Where to Take a Day Trip from Edinburgh

If you’re taking a trip to Scotland, there are plenty of places to take a day trip from Edinburgh to! This list has been made from two different trips we took to Scotland. You do not need or want a car in Edinburgh, but a lot of places can be reached by train or if you hire a tour! But all of these places are about an hour from the capitol city. It should be said, some of these places you could spend way more than a day there! Some of them are only a few hours stay. Use google maps to plan your route and go see some of these places together or on your way to somewhere else!

Linlithgow Palace

Linlithgow Palace is a really awesome day trip from Edinburgh. Part of Outlander was filmed here! You can see where it used to be two stories in some places. Cutest little tour guides show you around for free! They have the best accents and know their history well!

Midhope Castle

Another Outlander location, but one that’s a lot less busy! This little abandoned farm home is “Lallybroch” in the Outlander series. I love visiting places that you have all to yourselves! We only saw another two people right as we were leaving so they took our picture together. This wouldn’t be a full day trip from Edinburgh, but we paired it with Linlithgow Palace and it worked really well!

St. Andrews

Both times we went to St. Andrews we walked around the links and the city. But you should also see the castle and the church! We saw it the first time so the second time around Dave was really excited to walk across the Swilken Bridge! If you have the funds, go golfing! We went golfing at a less known club and skipped it at St. Andrews. You could easily spend more than a day here but for sure plan half a day!

Border Abbey’s

If you drive south, you can see the Border Abbey’s! We were able to see two of them, but there are two other ones as well. We saw both abbey’s and had a little hike in half a day. It was really busy but you could for sure do all of them in a day. Or you could take it a bit slower and enjoy southern Scotland over a few days!

St. Boswell’s

The drive between Melrose Abbey and Dryburgh Abbey literally brought me to tears it’s so beautiful! It was the first time traveling actually made me cry because I couldn’t believe how pretty it all was. We hiked to the William Wallace Statue, it’s a pretty easy walk but it’s fun! I made Dave pull over at the Scott’s View as well. It was March and you can see how green it still was. And the Leaderfoot Viaduct was worth the stop.

Melrose Abbey

Dryburgh Abbey

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