Inverness

When planning our epic road trip through Scotland we decided to start in the Highlands and work our way down to the Lowlands. We caught an early flight from London to Inverness.  I highly recommend doing it this way if you’re renting a car so you can get familiar driving on the opposite side of the road in a more laid back country setting vs. a big city like Edinburgh.  Pro-tip, the rental car company will try and pressure you into buying their expensive insurance but most credit cards that are associated with travel rewards include rental car insurance as one of those rewards. Double check with your credit card & have them put it in writing to show the rental car company.  Europcar would not take our word for it and requested to call the credit card company to confirm before we could leave-this added about 20 minutes to our already long cranky travel morning.

After we picked up our rental car we headed straight to Culloden Moor.  It’s on the way towards Inverness and really only a 15-minute drive from the airport. I’ll be honest with you the main reason I wanted to visit this site is because I’m a huge Outlander fan.  Basically the first two seasons of the Outlander build up to the massive Battle of Culloden.  The infamous battle took place on April 16, 1746 and is said to have lasted only an hour. It resulted in the death of between 1,500 and 2,000 Jacobite’s vs just 300 English/Government soldiers.

The Scottish Government has tried to preserve the battle field in a condition similar to how it would have been in 1746.   Don’t miss the old farmhouse with a thatched roof onsite which dates back to 1760!  There are walkways all along the moor leading to the memorial Cairn and various clans headstones which were erected in 1881. You’ll also find a visitor’s center which has cool artifacts & gives you a great overview of the events leading up to the battle.

After spending about 2 hours at Culloden Moor we hopped back into the car and headed towards Inverness. Inverness is largely considered the capital of the Highlands so I was excited to explore.  We parked our car at the top of the Market Brae Steps which lead down to the town square.  Don’t hate me but….I didn’t love Inverness. Maybe it’s because it was cold and raining or because I didn’t do much homework on what do do there.  I felt like Inverness wasn’t all that cute or charming. Yes, it has some cool buildings and the path along the river is pretty but I just wasn’t overly impressed. I’m sure if I had done a bit more research I would have loved it!

After exploring for a few hours we headed to our hotel.  Although I didn’t love Inverness, it was still an amazing first day.  We hadn’t been there long but I could tell, Scotland was going to be one of my favorite countries!