Let me say about this trip that it wasn’t a normal tourist trip. We were there mostly to see friends in Aberdeen since I did a year abroad there in college.
Van Rental
We rented a van ahead with Allied Mobility and they were wonderful. The van was very large though and that was tricky, but it fit all three of us and the chair and our luggage, so it worked.
The trains from London to Scotland and within Scotland wouldn’t guarantee me that they wouldn’t kick me off for my chair being too big because it was _close_ to their limits. They said it didn’t matter if I measured it in front of them, it was down to the person on the platform deciding if “it felt safe”. So we didn’t risk it, and honestly the rental gave us so much more freedom anyways. They rented to us from London but they also rent from Glasgow.
We left from the Paddington Station Hotel (where they delivered the van to us). It was a fairly straight shot to the freeway, not too far, so the hotel location worked out well (as well as being right on the train line from the airport and centrally located). When we left we had to leave on the weekend and they don’t pick up cars on weekends so we paid ahead at a local garage down the street and left the keys at the hotel concierge for the company to pick up and it seemed to go fine.
Driving note: Roundabouts are EVERYWHERE and you MUST look right when entering them to safely merge in! The person navigating needs to be on top of which exit on each roundabout you need to take. If I had been more sick this would have been too stressful and taxing for me to do. As it was I was at my limit.
Scottish Hotel Notes: Most hotels don’t seem to like you to stay a single night. Many won’t book it. Contact every hotel before you book and check every part of accessibility. Ask twice if there are any stairs. Check door sizes against your chair. Check for roll in showers, space to maneuver in the room- whatever you need point by point. Make a standard email with your needs and send it ahead to each hotel you are looking at to ask first. You may need to call to book. Check your international phone service and time zones.
Peebles
We stopped here on the way North instead of the more logical Edinburgh (which I love) because Fringe Festival was happening in Edinburgh. The city is already hilly, cobblestoned and generally not very wheelchair friendly, but with Fringe it would also be packed to the gills and impossible to navigate or fit anywhere. We went off the main roads to this particular spot because I wanted to see the castle there, but it turned out to be closed for a wedding so we couldn’t visit it anyway. The Hydro hotel usually doesn’t do one-night stays but made an exception for us when my Scottish friend called them and asked nicely.
The drive to Peebles turned out to be a rather harrowing ride (narrow country roads) to get to the Hydro hotel. It was a cool old Victorian hotel (if a little frayed), but no true accessible rooms there at all. The room was tiny- barely room to park the chair inside. If I couldn’t walk short distances I’d have been in trouble. It wasn’t worth it. I would go to a hotel on the highway if not Edinburgh if I did this again.
St. Andrews
We stopped in St. Andrews for lunch on the way from Peebles to Aberdeen. It’s a lovely old University town with a ruined castle, ruined monastery and museum. You can go around the ruins without museum admission. When we went the museum was closed. It’s a college town so there are plenty of sandwich shops. It’s where they invented golf.
Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire
We stayed at the very modern and new Sandman Signature Hotel which used to be part of a college. They have large apartment style rooms/suites for reasonable prices so we had two separate bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen in ours. Plenty of room for the chair to move, and a shower with a chair. The hotel restaurant is great for steak and even has haggis appetizers if you want to try them. The layout is a little confusing because there are two sets of elevators and a little half level in one place. Get help finding the way to your room if you stay there.
Parking by the hotel was tricky. The regular lot was too small an entrance for the wheelchair van. There was an outdoor adjunct lot with a pass code a block away that worked ok but we felt pressure to get in before other people did (5 o’clock rush) because we didn’t know where else we’d be able to park if it was full.
There are many castles within an hour or so of Aberdeen, and the Glenarioch Scotch Distillery which is the farthest East in Scotland in Old Meldrum just outside Aberdeen. The tasting room is accessible, the tour is not.
Vovem Meat and Liquor
We ate at a number of good places but I appreciated this one the most. It even had a little lift to the half-level dining area. Great steak. Reservations required.
