A year ago in March 2021, I shared with my friends and family on Facebook that I was planning to write and travel again. I described this in my first blog post on Birth of Adventure:
“A main theme of this blog, a lesson learned from losing my parents and brothers and others too young, is that life is short. Too short to leave passions and dreams dormant. Too short to be looking back with regrets.
I’d been dreading the empty space ahead but what if I looked at it as a precious gift of time waiting for me? After a year of living in isolation, with cancelled plans and disappointments, I needed something to look forward to.
And so I started planning a dream trip, something that I wanted.
I set a date in the not too distant future – spring 2022 – for my dream trip to Scotland. David and I had each visited separately and wanted to go back together. And I’d recently been tracking my family’s ancestry to the small island of Coll – I wanted to see this tiny island with more sheep than people where my ancestors had lived for hundreds of years.
As enthusiasm and energy filled me with something so wonderful to look forward to: the food, the sea, the mountains! (and for Outlander friends, Jamie!), I knew I was ready to start writing again. I wanted to share stories of travel, adventure, family, life and even death. Stories to help and inspire living fully, intentionally and courageously.“
Setting an intention for this great adventure gave me something (outside of my family and my job) to hold on to over the past year – something to look forward to. And having a trip to plan and to write about grounded me in starting this blog; as my mind flitted from topic to topic, I had a theme I could keep coming back to.
I have to admit though, that as the pandemic continued and COVID-19 rates climbed in WNY and elsewhere, as our family Christmas travel was cancelled, and borders to many countries remained closed, I found it hard to believe traveling overseas would be possible. It felt like my dream trip would remain just a dream.
Because of this, I delayed booking flights and making any confirmed plans besides a tour and a few accommodations here and there.
Although nothing is certain, and the pandemic continues, I am now optimistic that we are really going, and I spent a joyful weekend booking flights and planning our itinerary. With confirmed plans (including travel insurance of course), my energy and mood has shifted. I am excited!!!
We will be leaving in a month, and I’ll be sharing real-time updates in the Birth of Adventure Facebook group (please join if you would like to follow along), and I will write about our adventures in this blog, while on the trip and after.
Travel bloggers that I follow have shared that a downside to travel writing is they are not always fully present to the experiences around them. Planning around the perfect photo or story, or sitting in a café or hotel room writing instead of exploring can take away from the purpose of travel. I made a promise to myself to be as fully present on this trip as possible, and so I will write when the inspiration strikes, and only then.
I love planning a trip almost as much as I love actual traveling. Before a trip, the options are endless. I close my eyes and imagine everywhere we could go and everything we could see. Shetland! Orkney Islands! Isle of Skye! The Highland Games! Hiking the West Highland Way! Cairngorm National Park!
All of those listed above, while amazing, did not make our trip itinerary, for many reasons. I had fun planning this trip but as many people have shared, planning can mirror some of what happens while traveling – overwhelm, frustration, budget worries, FOMO, and realizing that the time you have could not possibly include everything you want to do.
I set aside three weeks because I knew that I needed a mini-sabbatical – enough time to decompress from work and responsibilities after the past two years to really recharge.
David and I have visited Scotland once before – me in 1999 with my London flat mates on a school break in October, and David in fall 2002, a few months before Ben was born. We both took bus tours which covered a lot of iconic destinations.
This time, 20(+) years later, we wanted to spend more time in one place, and to spend more time on our feet than in a vehicle. We also had already visited some spectacular places like the Isle of Skye and Loch Ness that we could cross off of our list.
There are a tremendous amount of wonderful things to see and do and experience in Scotland which can make planning overwhelming, and so we approached this trip by centering ourselves with a few wish list adventures we knew we were going to include.
As I wrote in the passage above, I started with researching our own ancestral ties to Scotland. David and I each have a quarter Scottish ancestry, and I was able to trace my family who were crofters on the tiny island of Coll (13 miles long and 3 miles wide, with just about 160 year-round residents), and David’s family, who we believe were gunsmiths or hammersmiths in the Gorbals, an area in Glasgow. Our itinerary includes both locations.
