Highlands and Islands: Edinburgh to Inverness

On the first day of our road trip, we took the train from Edinburgh to Inverness.


When we got into Inverness in the late afternoon, we went straight to Enterprise to pick up our rental car for our road trip.

We then headed straight to Culloden Battlefield, because we still had a few hours until they closed.

This was a very important stop for us, especially since my mom is obsessed with Outlander. She's read all the books and seen the show. It's also an important historical site that my dad really wanted to see. I went back in 2016 for the 270th anniversary of the battle. 

It was a beautiful afternoon - unlike the morning of the battle.

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The museum there at the battlefield is so thorough. There is so much information - and the story is told both from the perspective of the rebels and the British government. I think it's too much information to ever take in in one visit, so it was still interesting to go back a second time. 

After we finished at the battlefield, we drove just down the road to Clava Cairns. This is also possibly one of the spots that inspired the stone circle in Outlander. It's a really cool site that has some cairns as well as standing stones. There are just some stones in this small field down a small country road. Last time, we walked there from Culloden Battlefield - it's definitely worth seeing if you're in the area. 

After seeing the stones, we checked into our Airbnb and relaxed for a bit. We called ahead to Zizzi's, which I knew had dairy-free cheese so I knew I would be able to find something I could eat. We got a reservation (because they were surprisingly busy). Actually, this is something we encountered every day up in the highlands and islands. Because all of the small towns we went to were at maximum capacity for tourists, every place to get dinner was completely full every night. We often had to wait for 30-40 minutes for a table. Inverness was the least difficult place because it is the biggest town in the highlands. It's worth keeping in mind if you're travelling in Scotland in the summer. 

After dinner, we were planning on seeing some live music at the pub, but the place was super dead. We did find this great sticker on the window though!

We then walked back to our Airbnb across the river. 

And that was the first day of our road trip! We barely did any driving, but we still got to do quite a lot!