This time in London, we spent loads of time walking and just seeing where our feet would take us. At the last minute, we decided to visit Westminster Abbey in Westminster (fun to search for famous tombs and effigies), Saint Paul’s Cathedral on Ludgate Hill (what an absolutely stunning building!), and walked across the Millennium Bridge to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre on the South Bank on Thursday. On Friday, we took on the Victoria and Albert Museum and Harrods before our show. We stayed at the Lost Property Saint Paul’s Curio by Hilton (on points!) and had a lovely time being within walking distance of so many things to do. We even walked to our show on Friday night. We were also able to meet up with Jason’s cousin on the DeBode side for dinner at The Ned one night before she moved back to the US. Lots of things checked off our list this time!

By Saturday morning, we were ready to get out of the city. It’s a good thing we had a 6 am train out of Euston Station to do just that – time to head to Scotland! On our way North, we had to take the Avanti West service up the west coast of England due to maintenance on the east coast lines. This meant the journey took 6.5 hours rather than our usual 4.5 hours, but it was a good opportunity to catch up on some sleep.

Once we reached Waverley Station in Edinburgh, we hit the ground running. We checked in at the Hilton Carlton (which is finishing up a stunning renovation) and met up with the rest of the group that was there that day. Once we had a plan, they headed off to a comedy whisky tasting and we headed off to find some local friends (it’s so cool to have ‘local’ friends around the world). We spent the evening with our friends and their kids at the Christmas Market – what a busy place! It reminded me of the Iowa State Fair with the mounds of people, rides, foods, and things for purchase. We had a great time checking out all the stalls and watching the kids do some of the rides. Afterwards, we headed to The Dome on George Street for drinks and a gander at the Christmas decorations – they were phenomenal. 

Later we found ourselves at the Inn on the Mile for dinner (always a top choice for us) and then we met up with the rest of our group at Whistle Binkies next door for live music and a pint. That was a great time! It’s always great to rub elbows with locals and learn about each other.

On Sunday we all did our own things all day. The Palace of Holyrood, shopping, ghost tours, etc. Jason scored TWO great coats while we were shopping – he’ll be very stylish this winter. I may have found one for myself as well. We all met up for dinner at Howies (always a favorite) and then went to the rooftop lounge at the W Hotel for drinks before bed. What a great view of the Christmas Market and all of Edinburgh!

Monday morning, we had a train to catch to Stirling, so we walked the group down to the train station with our luggage and headed there for one quick night. After checking into King Street Aparthotel (which was amazing), we had the BEST tour of a castle we’ve ever encountered. Our tour guide, Joanie, was phenomenal and knew darn near everything about Stirling Castle. It’s always such a bonus when someone can make some dry history exciting – that’s the entire reason I studied history in college, I had great teachers. We all agreed that, if only we’d had history teachers more like Joanie, we’d probably like history more now. After we poked our heads into all the grand spaces preserved and original, and inquired about the price to rent the great hall for a wedding (haha), we had a bit of a surprise on our way out of the castle. Cousin Ashley’s boyfriend got down on one knee in front of the castle, and she said yes! How absolutely magical! I guess there was a reason he was asking about the price to rent the great hall (starts at £10,000 by the way)!

After a very exciting lunch at No. 2 Baker Street, we split up for a bit before dinner. Some went for naps, but J & I went with the excited couple to Church of the Holy Rude only to find it closed for the season. Bummer. So instead, we wandered the surrounding graveyard and got some fun photos of it and the castle beyond. I love a good cemetery wander – I’m so weird. We decided to tour the Old Town Jail and learned quite a lot about the penal system in Scotland and its advances throughout the years. Let’s just say I wouldn’t have wanted to be in trouble before the prison reform came through!

A quick dram with most of the group at Nicky-Tams followed by dinner at Maharaja Indian Restaurant rounded out our evening – we were so tired. But the rest of the group went back to Nicky-Tams for the live folk music and had a great time. We crashed in our King Street Aparthotel (which was fantastic) to prepare for the next day. We were catching another train in the morning for Inverness.

