In a last ditched attempt to hang onto our holiday for a little longer I have put together a summary of our ride, our route, and our budget for our two-week motorcycle adventure of Scotland.

• Summary
• The Plan
• The Budget

Riding Scotland – Overall Summary

Scotland was amazing and I can’t wait to get back.!

In two-weeks we crammed a lot in. A lot of roads, a lot of amazing scenery, a lot of castles, a lot of old towns, and a lot of history.

Cramming Scotland into two-weeks meant mostly we were only staying in places for one night … so really only a bed, and a cursory look around. You really need at least two nights in many places as that gives you a day to explore. Places like Stirling, where we really wanted to explore more, or Glasgow which really didn’t grab us, but was that because we only caught a glimpse of it.?

And when hiring a motorcycle, at over AU$200 per day, you really feel like you need to be making the most of it and not just parking it for the day to walk around.

Was this a riding holiday of Scotland, or a tour of Scotland on a motorcycle.?

During our ride preparation, we all discussed what we wanted from the ride, and broadly we had similar goals. There is a subtle but important distinction between a ‘riding holiday of Scotland’, and ‘touring of Scotland on a motorcycle’. For us this was about discovering Scotland, not just being able to say we’ve ridden around Scotland.

I think overall we got the balance pretty much spot on. Other than adding a few more days into our overall itinerary, the only thing I would have changed in our plan … instead of riding around Loch Ness (which was nice), we could have spent the time exploring Inverness more.

Next time.

Riding Scotland – The Plan

The challenge with planning our Scotland ride was understanding the time distance equation. That is, how many kilometres should you aim for each day, so you aren’t always chasing the clock, while giving you enough time to visit local sights without watching the clock.

This wasn’t just a ride where the whole point was to ride, but a tour where it’s about the riding, the roads, the scenery, and exploring the places you are passing.

But what is that magic number?

Scotland has a lot of narrow roads, which will be slower, and if busy … even slower. With this in mind we aimed for 200 to 250 kms per day. This would be around three to four hours of riding leaving heaps of time to stop and explore. From this we then looked for accommodation at locations to roughly achieve this.

This felt like a very small number as that’s less than three hours riding here, tops. That leaves a lot of day to fill in. But is it a lot on Scotland’s narrow roads coming into summer and tourist season.?

Funny, while I’m writing this I am reading Iron Butt Rally (IBR) reports as it has just finished. This is an 11-day motorcycle scavenger hunt across the United States of America where riders (and pillions in some cases) collect points by taking photos of themed objects and places, while covering approximately 1,000 miles (1,600km) per day. This is at the extreme other end.!

During the event riders carry a satellite tracker – here is a link to an animation of all riders over the 3 legs and 11 days of riding. The winner of this year’s IBR was James Owen on a 2022 BMW R1250RT covering 14,138 miles (22,753km) in 11 days.

While I’m not lining up for the IBR any time soon …! I do like big days on the bike (some of my IBA rides), so planning 200 to 250km days felt a bit like a coffee run.

Reflecting on the ride now and what we wanted to achieve, we had the distance pretty much spot on. The only day we had off the bike was at Fort William where we took the Jacobite steam train to Mallaig for the day. Towards the end of our trip Deb was getting pretty tired and we could have done with a couple of rest days incorporated in there somewhere to both explore the local area more and to have a bit of time off the bike. But it is always tempting to see more, do more, ride more.

Here is a daily summary of our ride.

Day 1 – Pickup bike and ride to Walworth

Our first couple of days were primarily transport legs to get to our meeting point in Perth, Scotland. So day one was a burn up the A1.

Distance: 250 miles (400km)

Accommodation: Walworth castle – link

Daily Report: Nearly Walking to Scotland

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Day 2 – Walworth to Perth

Our original plan was to stick to the A1, which would have been quicker, but we really wanted to get off the freeway and find some more interesting roads and scenery. So, after looking at the map and finding a few interesting things we strung together an alternative route.

Distance: 180 miles (290km)

Accommodation: Hazeldene Guest house

Daily Report: Hello Scotland

Points of interest:

• Leaderfoot viaduct
• England/Scotland boarder
• Corbridge Roman ruins and Hadrian’s wall
• Leaderfoot viaduct

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Day 3 – Perth to Inverness

Distance: 140 miles (225km)

Accommodation: Chieftan Hotel – short walk into the town centre

Daily Report: To Inverness via Charlie’s Country Cabin

Points of interest:

• Balmoral Castle,
• Braemar and the site of the highland games
• Corgarff viewpoint
• The Old Military road is a much better alternative than the A9.

