Edinburgh Scotland: Part 1 - Planning & Introduction

Welcome to #TravelTuesday, a new series on Not Your Average Gal about anything travel related – from adventures to advice to all out awesome stories about traveling.

Last year, we traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland for a quick mini-moon after our wedding in Somerset, England. We spent 4 days exploring old castles, climbing rolling hills and of course, sharing some Scottish whiskey with friends. I want to keep each part of these Trip Reports as short and sweet (and maybe picture-filled) as I can, so you can easily pick out the major details.

This the first part in a series about our trip to Scotland.  Stay tuned for more.

Edinburgh, Scotland –  Trip Report Index

Part 1 - Planning & Introduction

Part 2 - Flights & Accommodation

Part 3 - Edinburgh Castle & The Whiskey Tour

Part 4 – Arthur’s Seat & The Ghost Tour

Part 5 - St. Andrews, Castle Course

Part 6 - Conclusion

 

Introduction:

First, decide if you want to go to Amsterdam or Edinburgh. Then agonize over that decision for a week, annoying your soon-to-be-husband with a long list of “What if’s.” Long story short: We had the opportunity to travel with my fun fam to Amsterdam after our wedding.

Quick! Cute wedding break:

I had been to Edinbugh before but I knew my soon-to-be-hubster would puffy heart love it. Ooops, I mean super masculine heart love it. We had a few friends who were going to Scotland after our wedding and a few waiting to see where we’d choose.  I hadn’t been to Amsterdam before but it was on my list of places to see. I was really torn. I even made a pros and cons list. In the end, Scotland won and we decided to enjoy a few bagpipe-filled days with our pals.

(Basically, I knew I’d want to kill my family after being with them for so long during our wedding and then spend more time with them in Amsterdam.)

Just kidding. Love you guys.

Not really kidding. Love you guys!

So after that, the planning began.

Planning:

We mapped out how long we wanted to stay and chose the itinerary around the best prices for flights back to the states and also when I needed to be back to work. Minor detail.

We had 4 days to explore what Edinburgh and St. Andrews had to offer. It’s funny, even over the course of a year, my travel planning has changed since this trip. I really utilize the awesome travel blogs I follow, download apps for various cities or countries and even download the good ol’ Fromers travel guides. But for Edinburgh, perhaps since I had been there before and also since, you know, planning a wedding overseas is slightly time consuming, I didn’t download or research much. Normally, and in upcoming blogs about my travels, there will be more “in-depth” planning. Promise.

I used these following apps:

 

Before we took off across the pond to get hitched, I knew we wanted to go to:

• Edinburgh Castle
• St. Andrews to play a round (The hubster didn’t know about this. WIFE OF THE YEAR!)
• King Arthur’s Seat
• A pub, any pub, a pub, any pub

Follow along for the next post where I explain just how cheap our flight was and what a kick-ass-bomb-diggity place we got through AirBnb.

A place with a view…

Until next time, travel buds!