Balmoral Castle
The famous retreat of the Royals and the late Queen’s favorite home is close to Aberdeen. Reserve ahead. It has lovely and extensive grounds and gardens that are well worth seeing and accessible. One room (the grand room) is accessible, but most of the castle is not (though not much of it is actually open to the public anyway). The gift shop and restaurant are in a separate building, all accessible with two accessible restrooms.
Dunnottar Castle
Is an incredible castle perched on a high cliff about 40 min outside Aberdeen. It is not wheelchair accessible at all (down a steep dirt path down a cliff and up another), but you can see the structure clearly from the other cliff path leading to it. I ended up sketching the castle from there while my husband, daughter and a friend climbed down and back up again to the castle.
Is a grand old house near Aberdeen with a lot of art and nice furniture. It has an actual elevator because it was bombed in WWII and rebuilt in that corner with the elevator. For the gift shop and video you enter through the front, but to get to the upstairs you tell them you are ready to enter and go back out and go round the right back side where they will meet you and open the door. I don’t think you need to reserve much ahead but it doesn’t hurt.
The grounds are mostly grass and woodland/park area.
The Glenarioch Scotch Distillery was pretty much on the way back, but we almost missed it because we came right at closing. Watch your timing.
Fyvie Castle
Is also close to Aberdeen. There was a wedding in the main castle so I don’t know how accessible it is. They let me in through a different cafe entrance to use the bathroom, which was a very tight squeeze. Grounds are mostly wooded.
Old Aberdeen by the old University
There is a section of old Aberdeen in the middle of the old part of Aberdeen University that is lovely, with a botanical garden to walk through and an old church with a cemetery. The path down to the gardens is steep but doable for most chairs. The approach is hard- cobblestones and narrow sidewalks.
Inverness
The “capital of the Higlands”. We stayed at the Kingsmills Hotel. The hotel has a proper high tea and a reasonable amount of space. No proper ADA style rooms. They had a room the chair fit in to park, but if I had needed to use the chair in the room it would not have worked well. I am writing this later and I can’t remember if they had a shower chair or a bath.
This was a 20 min walk/roll from the main old shopping area. Not too hard to navigate in the chair. The old shopping area has a statue of a unicorn (the symbol of Scotland) which is NOT chained (unlike everywhere else). You want to look on your maps for “the Victorian Market”- an old covered market in the middle of the old shopping area. Fairly touristy, but nice.
We were going to go from Inverness to Skye (if you plan on staying in Skye get hotel reservations WAY in advance they are scarce), and then take the ferry down to where the famous aqueduct is, then down through Glencoe. This would have been gorgeous if we had had the time- the landscapes are incredible through that whole journey, but at this point my husband was worn out with driving on the left and I needed to recover so we stayed longer in Inverness and drove straight down from there to London through Pitlochary and Carlisle and the edge of Glasgow.
Blair Atholl Castle in Pitlochry
This was the perfect lunch road stop between Inverness and Carlisle. It has grounds and a beautiful castle to explore. Very heavy on the weapons and antlers. Has an impressive collection of dinnerware on display (wedgewood, etc.) with amazing needlework in the center of that room.
Great accessible bathrooms by the entrance. The whole castle was not fully accessible (some upstairs rooms are not), but plenty to see on the main floor. There is a video room where you can see more about the rest of the castle that you can’t get to. Good gift shop with lots of general Scottish tourist stuff, good quality cafeteria-style lunch place. You reserve ahead for the day and show up whenever. Open 10AM -3:45 (last tour).
We detoured slightly going down from there to Carlisle on the outskirts of Glasgow to have tea at a friend’s house.
Carlisle
We basically just stopped for dinner and the night in Carlisle before heading straight back to London. We stayed at The Halston. Nice hotel restaurant and pub. It had a big suite-style room with two separate bedrooms, living room and kitchen for a reasonable price, plenty of room for the chsit to navigate. Chair in shower. It had a weird glass elevator in the middle of the stairs (only takes one wheelchair, no space for others but it worked). It was nice. There was a paid parking lot in the block behind the hotel with a little path through the block to the hotel.
My Wandering Wheels 