If you’ve never taken the train through Scotland from Glasgow or Edinburgh to Inverness, I highly suggest you do. The views are stunning as you go through the Cairngorms National Park. So many snowcapped munros (mountains), streams, sheep, and quaint villages keep you staring out the window the entire time. I often find myself saying I’m just getting off at the next station and staying. Scotland is just so dreamy.

We arrived in Inverness early in the afternoon and got moved into our apartments at Mansley Highland Apartments – right on the River Ness. We had fantastic views of Inverness up and down the river. After we threw a few things into the washing machine quickly, we headed to a late lunch with the group at Johnny Foxes. We had just a couple of hours to spare before dinner, so we wandered through some shops, and I got lost in Leakey’s Bookshop for a few hours while Jason went to get some cough drops and ibuprofen. Uh oh.

Dinner was at Hou Hou Mei across the river and it was excellent, even if Jason didn’t touch his dinner [Jason says: not because it wasn’t good…keep reading for the details]. I knew then we were in trouble. As we were trying to leave, he started shaking uncontrollably with cold and I had to drag him back to the apartment and put him to bed [Jason says: except remember we stopped halfway AT THE RIVER to take a family picture. Never miss a good photo opp!], where he remained for the next 2 days. Usually when he’s sick, he can rally, but this knocked him out flat, as it did for me 3 weeks prior. Nasty thing. The group went in search of live music and found some fantastic musicians. I was glad they sent me some videos. How fun!

While Jason was catching some serious zzs on Wednesday, I went to catch a train to Huntly with the rest of the group for a daytrip. This was the day the entire trip was built for! Jason’s Huntley family (his mom’s family) hails from the area of Scotland in Aberdeenshire called Huntly. There is a very cute village also called Huntly where there is a castle ruin that is always great fun to visit.

Do we know if they have any connection to those who once resided in the castle? Mmmm…not 100% sure [Jason says: pfft, lies! It’s ours.]. Lots of people have spent more time researching the connection than I have (I have piles of Huntley research books from them), but we at least know they’re from the area and I know when they came to the United States, they were coopers (barrel makers) in Lyme, Connecticut. The Huntley last name most likely came from the area where they lived since it wasn’t common to have a last name in those times. I have more research to do. Surely all this DNA work can help me out in a big way one of these days.

We had lunch in Huntly at The Bank Cafe and it was great! There aren’t a ton of options in that small town, but that one is definitely at the top. After lunch, we walked to Huntly Castle for a self-guided tour and poked around the castle grounds for over an hour. Once we were thoroughly chilled, we headed back into the village to warm up with a pint at the Crown Bar. But first, I stopped at Orb’s Book Shop to find a book to help me with that further Huntley research –  The History of Strathbogie, The Story of the Lords of Strathbogie, Their Castle and the Town of Huntly Which Grew Up in its Shadow by Patrick W. Scott (who may be an ancestor of mine – wild!). I’ve been waiting to grab the new edition for 2 years. Nerd.

Six of us headed back to Inverness and the other two stayed behind to meet a cousin from Aberdeen for dinner. Jason was no better when I got back (worse, actually), so I headed to dinner with the group to River House Restaurant – the best food we had on the entire trip! It was a tiny restaurant, but they had the freshest seafood, the best staff, and we got a table right next to the kitchen so it was fun to watch them prepare everything…including the half pound of butter that went into each steak and shrimp dish! Wowsa.

The next morning we had to move to a hotel due to a scheduling snafoo. I packed everything up and hauled it and Jason a couple of blocks down the road to the River Ness Radisson Hotel. I tucked him in bed and set off to locate a cake for an engagement party and some buns to feed Jason with medication. Tour and wife duties.

Once I had those things found and dropped off back at the hotel I decided I was going on a long walk.  Everyone else was off on adventures to Ullapool and Culloden Battlefield and had a fabulous time. So jealous. So instead, I set off down the river towards the Ness Islands for a bit of nature in the city. It was very windy, but so nice to walk amongst the trees for awhile. I was back just in time for everyone else to start reappearing and get ready for dinner.

By now it was Thursday and Thanksgiving Day! We had Thanksgiving dinner in an old church called The Mustard Seed. It was such a fun building, complete with a wood burning fire, a vaulted ceiling-height bar and Christmas trees. Very festive. We surprised the newly engaged couple with a Victorian Sponge cake with a firecracker candle on top – so fun! I pulled the sick husband card after dinner and went to check on him while the rest of the group went looking for live music again for their last night in Inverness.

