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Edinburgh is visited by thousands of people each year. A lot come for Hogmanay and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The sheer volume of people at these times make getting a hire car a bit nonsensical, as the transport links in the city are so good anyway. And if you’re in town to be in town you’re probably not going to be going on a scenic drive. Incidentally, the parking situation at times when hundreds of thousands of people flock to the city is unlikely to be ideal.

Hogmanay is the Scots word for the end of the year, so it is New Year’s Eve but Scottish.

You might be familiar with the traditional song sung on New Year’s Eve, Auld Lang Syne which originates from this annual festival. It is an interpretation of a famous poem by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Edinburgh puts on fantastic fireworks displays during Hogmanay and is renowned for doing so, much as Sydney in Australia is.

As a reason for fun halfway through the year, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival runs each summer for half of August and has done for over 50 years. The festival brings together performers of all kinds: comedians, actors and acrobats, you name it, and gives them space to do their thing. In any one hour of the festival, there will be over 50 different events the public can attend. It’s the world’s largest arts festival. By the end of the festival there will usually have been well over 30,000 performances.

Edinburgh’s Old Town is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site and there are thousands of listed buildings in the city including a rather splendid castle. But if you do come at a less busy time of year there is one really great drive you should consider doing from Edinburgh and that’s the drive to Glencoe which is around two and a half hour’s drive away.

Glencoe is one of those tragically beautiful places. It has a checkered past, having been the site of a massacre in the late 1600s. The MacDonald’s were killed by their own guests, who said they hadn’t been forthcoming in supporting the new king and queen, William and Mary. The Glencoe area is part of the National Scenic Area of Ben Nevis and Glencoe, Ben Nevis of course being Britain’s highest mountain. The glen is horseshoe-shaped and was formed by an ice age glacier. On the west hand side is the River Coe, which gives life to awesome waterfalls and at one point the glen opens to Loch Levan. Glencoe is of course popular with walkers and climbers, being so incredibly beautiful and naturally facilitating of adventure activities.

When you’ve explored the area you can drive back to Edinburgh, get a night’s kip, take the car back and travel back home by train. If you book far enough in advance the fares are lower than the cost of your hire car’s petrol for the day trip to Glencoe.

BIO

Sophie Collard (@QunoSpotter) writes about fascinating places to visit and people she’s met while on her travels. She’s travelled in the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia and loves the sense of distance and changing landscapes.