Days 1-2: The Tour Begins
Meeting our Group, our Guide, and Walking Tour of Inverness
In the afternoon on Sunday, we met our tour group for the first time! Our guide, Alasdair, gave us a little orientation and clarified expectations and our schedule. This is just an aside, because Alasdair does not guide every tour in Scotland, but he is genuinely probably the greatest tour guide you could imagine. He loves Scottish history and had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of all things Scottish culture.
Throughout the trip, Alasdair brought Scotland to life by sharing about his own experiences and memories of growing up in Scotland. Most memorably, he shared about his experiences with "tattie holidays" - this interesting bit of Scottish history in which kids had a 2-week vacation from school to hand-pick potatoes. This ended in the 80's with the advent of machinery that took over these manual tasks.
Tattie farming isn’t exactly the topic you’d expect to fuel a stand-up routine, but his stories had us laughing til we cried and this became one of my favorite memories of the entire trip. Because his family had lived that history, it felt immediate and human in a way no book or documentary ever could.
We were stepping into Scotland as visitors, but we hoped to leave with a deeper understanding of its story.
#MOMDOT
Trip Highlight Alert:
MacGregor's
After a walking tour of Inverness, we ended the day at MacGregor’s, sharing our first dinner together as a group in a small, warmly lit room. What followed was far more than a meal.
Bruce MacGregor, founder of the pub and a passionate champion of Scottish culture, wove together Highland history and music in a way that felt vibrant and alive. Joined by two musicians — including a student from a Scottish music school devoted to preserving traditional music — he made it clear that this wasn’t simply a performance for tourists. It was the hard-won story of his people, carried forward through music.
We stepped into a living expression of Scottish identity. It wasn’t preserved in a museum; it was being lived in front of us. The music poured over us, and I found myself in a sort of music trance — grateful, moved, and suddenly aware that this was exactly the kind of experience we had hoped for.
Day 2: Castles, the Jacobites, and Nessie
Loch Ness & Urquhart Castle
Our first full day was just that - FULL. We met early to head to Loch Ness and take a boat to visit the ruins of Urquhart Castle (and possibly see Nessie along the way). There was a spooky mist on the water in the morning which is just the weather one might expect for a mysterious loch to have when looking for a monster.
It was cool to walk around the rubble and imagine the real people that lived here. Cool and a little spooky, actually. As Americans, I feel like we have such a shallow grasp of history because our country is so young. The ruins are nearly 700 years old; more than twice as old as our entire country.
Cawdor Castle
We headed to a more intact castle for afternoon tea and a tour. People had used this castle much more recently, so it had lots of artifacts. This was our first site with an audio guide, which was super helpful! Different rooms or items have a number in front of them and then you punch the little number and hold the audio stick thing to your ear to get to hear about it.
Impromptu Photo Contest!
Outside the castle were gardens and my mom and I decided to have a contest to see who could take the best photo of one of the flowers up close. We would then compile them and text them to Terre (my mom's best friend) and she would choose the winner.
She chose a photo my mom took BUT I have to say in retrospect I don't think she was an unbiased judge because she and my mom have been besties for decades so that's gotta be some kind of cheating. I won't tell you who took which photo so you can choose for yourself.
Culloden Battlefield
We ended our first full day at Culloden, where the weight of Scottish history settled in. The museum helped frame the story, but walking the battlefield with a docent — hearing her recount the speed of the battle and the depth of the loss — is what made it real.
After the music and pride of the night before, Culloden added context. Listening to the brutality of the fight, the losses on both sides, and the devastation that followed was sobering. The aftermath led to the suppression of language, dress, and tradition, making the resilience of Scottish identity all the more remarkable.
On our way off the field, as if to balance the heaviness of the day, we spotted our first Highland cows — shaggy, gentle, and strangely comforting in the same landscape that holds so much history.