We knew we wanted some time by the sea, some time experiencing the city life (including great restaurants!), and some time in the Highlands. And we each had a few bucket list items we wanted to see and do.
We love traveling by train so we decided not to rent a car (I was also a bit nervous about driving on the left side of the road – not going to lie). The flexibility of having a car and being able to more easily get anywhere was outweighed by us sitting in a train or bus, being able to read/write and watch the world go by.
As I mentioned above, we did cross a lot off of our list due to time, to money, and some places because we could not access them easily by public transportation, but what is included and listed below are the sights and adventures that made the list which are what we most wanted to experience on this trip. And as a travel planning rule, it’s not a bad thing to leave some destinations for the future – to entice you to come back again to visit one day.
This is our Scotland dream adventure itinerary for 2022:
City Life:
- Edinburgh – 4 nights
Our days in Edinburgh are mainly left open (besides our B&B reservation) so we can make them up as we go along. We’ll have several days meandering around the city, visiting museums, eating delicious food, with two firm plans: David’s birthday dinner and a day trip for me on an Outlander tour (visiting settings in the books, and places used as filming locations for the TV show).
- Glasgow – 4 nights
We’ll arrive in Glasgow on the train from Edinburgh, and spend another several days left mainly open to explore to our heart’s content. Again, we have two firm plans – one, is a scheduled day tour of The Gorbals (an ancestry tour for David), and on our last day I’m having brunch with Kathi, a Scottish travel blogger who I follow and who inspires me, and I look very forward to meeting her and talking travel and writing (and Scotland of course).
Scottish Highlands:
- Fort William – 2 nights
From Glasgow, we’ll take a bus up to Fort William (known as the outdoor capital of the UK) which we will use as a base for two nights and three days. Fort William is nestled near Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British isles, and is nearby Glencoe (image above). One of the days David and I will be hiking up Glencoe with a guide, and another we’ll be taking an iconic 84 mile return train trip – riding the Jacobite Steam Train from Fort William to Mallaig, crossing the Glenfinnan viaduct (image below), a sight made famous in its depiction as the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter movies.
- Inverness – 3 nights
After a day of hiking in Glencoe, our guide will drop us off at the Fort William bus stop where we’ll ride up to Inverness, considered to be the capital of the Highlands. Inverness in Gaelic means “the mouth of the (river) Ness”, and we will use this as a base for 3 days. Both David and I have already searched for Nessie in Loch Ness (and sadly we did not see her), so this time we’ll be taking a day trip for some history – a tour of Culloden (site of the final battle in the Jacobite uprising in 1746), and another day, we will enjoy a boat ride along the Caledonian canal.
- Oban – 1 night
We will ride the bus from Inverness southwest to the seaside town, Oban. Oban is known as the gateway to the Hebridean islands. This is a quick stop as we’ll be leaving early the next morning to catch our ferry to the isle of Coll. One scheduled outing is a whisky tour (and tasting) at the Oban Distillery, which was established in 1793.
Island/Ocean Relaxation:
- Isle of Coll – 6 nights
Ahhh… After two weeks of city hopping, hiking and exploring, David and I will be ready to relax. From Oban, we’ll take a very early ferry to the beautiful isle of Coll where we’ll stay for 6 nights. Our itinerary for this week is completely open except for one dinner and one lunch reservation at the only two restaurants on the island. We’ve rented bicycles for the week and will spend each day as we wish – relaxing, reading, writing, leisurely bike rides, and possibly just sitting and looking at the sea at one of the island’s many beaches. (And I can’t wait to share pictures of where we will be staying!)
From Coll, we’ll spend a day journeying by ferry and train back to Glasgow to sleep before flying home the next day (if we decide we will come home, that is).
I look forward to sharing about our experiences while in Scotland and when we return.
For now, please share any suggestions or comments about places you’ve visited, heard about or longed to visit in the areas I’ve listed above – we may check them out!
I can’t wait to share our adventures and hear about yours!