy parking is around Scotland. We parked right in front of the Center and were allowed to stay there all day, totally free! Having lived in Los Angeles for the past 10 years, I’m shocked every time I find free parking with no limitations, especially at a popular tourist destination. We went into the Loch Ness Center, but really it is 100% an exhibition and we weren’t really interested in that. We figured anything worth knowing we could learn on a tour. We walked down the street to Celtic Crafts, an adorable little store with beautiful Scottish themed crafts and some highland cow paintings we wanted to buy (but our backpacks save us from spending money!) and bought tickets for our boat tour there. We were lucky that they had tickets for a boat that left in about an hour and a half, so we had some tea while we waited to board The Nessie Hunter. Our skipper was George Edwards, the longest serving passenger boat skipper on Loch Ness, who also recorded the greatest known depth of Loch Ness at 812 feet. He has been diving in the lake and on boats around the lake for longer than we have been alive, so he seemed like the perfect tour guide for today’s adventure. The boat was nice, there is an inside where you can look at the sonars, radar, and underwater camera. You can also sit outside on the lower deck or on the upper deck. The tour is roughly an hour taking you around the lake and towards the end you get a stunning view of Urquhart Castle from the water and I wouldn’t want to see it any other way! We looked long and hard, but unfortunately we weren’t lucky enough to see Nessie today. The tour was amazing anyway, George taught us so much about the Loch and the surrounding area and the facts about Nessie and all of the sightings. The tour was so nice we feel like it went by a little two quickly. The views are stunning as you can see from the images. If we had more time in the area, there is a path going around the Loch that is accessed from different points on the road circling it and it would have been beautiful to hike there. Instead, we decided to head down to Fort Augustus.

Fort Augustus is a cute little town on the Caledonian Canal with beautiful views of the water. We got some ice cream (we always want ice cream) and then walked down part of The Great Glen Way which was totally gorgeous. We were even lucky enough to watch some boats navigate the canal, which was something we’d never seen before. We wanted to stay longer and walk around, but it started raining and we had a dinner reservation at 7:30, so we had to get going. Seeing the town is pretty quick, but there are enough beautiful paths that you could spend a whole day walking around the area.

The drive to Inverness felt long with the windy windy roads around Loch Ness. It is starting to feel so repetitive, but the drive was beautiful. I wished that we had some more time so we could stop and take some time hiking along the paths that are all around the roads, but it was raining and we needed to check into our Airbnb in Inverness before we headed out to Hootananny where we had reservations. We found Colin’s house pretty easily, and he met us at the door and walked us around to the trailer we would be staying in. The trailer is in his backyard and I’ve got to say that it was definitely one of my favorite Airbnb experiences. It was small of course, but it felt so cozy. When we were kids, we had a pop-up camper that we would take around, so it felt nostalgic. It was secure as well, the camper locked, and it was in the backyard which was fenced in with a locked gate. Honestly the shower and toilet facilities were better than expected as well. I wished that we had booked another night here. Our host was really cool too, he is an avid traveler and cyclist and let us know that he had biked across the entire United States a year ago! One of the best parts of staying at an Airbnb is meeting other travel addicts like us! Hootananny was a pretty easy walk, just across the bridge into the center of town. We decided to have dinner there and dinner was good, pretty standard. I had a burger and Kim had fish and chips. They had a good selection of beer and whisky. We really were just waiting for the music to start though! The band consisted of 3 men who played multiple instruments. I love folk music whether it’s American or Irish or Scottish, and this band proved to be great. The bar was full with people sitting at tables all around and people standing. We expected to see some dancing but there wasn’t any (at least not this night.) I’m so glad we were able to make this happen! After that we turned in, we had a long walk back and a long drive the next day. ~Annette

