Hosteling in Scotland – Good Pursuits

(This post is a condensation of a site I created after my trip.)

Welcome

This page is about my three week road trip through the Scottish lands of Caledonia.

Road trips are a great way to explore new places. You can stop any where. You can choose your own route. You can carry everything with you everywhere you go. It’s no wonder to me that in a country as big and varied as the United States that driving would be a national past time. All you need is time, a car, a goal and intestinal fortitude to pay for the gas.

This site is about the latest of my road trips. In the recent past I’ve driven down the U.S. west coast, across Canada, up the Mississippi, and along Historic Route 66. This trip is a venture to the north of the United Kingdom. I’ll be spending just over two weeks getting to know Scotland.

My planning has centered around three themes: scenic road trips, staying at hostels, and creating this web site. After checking out several books of driving tours, I settled in on a book by Frommer’s entitled Scotland’s Best-Loved Driving Tours which contains “25 unforgettable itineraries” and did my best to stitch them all together in to one long road trip.

Hostels were going to be a relatively new experience for me. Though I had stayed in one on Isla Mujeres near Cancun in 1983, all I really remember was it being incredibly cheap and having to rent sheets for my hammock. Recently on a ferry ride from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland I rented a bunk in a dormitory and found this worked fine for me. These two experiences convinced me to try hosteling this trip. But which hostels to stay in? Again, after looking around I came across a book entitled Hostels U.K. which was full of frank assessments of hostels throughout England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Using it as my guide I booked a few hostels. Unbelievably, even six weeks in advance, I found many were already full. This discovery caused me to book everything early. I didn’t want to find myself stranded!

Lastly, there’s this site. This theme is actually much more involved than you might think. Not only are there gadgets like cameras, computers, and video recorders to deal with but there are Internet connections to find, batteries to charge, and software to learn. For now I’ll only say that I’m trying a new publishing system called Sandvox for this trip. It’s new to me and there’s lots to learn but what I’ve seen so far looks promising. Let’s hope I’m not wrong!

So, enough with the introduction! This site will be fleshed out over the next few weeks. Please check back for updates. Oh, and write me an email at the left, if you’re so inclined.

Thanks for visiting my site! Travis

Itinerary

The details of my travel agenda can be seen in this document: trip itinerary.

Travel to Scotland

So here are two obvious questions:
– Why Great Britain? Twila and Tracy (sister and brother-in-law) live in Leeds in England.
– Why Scotland? Beth and the girls aren’t available and aren’t interested in rain and cold.

Now that you know why I’m here let me tell you the master plan. I was to arrive in London, spend a few days getting to Leeds then Scotland so I can get acclimated to driving in England, see as much of Scotland as I could over two+ weeks of driving around, and then head back to London via Leeds so I could check in the Twila and Tracy.

This section of the site gets you to Scotland but my family visit is presented separately.

I’m here. Let’s get started!

Travelogues and pictures can be seen here.

Around Scotland

My excursions in England prior to entering Scotland had been instructive. The planning I had done would need to be adjusted. I learned to respect my tour book’s estimates for time, to be flexible with routing, to adjust my expectations for what could be done in one day, to skim the “cream” of sites if I need to make up time, to stop-and-visit more places, and that having Tracy and Twila’s TomTom was going to make a huge difference to my pleasure (and sanity!).

I have 15 days in which to put these learnings to practice and to take in most of Scotland.

The clock is ticking. “Tick, tock, tick, tock …”

Travelogues and pictures can be seen here.

From Scotland

From the time I left Scotland I had limited ambitions. I wanted to see Twila and Tracy again, I wanted to visit Cambridge University and I want to return my wonderful little car. Near the Cambridge airport is where I planned to turn in my little Toyota Corolla Verso. From there I was going to take a train in to London’s King’s Cross Station and then get to my hostel at St. Paul’s Cathedral via the Tube. Three days later my adventure would come to an end. I’d fly home.

Travelogues and pictures can be seen here.

London

Having been to London a few times previously I wanted to plan on covering different visits. All the core attractions between the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, while appealing to me, weren’t how I wanted to spend my time this trip so I devised a plan. The evening of arrival was a no holds barred walk through town on a lovely Friday evening. Saturday would be spent further West than I had been before but would finish up back at the heart of London. Sunday was a perfect day and would be spent in Hyde Park. Before leaving on Monday I swooped east to take in the Tower Bridge area and also stopping by a friend’s home to meet his new family.

My London stay is best summarized in the emails I sent home; I include them here.

Travelogues and pictures can be seen here.

Visiting Twila

University of Leeds is Tracy’s primary focus, working towards his Ph.D. in Computer Science. Harewood House is Twila’s major preoccupations, volunteering and learning about England. As we started out, I was really glad we began with visits to these two. By learning about these places, I learned a lot about how Tracy and Twila are spending their time England. One year down. Two to go!

