In my attempts to expand my travel horizons and see more of the world, I've found that it's easy to hype a place up in your mind only to arrive and find that it falls flat of your expectations. Sometimes the opposite happens and a place massively surpasses your expectations of it. Other times, you hype it up so much and once you get there, it lives up to every single expectation you've ever had of it.
The latter is what happened to me when I traveled to the Scottish Highlands for the first time in March.
Over the last few years, due mainly to my growing obsession of all things Outlander (please watch the show on Starz or read the books if you haven't yet joined this bandwagon) and the rising interest in my own ancestry, I've grown really fond of the idea of Scotland. Somewhere that I had never really put too much thought into visiting, I suddenly wanted to visit, live there, meet someone with a Scottish accent, be Scottish...basically, anything you can think of pertaining to Scotland, I wanted it.
Well now that I'm living in England and I'm only an hour flight from Scotland, I figured there was no better time than now than to dip my toes into the mountains of Scotland. That's right; the mountains. I didn't just want to go to the lowlands for Glasgow and Edinburgh (though I am planning another trip to see these two cities as we speak). I wanted to jump right in and head up to the Highlands, using Inverness as my home base to explore.
So that's what we did. I was able to convince my lovely friends Madi and Nick to accompany me on this journey, but honestly, I didn't take much convincing after I showed them pictures of where we were going.
On Saturday, March 17th, we headed off to London Luton Airport to catch our flight to Inverness, Scotland. The beginning of the trip was a bit rocky... We woke up Saturday morning and it was snowing pretty heavily and there was already probably an inch of snow on the ground.
Regardless, we got a taxi to take us to our bus stop, not even sure that our bus (which we had paid $13 for) was going to show up because of the weather. Our taxi driver didn't think it was going to, so that was super encouraging.
Thankfully, our bus shows up right on time and we headed off to the airport, only to have gotten an email upon arrival that said our flight had been delayed over an hour because of the snow.
Eventually, we made it on our flight, almost two hours later than what we supposed to.
Clearly, we were pretty happy. It was cold, we were tired, but I don't think I've ever been more excited for anything in my life. I tried to document everything to the best of my abilities, but I got so wrapped up in just being there that there were a lot of things I forgot to vlog and take pictures of.
If seeing that vlog is something you're interested in, click this link here! You'll see some other cool travel vlogs as well like me visiting London, Cambridge, and the Stonehenge.
Once we got to Scotland, the skies were clear and the snow was (mostly) gone.
Our hostel was cute, we made some cool new friends from Germany and Scotland, and I got to try Haggis which was really interesting. It's the national dish of Scotland and it's definitely unlike anything I've ever eaten before.
We got to check out the famous Culloden Battlefield where many Jacobite soldiers lost their lives against the British army in 1746. A huge piece of history that Outlander made me aware of and interested in, this is somewhere I think everyone should visit, especially if you're someone that comes from a line of Scottish heritage; chances are, some of your ancestors might have died on this battlefield fighting for a cause they believed in.
Headstones where fallen clan members lost their lives.
The second day we were there, I wanted to explore Loch Ness. Maybe you've heard of it before with the urban legend of the Loch Ness Monster? Well, Nessie supposedly lives in the depths of this massive Loch. After visiting the Loch and getting to see the small town of Drumnadrochit, which is centered around the legend, I believe in Nessie and have absolutely no shame about it.
Looks mythical, doesn't it? This loch has some depth of around 900ft. I don't know, I think something could be down there.
We may have spent $7 on a "Highland Hot Chocolate" at 11:00 am. A. K. A. hot chocolate with whisky (they don't spell it with an e in Scotland) in it.
When in Scotland, do as the Scots do, amirite? #noragrets
Then we got to see Urquhart Castle which is the kind of stuff I live for:
What a truly incredible place. I would recommend visiting this place to ANYONE.
Our final day, we went to Aberdeen by train. We didn't spend much time in Aberdeen because we woke up really late and the train was about two and a half hours both ways, but the train ride alone was worth the money. You really don't know what you're missing out on until you take a train ride through the Scottish Highlands.
When we got on the plane the next day to head back to England, I was actually so sad about leaving that I cried. Isn't that crazy? I've never been somewhere that captured my heart so quickly in the way that Scotland did. Here's hoping that I'll figure out how to take a solo trip back for my Easter Break. Here's to you, Inverness.
I'll see you again soon.