In Beauly, we bought lunch food at a local co-op and waked down to a park and had a picnic. I have to say, brining a towel along was one of the best things I’ve done. I haven’t needed to use it as an actual towel, but my Turkish towel has been a great picnic blanket. We’ve already used it quite a few times. When we were finished with lunch we walked back into town and looked at a cute little shop which had gorgeous clothes and shoes and jewelry and home goods that we could not buy (backpacking dillema!) We also got to look at the Beauly Priory (or what’s left of it anyway) which was very cool and unexpected. This trip has been mostly about nature, so it was good to get a little history into it as well. After the priory, it was time to check in, so we checked into our castle room which was very cute and spent the next couple of hours working on the blog and getting things sorted out at The Green Lady Bar inside of the hotel. Before we knew it, it was time for dinner inside the hotel. Dinner at the hotel restaurant was good, it has a beautiful dining room which is decorated like a castle should be but with a modern flair. We tried haggis for the first time in the form of haggis bon-bons. Surprisingly enough Kim who is much pickier about meat liked it better than Annette did. Unfortunately we aren’t haggis or black pudding people, so it seems that our tastes are not Scottish at least where food is concerned, where nature is concerned, well that’s another story. The dinner was lovely, the dessert was AMAZING.

After a fun day at the local Highland Game in Tomintoul, we drove north to our Airbnb in Burghhead. Burghhead is a small harbor town, and according to our wonderful Airbnb host, Tina, there is one restaurant and a couple of pubs when it comes food options. She was kind enough to make a reservation for us at the Bothy Bistro since the one place in town fills up fast! Shortly after arriving, we walked a couple blocks to eat at this local gem. We were very impressed by their food! We had seen “Cullen skink” on menus for a while and figured it was time to give it a try as our appetizer. It is a cream based soup with smoked haddock in it. We knew with our entrees and appetizers, it would be too much food, so the server was kind enough to split one appetizer size of the soup (large enough for a meal in a full-sized bowl with bread on the side) into two smaller cups for us. It was still very filling and neither of us finished our entrees. We both opted for a pasta dish with generous helpings of crayfish and smoked salmon. If you’re ever in Burghead, be sure to make a reservation at Bothy!
After dinner, at our host’s recommendation, we took a walk around the town and along the water. This was really surreal experience for me. As a fan of British crime dramas, I have seen a lot UK harbor towns through the television and I was nerdy amounts of thrilled to be in one in real life. Walking through Burghead, I was astonished at how few people were out, the quiet and peace of the town, and more than anything, the contrast of a very normal town situated in such stunning scenery.
We could easily see dolphins from the shore and watched them for quite a bit. The after-dinner walk was so serene and beautiful - quite a highlight. Our visit in Burghead was short, but impactful. - Kim

Today felt like an introduction to Scottish culture. We started the morning by having a “Full Scottish Breakfast” in our hotel in Aberdeen. It’s definitely different than what we’re used to for breakfast. The bacon is really more what we would call ham, and I’ve never had mushrooms or tomatoes outside of an omelette during the morning hours, so it was mostly new foods, especially the black pudding. I wouldn’t call either of us super adventurous eaters, so this one was a little tough for us to try especially because we already knew what it is made out of. We both tried it and it honestly tasted better than either of us thought it would. I actually think we would have liked it if we didn’t know what it was made out of. If anybody is curious what a Full Scottish Breakfast is (at least at our hotel in Aberdeen) it was a poached egg, a hash brown, a sausage, a rasher of bacon, some baked beans, a slice of black pudding, 1/2 of a baked tomato, and some mushrooms served with toast. It’s definitely filling and very good if you’re not skittish about your food.

If you want to see our reactions to trying black pudding, take a look at these videos below:

After breakfast, we left Aberdeen and headed to Tomintoul to check out the Tomintoul Highland Games! It was definitely smaller than we expected, we were imagining sort of like a Renaissance Fair sized event, but everything fit on a field about the size of a high school football field. There was a fenced off field in the middle with sport, music, and dancing competitions and then a circle around the outside of the space with craft and food tents. There were some fun games for kids to enjoy and prize-winning games for both kids and adults. We even saw a bottle of whiskey which would go to whoever pulled the right key for a cabinet out of a bag! We enjoyed watching the junior bagpiping competition, the highland dancing, and the throwing the caber and throwing the hammer. It was really interesting (and sometimes scary since the judges would stand right in the line of fire) to see how far the competitors could throw. We really enjoyed each time the various bagpipe and drum bands would come onto the field to perform. It was a great experience and we were happy we got this little bit of Scottish culture on our trip. The festival lasts all day, but we spent about three hours there and that is enough time to get a really good idea of what the event is.

