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Highland Bus tour: Experience Outlander, Culloden, Castles, and Loch Ness in One Day
4.5
247 Ratings
Highland Council
Experience the best of the Scottish Highlands on our Highland Bus tour. Explore Outlander locations, visit Culloden, discover castles, and search for Nessie at Loch Ness. Book now!
Duration:
8 hours
Cancellation:
1 day
learn more
Highlights
- Inverness Castle - Journeying onwards through the city of Inverness we will pass the historic town hall and the Inverness Castle. There will be photo opportunities for the castle and Inverness Cathedral. You’ll be able to visit the castle viewing gallery and the shops, cafes or historic bars.
Photos only until 2024 as castle is being renovated.
- Inverness - Drop off in the city for shopping or seeing the historical churches and streets. It can vary between 30-90 minutes for this stop.
- Cawdor Castle - Cawdor Castle is a lived in castle which is written about in Shakespear’s MacBeth, when he refers to the Thane of Cawdor and the prediction. It has spectacular gardens and guided audio tours in your own language.
- Beauly Priory - We will leave the urquhart castle around 2-2.30pm to journey via a scenic route to Beauly to drive by the historic priory, now a ruin, built in 1230 by a little-known French order of monks. It is also the location where Claire of Outlander fame, is supposed to have met Mairi. It is the true site of the burial ground for the chiefs of Clan Fraser of which the fictional character from Outlander, Jamie Fraser is related.
If time allows we will stop.
- Culloden Battlefield - We will travel to the Culloden Battlefield, where the Jacobites lost many a soul in the 1946 uprising. This was the last battle to be fought on British soil. If time allows we will give guests a chance to walk on the battlefield. Depending on tour we may not stop but just drive by.
- Culloden Viaduct - After a half hour visit at Clava Cairns, we will pop around the corner to see the famous Culloden or Nairn viaduct, designed by Murdoch Paterson and opened as a railway crossing in 1898. It is a spectacle to behold – there will be photo opportunities.
- Robertson’s Farm Shop Beauly - Go see a local farm shop but most of all see the two Highland cows Jamie and Katie-Morag
- Loch Ness - Going over the River Ness onto Loch Ness, where you need to be ready to spot our legend, Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. Enjoy the comfortable ride by Loch Ness, which takes just around 30 minutes , searching for a sighting of Nessie herself. The last famous recorded sighting of her was a few decades ago, but we live in hope she will be photographed again soon. The scenery is second to none, so have your cameras ready. In recent months there has been footage circulated online of video recordings of an animal similar to Nessie playing in Loch Ness. We will stop at the Loch Ness lay-by for photos but it isn’t possible to paddle in Loch Ness due to the steep hillside location. You’ll travel past Loch Ness for 30 minutes enjoying it and waiting for a glimpse of Nessie.
Drive by for 30 minutes. We will try to stop for photos
What's Included
- Entrance to Inverness Castle included in the booking price.
- Note: Inverness Castle is currently closed for refurbishment.
Additional Information
This bus tour from Invergordon features highlights from Outlander, Culloden, Castles, Loch Ness & Nessie! It packs in a lot for one day’s tour and is very affordable and good value for money. Entrance to castle is INCLUDED. Our website contains full details of all tours and booking.
Our tours are specially put together after taking feedback from YOU. We have surveyed your desires and requests and put them together in our tours. We provide a quality experience and a guide or driver guide on our minibuses or buses. Our guides will impart their knowledge of their local Highlands and answer any of your questions.
Please check the tour times on our website, as the times listed here are approximate. As a general rule tours leave 30 minutes to 1.5 hours after the arrival of the ship and return at least 1 hour before ship departure time.
This tour is usually in a bus unless it’s a small ship then it may be in an 8 seater minivan.
- Wheelchair travellers difficult
Location
37 Shore Rd
Shore Road
If docking at Invergordon pier disembark cruise ship, walk 2-5 minutes to the meeting point at the west harbour exit gates. Cross the pedestrian crossing at the traffic lights - Invergordon IV180EH or look for our Thistle Guides wearing purple and a Thistle lanyard.
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
Customer Ratings
4.5
(247 Ratings)
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Becky_c
Aug 19, 2024
Highly recommend, 5 stars all the way!! - Best tour, with the best tour guide—Mr McGillivery! He had the best Scottish clothes on with the best accent! He was so nice and accommodating and knew a lot about everything!! Loved Cowder Castle, and Culloden battle field—super interesting and I found my ancestors clan name in the field—McIntosh! Loved every second. Best tour of my trip! Highly recommend!
