You would love to come to Scotland, but you are wondering how far in advance you need to book all the elements of your trip. Admission here, I am a natural born planner so I start it as far as 11 months in advance, but what do you actually need to do ?
As at 2025, Scotland is still on THE list of places to travel to. This means that depending on when you want to visit, booking ahead for accommodation is almost always essential. Our busiest months are May to September with additional busy periods over the European school holidays at Easter, summer, late October and over Christmas and New Year.
If you are committed to visiting Scotland, my advice is to define an outline itinerary and get the accommodation booked as soon as possible – the other bookings e.g. transport, site entrances etc can wait until much closer to the time (unless you want to go to an event like The Royal Military Tattoo in Edinburgh in August – secure those tickets at the same time as your accommodation).
To give you an example, in January 2024, I was struggling to find what i consider reasonably priced accommodation for a tour I was delivering in May 2024. If I have tours in July and August, I will book my own accommodation as soon as the tour is confirmed and deposit paid by the client – and can still struggle to find what I am looking for depending on where it is e.g Isle of Skye.
For visits in the months of July and August, I would definitely be looking to book my accommodation in Edinburgh, Inverness, Ullapool and Isle of Skye as soon as I decide to visit as these are some of the booking / tourism hotspots in Scotland due to the events that are held there or their popularity and limited accommodation options.
If you are planning on taking a ferry to one of our islands with a vehicle, I would be booking as soon as they go on sale or as soon as possible after deciding to come to Scotland, especially if you want to travel over a weekend as space is limited.
In January 2025, I was helping clients to define their itinerary for a tour in August 2025 – once we had run through the initial planning questions (see separate blog post) and defined an outline itinerary, the client moved on to booking accommodation before I went on to add “the meat on the bones” to the itinerary.
When it comes to booking venue entrances, I would say you can wait to buy tickets until a couple of days before except for the most popular ones, especially at peak times of year e.g. Edinburgh Castle, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Royal Yacht Britannia, Urquhart Castle and certain distilleries e.g. The Macallan.
In terms of festival tickets – it all depends on the festival and how much you want to see a specific artist or performance. If you want to see something, I would be booking up as soon as they are released!
Whenever you plan to visit Scotland, I wish you a fabulous stay and if I can help define your itinerary or deliver any element of it, please get in touch.
