Experience Scotland (Without Feeling Like a Tourist)

People often express that they want a “crowd-free” holiday. And as I share lots of hills and nature, people may imagine that means avoiding the obvious tourist spots like castles.

But should you really visit Scotland without seeing its most majestic sites?

In some cases, yes. I would choose Loch Katrine over Loch Lomond any day.

Loch Lomond is full of speedboats and concrete parking for tour buses. Everyone has heard of Loch Lomond: everyone wants to go; its nature is quite compromised by tourism.

Only 15 miles away is a gorgeous loch, Loch Katrine. Loch Katrine is a reservoir, so it only has sail and steamboats on it — no fish farms, no pollutants on the surrounding hills.

It has a Victorian steamship cruising the loch. Rob Roy travelled its hills. With fewer crowds, you have a good chance of seeing an eagle or osprey.

Loch Lomond is a perfect example of a tourist experience to swerve and go off the beaten track.

But depending on what you want for your Scottish holiday, some popular tourist spots are worth seeing — and there are some we love sharing, albeit a little differently from what you may expect.

This page shares the ones we go to on our coaching holidays – and how we visit them. 

What Does Avoiding Crowds Actually Mean?

What most people are really trying to avoid when they search for “crowd-free” is often something else:

• feeling like a number
• spending time in queues
• being moved from one place to the next without any real connection

Crowd-free doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding everything well-known.
It doesn’t mean skipping castles, festivals, cities, or music events altogether (although it can if that’s what you want).

It means honouring your intelligence and individuality, and not expecting you to take on a passive role. Not only do we dislike this kind of tourism, it would not bring you the cultural connection that deepens your language identity.

This kind of travel leads to people returning home wondering why their English didn’t change.

How We Share Well-Known Places

How we approach well-known places matters just as much as which ones we choose.

We don’t avoid them completely — but we don’t follow the usual patterns either.

Timing matters. There are certain places I would never take people at the weekend or during school holidays — places that you need calm to process.

Pace matters. We don’t rush through places or move from one site to the next without any real connection. Every day on our holiday has an arc in terms of the sites we see and the language we practise. Every holiday has an arc too — seeing different land uses is one; seeing how history is curated could be another.

These arcs give you a role. You’re not there as a passive tourist, but as someone noticing, thinking, and engaging with what’s around you.

This gives us conversation topics, this gets you looking deeply, this activates your sense of belonging.

Places You Might Be Surprised We Can Include

An Underlying Structure

Each day on our holiday has an arc.

The places we visit, the way we experience them, and the language we use all connect and build over time.

Across the week, there is a wider arc too — seeing different land uses is one, seeing how history is curated could be another.

These arcs give you a role. You’re not there as a passive tourist, but as someone noticing, thinking, and engaging with what’s around you.

An Underlying Structure

Much of what we do sits off the tourist routes.

In every holiday, we tend to balance a couple of bigger-ticket experiences (castles, concerts, boat trips) with the less obvious. We know the landscape so well we can share the same sense of awe in other, more subtle ways — in a view, on a walk, in a newborn lamb, in countless smaller moments.

The same curious way of looking carries through everything.

→ Small Moments, Big Experiences: The Balance of Scale that Shapes our Holidays