In my first two days visiting we saw and did many other things. We went on a picnic, a realpicnic using a brand new picnic basket which held cheeses, wine, fruit and even an “England blanket” which was water proof (plastic on one side and wool on the other). This was done at Kirkstall Abbey near their house and was a prelude to a play. Yes, a real honest to goodness play. And since I was in England could there be any thing more appropriate than Shakespeare? Yes, we saw Henry V. The weather held and a special memory was created.

The morning of my departure I went swimming, not in some pool but in a “bath”. Imagine tile lining the pool, a second story balcony with iron railing all around, private changing rooms around the perimeter of the deck, and an ambiance of 100 years ago. Pretty amazing.

I look forward to visiting them again and sharing my experiences on my way south.

Travelogues and pictures can be seen here.

Hostels

Other than a romantic notion of a different kind of overnight accommodation available in Europe, I really knew very little about hostels. Odd then that I should commit so heavily on this trip to staying at hostels. It could have been a nightmare! However, I felt I had no choice since I was planning to be traveling in August, the peak season for holidays in Europe, I decided to lock down all my reservations before leaving. Also, it’s always my goal to keep costs down when traveling without my family and, given the current value of the dollar, other accommodations were going to be pricey.

As it turns out, the experience was a mixed bag. Many places were quite decent while others were uncomfortable dumps. Hostelling in general required that I learn a new way of living. Bathrooms were communal. Bedrooms were often shared with as many as eleven other men and women. Cleanliness varied as did the behavior of other guests. On the other hand, the sense of community was something I’d never experienced. In the lounges at night, people met and shared stories and played games and became friends. The kitchens were open for guests to use and almost everyone was courteous and clean in this shared facility, which impressed me. I met almost no Americans on my trip but many people from Spain, France, and Germany. Again, it took some getting used to but the good hostels were definitely a pleasant experience after I adjusted to the hostel way of living.

So what consistently makes a good hostel? There’s a long answer to this question but there’s a short answer too: affiliation.

Hostels fall in to two broad categories: affiliated and independent. By “affiliated” I mean members of a hostel organization. I’m a member of Hostelling International which is associated with Youth Hostel Association and the Scottish Youth Hostel Association. Hostels associated with these organizations maintained a broadly consistent standard, a standard I got comfortable with. They share computer systems so I could make reservations online. They share best practices which means you can count somewhat on how they operate. They consolidate purchasing power which means you get better value for your money. They are more family-friendly ensuring older adults and often kids.

If you’re not a part of HI or YHA or SHYA then you’re Independent. I stayed in a couple of very nice independent hostels, the one was on the Isle of Skye I’d be happy to visit again. I stayed in too many “backpacker” hostels where cleanliness, order and a sense of safety were missing. Not all backpacker hostels were bad, but none was good. Even when I was guided by referrals, the backpacker hostels were only barely acceptable. To be fair, I’m not in my early 20’s bumming around the world with my life’s possessions in a bag on my back so I’m not a good fit. Two things I will say in backpacker hostels’ favor are they more often than not had wireless broadband and often had big screen TVs, two features lacking in every other hostel. Given my addiction to Internet access, I really did appreciate the wifi when I found it.

So, would I do it again? Then answer lies in the fact that I paid between $26 and $47 per night. Yes, I would do it again.

So, would I subject my family to this living standard? Probably not. When traveling with them we’ll continue to use hotels.

The pictures below give you a small insight into what hostelling is all about.

Hostels

16 Photos

Conclusions

There are a variety of conclusions from my four weeks in England and Scotland so I’ll net them out by category.

Best Hostels

Manchester: great facility, tremendous location, and a real treat for someone just getting in to the hostelling lifestyle.

Loch Lomond: such a majestic old mansion with so much of its noble past peeking through, a great experience.

Ambleside: with the feel of a lakeside resort, this hostel must be the best run in the most idyllic location in the Lakes District.:

Favorite Destinations

North Berwick: such a beautiful beach town with boats, rocks, estuary, varied dining options and a hill to climb with vistas!

Pitlockry: natural beauty abounds as do lovely shops and restaurants, too bad it was spoiled by my backpacker hostel.

Cairngorm National Park: the newest of Scotland’s national parks and a hiker’s wonderland, next time with hiking boots.
Oxford/Cambridge: my daughters received university sweatshirts and I can’s show favoritism by expressing a preference.

Overall Winners:

Edinburgh: honestly a fabulous city for architecture, museums, live events, history, and a wonderful evening life.

Ben Nevis: for the effort I exerted climbing 4,400 feet and walking 10 miles, Ben Nevis had to make it on one of the lists!
Hostels: those affiliated with HI, Y

HA and SYHA are a wonderful value and a great way to meet people.

Driving in England

After 3,800 miles behind the wheel I’m an authority on driving in the U.K. Authority, not expert, as the rules of driving in England are bewildering. Driving in the U.K. can be a challenge. The roads are narrow, finding places is difficult, and it takes much longer to get anywhere. Thank goodness I was loaned a TomTom Car Navigation System since with that aid, driving in England and Scotland became much easier. Though driving can be a challenge even with a navigation assistant, what you see out your car window makes it all worthwhile. Scotland and England were a pleasure to drive.