Review provided by Viator
Patricia_b
Aug 17, 2024
Good Sampling of Scotland - My husband and I enjoyed our day with Mo and Caroline. We loved walking through Cawdor Castle, its gardens, and seeing the Scottish countryside. We were picked up and dropped off to our ship on time. Mo altered our schedule to avoid being outside in the rain. We had a very full day and felt we had enough time at our stops including Inverness.
Review provided by Viator
Shirleyesheffielduk
Aug 14, 2024
A very beautiful place - I love Cawdor Castle. Right from the entry point it is amazing. You can wander around freely with an audio guide. I found this really useful. Also there are very informative guides in every room. It’s a beautiful place. The cafe was good too.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jacqui_l
Aug 9, 2024
Inverness - Finding the Campbell Marker at Culloden Battle Field and also recognizing the Campbell Tartan at the Cawdor Castle. It was a day of revisiting my own Campbell ancestory!
Review provided by Viator
Choobyrooesq
Aug 9, 2024
Great excursion!! - Always follow reviews on TripAdvisor and you'll have an amazing time! Our guide was Mo and she was awesome- a proud Scot with all the history explained to us en route to each stop. She arranged the itinerary to avoid traffic and we hit more places than was even on the itinerary! Our first stop was Culloden Field - we had about an hour there which wasn't nearly enough to soak in all the history of the place for us history buffs but for my dad it was plenty lol. There was no time to go to the visitor center unfortunately. Fyi the Fraser clan stone is roped off bc of all the Outlander fans. Next stop was Clava Cairns - the standing stones inspiration for Outlander. We had about half hour here. Cawdor Castle was next and we had 2 hours to explore - probably would have liked more time but we had a lot of ground to cover . The grounds are AMAZING, just wow . And the same family still owns it and lives in it. Here is where you can stop for a quick bite in the cafe though it was crowded so we chose to wait. Loch Ness was next and just a quick stop to snap pics of the vast ocean like loch. We then stopped at a little farm area to see some Highland Coos! That was such a big highlight for me as this is my second trip to Scotland and I didn't get to see any last time! Final stop was dropping us in Inverness for an hour - again really not much time - just enough to grab a late lunch and shop a little bit. We got back to the ship with about half hour to spare before all aboard time. It was a very full day and my dad and I loved it!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Steve_e
Aug 9, 2024
A must see tour. - Trouble free tour, from us leaving the ship to the return. Enjoyed the narratives, the stops, size of group, etc. Only negative is the stop to see the cows and "gift shop" was unnecessary.
Review provided by Viator
Bonghyun_j
Aug 9, 2024
Beautiful and historical - Tour bus was 30 minutes late, it was a bad start. But after tour began, the tour guide was very much excellent and full of knowledge. Candor castle, Culloden battlefield was beautiful and historical.
Review provided by Viator
Sharon_b
Aug 7, 2024
Shore excursion - George our tour guide and driver Carol- Anne did a wonderful job. Covered all the bases that available shore excursions didn’t.
Review provided by Viator
Fabian_d
Aug 4, 2024
Wonderful tour with many highlights - Great tour. Chas was a very authentic, knowledgeable and friendly guide. The tour is definitely highly recommended.
Review provided by Viator
Tianaalexandri_g
Aug 9, 2024
Nice trip but underwhelmed - Overall, the excursion can be best described as underwhelming. The local tour operator was unorganized and a bit chaotic. Amidst the throng of hundreds of cruise passengers, we went in search of & spoke to four different tour guides to find our names & group number. The passenger lists were in booking # order instead of our names (alphabetically). A master list of all the passengers in alphabetical order with their assigned group number would have eliminated this problem. The buses were very late and arrived only one at a time, so we were standing around for over 30 minutes in the rain before boarding the bus. The Cawdor Castle and its grounds were beautiful. The Culloden battlefield was poignant. I can't remember what we actually saw as "Outlander" experience, perhaps that was how memorable that was. The Loch Ness experience was literally a pullover & park on the highway next to a river for 5-minute photo ops. I was expecting a stop at the actual lake & standing at the beach. Our guide, Soris, was a very nice scholarly gentleman and I enjoyed the historical facts from him.
Review provided by Viator
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