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Day 4 – Inverness

Distance: 80 miles (130km)

Accommodation: Chieftan Hotel

Daily Report: Around Inverness

Points of interest:

• Culloden Battlefields and make sure you do the guided tour of the battlefield
• Urquhart castle (make sure you book)
• Loch Ness visitors centre, it was closed when we were there but there it’s a nice scenic ride around Loch Ness with many little quite spots on the east side where you can stop.
• Walking tour of Inverness and its history. We used Walking Tours in Scotland

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Day 5 – Inverness to Thurso

Distance: 150 miles (240km)

Accommodation: Westlea Bed and Breakfast – highly recommended

Daily Report: Top of Scotland, then turn left.

Points of interest:

• Cromarty – we had a tip to go via Cromarty and then catch the ferry. However, we opted the main road and regretted not taking that advice.
• Dunrobin Castle
• John-O-Groats
• Duncansby Head
• Dunnett Head – the most northern point of Great Britain
• Keep an eye out for Puffins

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Day 6 – Thurso to Ullapool

Distance: 140 miles (225km)

Accommodation: The Arch Inn

Daily Report: North West Scotland … the start of narrow roads

Points of interest:

• Smoo Cave is a nice little walk and you can go for a raft ride in the cave if that’s your thing.
• Ardvreck Castle are ruins just off the road – only a short walk to check them out
• Spectacular scenery – stop when you can and take it all in
• Narrow roads really kick in from Betty Hill – below is a rough-cut video showing some of Scotland’s north-west coast roads and scenery.

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Day 7 – Ullapool to Broadford (Isle of Skye)

Distance: 170 miles (270km)

Accommodation: Scorrybreac B&B – highly recommended (just a bit far out of town)

Daily Report: Applecross and the Isle of Skye

Points of interest:

• More of those awesome narrow roads!
• Applecross – lunch by the beach
• Applecross Pass – I loved Applecross, from navigating the narrow roads to the scenery, and rather than editing the clip of the Applecross Pass down to just a couple of minutes of the highlights, below is the full-length clip of riding over the pass.

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Day 8 – Isle of Skye

Distance: 140 miles (225km)

Accommodation: Scorrybreac B&B – highly recommended

Points of interest:

• Everyone raves about Isle of Skye, and yes it is certainly a beautiful place.
• Neist Point (take a midge net!),
• Dunvegan castle
• Drive up the coast lots of places to stop to check out the scenery.
• Old Man of Storr would be a great walk … but not in motorcycle gear.
• The coastline is beautiful
• I regret we didn’t do the loop around the top through Ulg and Kimaluag as it wasn’t much further, rather than back tracking from Kilt Rock (which was closed due to work upgrading the access).

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Day 9 – Broadford to Fort William

Distance: 120 miles (200km)

Accommodation: Innisfree Guest House

Daily Report: The Highlander and Harry

Points of interest:

• Eilean Donan Castle
• Ben Nevis distillery
• Commando’s memorial
• Glenfinnan viaduct

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Day 10 – Jacobite Steam Train trip

Today we were off the bike and doing a daytrip on the on the Jacobite steam train to Mallaig and back. This was a really chilled day just sitting back watching the world go passed and playing cards on the table.

Accommodation: Innisfree Guest House

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Day 11 – Fort William to Stirling

Distance: 130 miles (210km)

Accommodation: Friars Wynd Hotel

Daily Report: Tales of the Glen

Points of interest:

• Loop around Loch Leven is a beautiful ride
• Glencoe visitors centre
• Glencoe valley is stunning.
• Stirling – we wished we had more time here as we didn’t get to properly explore the home of the Bruce or the Wallace Monument. Next time.
• Stirling walking tour – Walking Tours in Scotland
• Stirling – Mumma Mia’s restaurant had great food and has won awards for its desert.