Here are some videos of some of the athletes completing:

~We had some time before our dinner reservation in Burghead, so after the Highland Games, we decided to stop by Glenlivet. Our car’s GPS brought us in the back way through what were some pretty tight little roads, a little scary, but definitely a beautiful drive! We were afraid for a while that we weren’t going the right way, but we did arrive at Glenlivet and were lucky to be there just in time for the 3:30PM tour and they had a couple of spots left! The tour was great, our tour guide, Chris, was very knowledgeable about the entire process and explained it all to us. We loved seeing the entire process from how the barley is mashed to where it’s put in barrels. We learned that the shape of the stills affects the flavor of the whiskey (we had no idea.) Unfortunately you aren’t allowed to take pictures during the tour, so we only have a few pictures from Glenlivet, but we did get to try three different whiskeys. The first we tried in one of the barrel rooms (straight from the cask), the second was the 15 year, and the third was the 18 year. If you’re the designated driver for 50 pence a piece, you can put your samples into little bottles to take home. If you’re not driving and interested in tasting more whiskeys afterwards, they can help you up at the bar. We didn’t do that, so we’re not sure what the price is for that one. There is of course a gift shop on your way out as well. I definitely recommend this distillery. Kim and I are mostly bourbon drinkers, and we both thought the 15 year old was the best one. The tour was only £10 each which isn’t bad even if you factor in the exchange rate! It’s our first whiskey distillery tour, so we can’t rate it against the others, but it’s in a beautiful area of Scotland (are there any areas that aren’t beautiful?) and we really enjoyed ourselves (even the sober one!) ~ Annette

We weren’t really sure what we were going to do today. We knew we were driving from Anstruther to Aberdeen, but had left the day open so we could get suggestions from locals and we feel very blessed that we did. Shout out again to Jill for giving us the amazing suggestion of going to St. Cyrus on our way up the coast. It was about an hour long drive, but it took a little longer for us since we are slow on thes windy and tiny roads. Driving on the left side of the road didn’t take too much getting used to, but for us, the curvy roads and tiny lanes definitely did. We wanted to get food when we got closer to the destination but quickly realized that we might not get the chance. Lucky for us RIGHT before we reached the beach we passed The Old Bakery and Coffee Shop and stopped in for lunch. They had a great menu, we both ordered sandwiches which came with crisps and a really good side salad all for about $13 total which is super cheap. We were so happy with our stop here. It’s adorable, the food is really good, and the staff was so lovely. When we left, we headed up to what our GPS said was St. Cyrus beach but it was actually the cliffs above the beach. We are so glad we made this mistake because the views were amazing. There actually was a path down to the beach but it seemed a little treacherous and it had been raining so we decided to find a place to park down on the beach instead. We went back to the coffee shop and they gave us directions to the St. Cyrus National Nature Reserve which is where the path started! If you put St Cyrus National Nature Reserve in your GPS you should definitely be able to get to the beach. If you want to go above to the lookout point, just follow Beach Road from The Old Bakery and Coffee Shop, park at the church, and walk down the path. At the Nature Reserve, you can park in the lot and then follow the trail (pictures below) and you’ll quickly be on the beach. If you head to your left and walk a little ways, you’ll eventually come to a waterfall which is absolutely beautiful . Unfortunately because of the tide we couldn’t make it all the way up to the waterfall but we did make it far enough to be able to see it and the rocks on that part of the beach were stunning. If you do decide to take a trip here just make sure to pay attention to where the path joins the beach because we had a little bit of a hard time finding the entrance to the path from the beach and it isn’t well marked on our way back. I could go on and on but really the pictures say everything that needs to be said about this area, absolutely stunning.