Friday morning we packed up and headed back to the train station for our journey back South to Edinburgh. Our trip back was a little more eventful than it otherwise would have been as we’d all coordinated before to bring Adidas track suits. Each couple chose a different color, and of course we were the only ones on the train in track suits [Jason says: they were all jealous!]. The ScotRail staff member found it as entertaining as we did, and seemed to make repeated stops to our car. Our photo opp at the station in Stirling brought equal confusion and laughter from the other travelers. We’ll call this a win, and one heck of a good fashion statement! We stayed at the Norton House Hotel & Spa just a few minutes from the airport. This gave everyone a chance to relax before their trips home or on to Ireland. I booked myself a massage and facial, which I never do on trips. It was nice to have a moment to try to clear my mind. Some others had massages, spent time in the pool, or went back into Edinburgh city center to find some more adventures.

We met in the hotel Brasserie for our final dinner (Jason included this time!), group photos, and lots of hugs and goodbyes. In the morning we parted ways for Glasgow, Dublin, and London. It turns out there is a whopper of a snowstorm blowing across the northern United States, so it could be a interested trip home for most of us. I’m just hoping we make it state-side. I can figure it out easier from there.

So here we are, on a train to back to London to catch our plane home tomorrow morning. The plan for tonight is to repack more intelligently so we can check a bag or two and hopefully call it an early night. Jason has been a trooper with moving around the past couple of days, but he still feels pretty poorly and has a wicked cough. I’m hoping that the snowstorm doesn’t hold us up too much and we can sleep in our bed Sunday night (spoiler: we didn’t make it until late Monday night).

There you have it, a wee glance inside what a group trip to Scotland with us looks like (ok, maybe a long one). We like to have a good mix of group activities we schedule to do together, and also leave you lots of time to explore on your own to make sure you see all the things you want to on your trip. I also hope many of the activities, hotels, and restaurants I mentioned could be options to add to your own trip – either with us or on your own.

We don’t currently have any further group trips scheduled for sign-up, but we are taking inquiries about private trips (gather your people), and I will be working on setting up preplanned itineraries this winter that you can book yourself. We want to help you find the courage and support to get out there!

The post The Huntleys Take on Scotland – A Look into a Group Trip first appeared on The DeBode Way.

What We Don’t Do

It might seem a little weird to start with what we don’t do, but it’s a shorter and important conversation. The biggest thing we don’t do for our clients is book their airfare between the US and wherever we’re going. Why? Well, different people like traveling in different cabins (business v. economy, for example), from different kinds of airports (small v. large), and prefer to travel with different amounts of luggage (we strongly recommend a rolling carry-on and backpack, but you do you, friend – you have to carry it ). As you might guess, each of those influences the price of your flight and potentially your itinerary. But most of all is the points! We’re big advocates of playing the credit card points game, as we’ve explained before, and if we book your flight you don’t get the miles or points (we do).

Other than your flight, we also don’t include travel insurance (though we always recommend getting it, just for your peace of mind) or schedule your activities during your free time, which we explain a little later. We do cover some of your meals, but we also leave time to try places you want, which you cover on your own.

What We Do

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s talk about the broad structure of how we build our small group trips and why we’re different. First, doing things The DeBode Way means choosing your own adventure and charting your own path, though we understand not everyone is as comfortable jumping into the unknown as others, or at least not yet. At the same time, most people we know don’t want a fully-planned itinerary that doesn’t leave time to explore at your own pace or interest. We fit in between these two extremes, building an overall structure that takes care of the major things but leaves lots of unstructured free time to create the trip of your dreams. Interested? Excellent; let’s use our most recent trip as an example.

Scotland, October 2024!

Our most recent Scottish small group trip started in Edinburgh, traveled to Oban, and then back to the outskirts of Edinburgh. Let’s talk about each part of the trip to give you a better sense of what we do.