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Day 12 – Stirling to Glasgow

Distance: 30 miles (50km)

Accommodation: Cathedral House

Daily Report: Exploring Glasgow

Points of interest:

• Transport museum – excellent!
• Walking tour of Glasgow – Walking Tours in Scotland
• Lots of great street art

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Day 13 – Glasgow to Keswick

Distance: 190 miles (300km)

Accommodation: Rickerby Gragne B&B

Daily Report: Then There Were Two

Points of interest:

• Nice little villages
• Stone lined roads through open countryside
• The Lakes District

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Day 14 – Keswick to Hathersage

Distance: 160 miles (260km)

Accommodation: Fox House

Points of interest:

• The Lakes District
• Buttertubs Pass
• The Yorkshire Dales
• Snake Pass

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Day 15 – Hathersage to Hitchin

Distance: 150 miles (240km)

Accommodation: Fox House

Daily Report: Last day riding in the UK

Points of interest:

• Bolsover Castle
• Nottingham Castle (pity it was closed)
• Sherwood Forest (I wouldn’t bother)
• Newark castle ruins

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Riding Scotland – Budget

We put together a rough budget to estimate how much we were going to need for the trip. And while we weren’t watching what we spent that closely, I have reviewed what we spent to see how close we were.

Motorcycle Rental

We hired our motorcycle from Superbike Rental as they were only 70km from our base in Hitchin; and they had a suitable bike for our needs, read big comfy tourer suitable for 2 with ample luggage capacity.

I’ve been asked a number of times why I didn’t go for the R1250GS – the answer is easy … the height; I know you can get a low seat height option, but it’s too high for Deb to clamber up and down from … especially fully loaded. That, and I prefer road bikes.

In retrospect – the RT itself could be hard to get on and off for the pillion due to the position of the grab rails, so Deb generally got on the bike first using the riders pegs and sliding back onto the pillion seat. But the GS would have still be harder to mount and dismount, due to it being that much taller.

The team at Superbike rental were excellent, and I would highly recommend them to anyone wanting to hire a bike in the UK, and I’d use them again without hesitation.

The cost of hiring the 2019 BMW R1250RT for 15 days with all the luggage and navigation was 1,843 pounds (AU$3,300).

My review of the BMW R1250RT after riding it for 2,100 miles – link.

Accommodation

After a quick look around, it was clear that we’d have to be paying at least 100 pound per night if not more in a few places. Therefore for the purposes of setting a budget we were aiming for accommodation less than 120 pound per night (AU$224) and that’s for budget hotels and B&Bs – we weren’t looking at back packers etc.

To ensure we had rooms at the locations we wanted we booked all our accommodation 6 months in advance and even then, our options for some locations were limited. So don’t leave it too late.

On average we were within our budget at 103 pounds per night (AU$197).

Food

We really didn’t have any idea of what we would spend on food (including drinks), so we budgeted for 80 pound per day (AU$150) noting that breakfast was included with our accommodation on most days. We thought that should be heaps as we don’t have elaborate eating habits, and while we don’t mind a drink or two, we certainly don’t go out ‘drinking’.

Overall, we were surprised at the price of food. And due to our type of accommodation we were eating out every night, and while we didn’t go for fast food we did try to dine at standard restaurants, and pubs. Although we did try a couple of really nice little specialty restaurants.

Overall, we spent closer to 100 pound per day (AU$190) on food and drink. This was a bit of a shock and sometimes we were paying the same ticket price for items as back home, but in pounds and with a conversation rate of over 1.9 that’s nearly double the cost for some items.!

Fuel

I estimated that we would spend 310 pounds (AU$590) on fuel for our trip based on travelling 2,100 miles, the bike averaging 50 mpg, and fuel costing 1.70 pound per litre (AU$3.20).

I was surprised to see only E5 and E10 fuel available which was less than 1.50 pounds per litre. That, combined with better fuel consumption meant that we spent considerably less on fuel than expected.

In total we travelled just over 2,100 miles we spent 220 pounds (AU$420) on fuel.

Incidentals

We budgeted for 50 pound per day (AU$95) for incidentals for things such as – entry to castles, parks, museums etc, and souvenirs.

We went a bit over on this one at 65 pound per day (AU$125). That may also explain why we had to post stuff back … on a couple of occasions … to make more room … for more souvenirs…

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We loved Scotland and look forward to being able explore the UK further in the future.

Now to start saving and planning for our next trip…