Edinburgh to Inverness: the road the Jacobites took
Turn the A9 north into a journey through the Jacobite story, from royal palaces and government strongholds to the place the rising finally ended.
Routes worth taking
Let the story choose the road.
Browse thoughtful routes, days out and field guides built from real places. Every page is honest about what fits, what needs planning and what is better saved for another journey.
Make the road part of the day
Historic routes
Journeys between real places, shaped around the strongest stories that genuinely lie along the way.
Edinburgh to Newcastle: two roads, and St Cuthbert took both
The inland road leads towards Cuthbert's beginnings at Melrose. The coast follows his life through Lindisfarne, Bamburgh and the Farne Islands.
Edinburgh to Glasgow: the road along Rome's frontier
The M8 gets you there in under an hour. This route follows the Antonine Wall instead -- four sites tracing the empire's briefly northernmost edge.
Burns Country: from Alloway to Dumfries
Born in Alloway, died in Dumfries, forty miles and half a lifetime apart. Six places trace the whole arc, honestly split across two realistic days.
Reiver Country: the Scottish Borders' three centuries of lawless power
For three hundred years the Anglo-Scottish border was effectively lawless. Six sites down Liddesdale and Eskdale trace the families who ran it.
Start from one place
Days out
Focused clusters for half days and full days, with enough substance to reward the journey without turning it into a race.
A day with Mary, Queen of Scots in Edinburgh
Walk the Old Town from the room where Mary gave birth to the palace where her secretary was murdered, then continue to the castle where she sought refuge.
A day among the Vikings of Orkney
Orkney was part of a Norse world for centuries. Four places on Mainland bring its earls, saints, saga halls and runic graffiti into one remarkable day.
Stirling: a day with Bruce and Wallace
Wallace's 1297 victory and Bruce's 1314 victory were fought seventeen years apart for the same prize. Four places within three miles tell both.
A day in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney
Before Stonehenge's stone circle, before the pyramids, Orkney was building in stone. Four UNESCO World Heritage monuments within seven miles.
Kilmartin Glen: five thousand years in one Argyll valley
One small Argyll valley holds prehistoric burial landscapes, one of Scotland's best archaeological museums and the royal stronghold of early Dál Riata.
St Andrews and the Scottish Reformation
A martyrdom, a murder inside the castle, and a siege that sent a young John Knox to the French galleys -- all within half a mile of each other.
See the wider pattern
Story guides
National and regional guides for stories that make more sense as a landscape than as a single prescribed route.
The Highland Clearances: where the history survives
There is no single Clearances site because there was no single Clearance. Explore the museums, churches, townships and memorials that preserve different parts of the story.
The Picts: where Scotland's carved stones survive
No surviving Pictish literature, no chronicle in their own words -- only stone. Nine places across three regions where that stone still stands.
A route written for you
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