Edinburgh, Part 1

Most folks in our small group flew from the US into Edinburgh, though a few flew into London and took the train from King’s Cross Station up to Edinburgh. Why? Flights into London are often considerably less expensive than into Edinburgh, so you can save some cash if you fly into London and take an easy 4-hour train ride with stunning scenery up to Edinburgh (don’t worry; we’ll give recommendations for how to do this). Even with first-class train tickets, you can save a bundle. For the folks who flew into Edinburgh, Jason met them at the airport and arranged cabs directly to our hotel. For those who took the train in from London, Tasha met them at the train station and walked with them a couple of blocks to the hotel. We also took care of the hotel accommodations, finding a hotel with an excellent location in the middle of the Royal Mile. This hotel included breakfast each morning, meaning one less thing our group had to worry about.

During our three days in Edinburgh, we arranged for a small group dinner and had pre-booked a two-day Hop-On/Hop-Off bus pass that included entrance to Edinburgh Castle, the Palace at Holyrood House, and the Royal Yacht Britannica – all the major attractions along the Mile. This also provided a great way to get around the city. Everything else during our stay in Edinburgh was up to our travelers. Before we left, we shared a document with tons of suggestions for things to do in Edinburgh and day trips to nearby locations. Our clients could book whatever sparked their interest (and the interests were far and wide). Some were content wandering the picturesque cobblestone streets along the Mile looking for gifts, having a cup of tea (or a dram of whisky), or people-watching. Others had done some family genealogy research, rented a car, and visited the lands of their ancestors. One group booked a private driver and headed to St. Andrews for the day and stumbled upon the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at the Old Course – what luck! We opted to book a professional photographer and take the train to the stunning Scottish countryside for some photos. The options are endless and everyone got to do what they wanted!

Our group dinners were designed to introduce our group members to each other, as not everyone knew one another. These were casual meals where we got to know each other and shared our day’s adventures. These meals were often followed by a poke into a pub or fancy hotel bar on the way back to our hotel for a dram of choice – we had a good time!

Oban

After getting our fill of Edinburgh (kidding, that’s not a thing), we had arranged for train travel up to the Highlands and our next destination: Oban. No need for cabs this time, as our hotel in Oban (which we took care of) was across the street from the train station. Here, as in Edinburgh, our hotel included a fabulous breakfast and we also covered two group dinners, one that included an evening of learning traditional Scottish dance.

As we were now in the Highlands, there were new things to do and countless day trips to some of the most stunning scenery you’ve ever imagined. Here again, some couples were happy to stroll along the main street in this fishing village. Others rented cars to visit where their ancestors walked. Some even booked a sightseeing tour. We opted to rent a car and head to Ardanaiseig Hotel, one of our favorite places in the Highlands. There we had tea, caught up with some friends, and took a walk on one of the magical paths through the woods. We had given our small group a list of suggested things to do in Oban and the surrounding areas, but everyone booked what they wanted, went at their own pace, and had a fantastic time. We even had a group venture out to the islands – which we highly recommend!

Edinburgh, Part 2

As our time in the Highlands ended, we walked everyone back to the train station for the 4-hour train ride back to Edinburgh (which we’d arranged) and cabs to the oasis that was our hotel for the night (which we’d also arranged). In our free time before dinner at the hotel, some of the small group headed to the spa while others relaxed in their expansive, luxurious rooms until dinner. We took care of a three-course dinner at the hotel’s amazing restaurant for a final round of tales and goodbyes.

The next morning everyone parted ways, with some heading to the airport to go home and others heading to London via train to continue their adventures. In each case, we took care of the cabs to the airport or train station.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this gives you a better idea of what we do. Ultimately, we want you to have the trip of your dreams. Could we build a more structured itinerary? Sure. But just because we think something is a must-see doesn’t mean you do. Certainly, we’re happy to give you recommendations for things we’ve done in the past, but our goal is to take care of the things you don’t want to or might not think about, freeing you up to focus on what matters the most: making memories.

After dinner on our last night in Edinburgh, most folks called it an early night, exhausted from seeing all the things over the prior eight days. For us, that’s a victory, and we think it was for them, too.

Curious to learn more? Interested in joining us on our next group trip? Stay tuned for more details. We have more trip options coming soon!

Happy travels, friends!

The post Exclusive Small Group Travel: The DeBode Way first appeared on The DeBode Way.