When I last left you, we just met Harrison at the Edinburgh Airport. He flew in a few days after Laura and I took on Fringe.

With just enough time to chug some coffee and catch Laura up on all the seasons of Outlander, it was time to grab our car and hit the road.

The three of us are New Yorkers. Meaning we don’t regularly drive. Luckily it’s like riding a bike and things come back OK. But this was a different challenge in that we had to flip our brains around to the opposite side. Laura was super brave and took the very first leg. She CRUSHED it.

Do yourself a favor and get a car that’s automatic and comes with a built in GPS. It’s a little extra, but it was 100% worth not having to worry about driving stick and relying solely on our spotty phone navigation.

I think each of us found that after about 30 minutes, our brains just kind of figured it out. Trust me when I say that if I can drive on the opposite side, then you certainly can!

So Harrison and I are big fans of the show, Outlander. (It’s on Starz and Netflix. Watch it now.) It’s a sci-fi, drama series that takes place in Scotland back in the 18th century… but also jumps around a bit in time. Can’t tell you too much about that without spoilers.

We needed to see some of the locations while we were here. And rather than spend hundreds on a guided tour, Harrison kindly put together a custom itinerary.

First stop: Linlithgow Palace

This 14th century palace is where scenes at Wentworth Prison were filmed. It was about a 20 minute drive from Edinburgh Airport.

Fun fact: Mary Queen of Scots was born here in December 1542.

Today it’s free for public wandering, fashion shows (Chanel 2012), and an annual music festival.

I loved peeking out at the rolling green hills!

We lost Harrison for a while but this place is a maze.

From the top, you can look out over Linlithgow Loch.

And we’re off to the coast! Next up is Blackness Castle. It’s about a 15 minute drive from Linlithgow Palace.

My fellow Outlander fans will recognize this as the setting of Fort William. This 15th century fortress has served as one of the main residences of the Scottish monarch and a prison. It’s sometimes referred to as “the ship that never sailed” because of the way it juts out over the water, similar to the mast of a ship¹.

The cost to go in was more than we were willing to spend for just a look around, and we still had a few more places to see, so we decided to skip this one.

But that’s OK because this next one was a highlight for us dorks. This is Midhope Castle, or LALLYBROCH (Jamie’s family home where Jenny lives). It was another 15 minute drive along some stunning back roads. We pulled up to a little farm stand and parked next to another car. There’s a tiny stand at the entrance asking for a few pounds as admission… and that’s it! It felt kinda strange, but it was great not having to fight crowds to see what for us is an iconic site.

Luckily a couple who were also obviously Outlander fans were willing to snap a group shot.

Midhope Castle is a 16th century tower house and first belonged to Alexander Drummond of Midhope. The house itself isn’t open to the public, but you’re free to wander the grounds.

I mean… how cool is this?!

And our final stop of our Outlander tour actually lends itself to another of my favorite fandoms: Game of Thrones.

This is Doune Castle. It’s Castle Leoch in the Outlander Universe, and is Winterfell in season one of Game of Thrones before that HBO money came rolling in and they were able to construct their own sets.

We grabbed an audio tour for this one to learn some more facts. And also to enjoy listening to a rich Scottish voice narrate.

After a day packed with stalking filming locations, we got back in the car and drove the 45 minutes to Glasgow where we were staying for the night. The wedding was still days away at this point, but we wanted to stop in and see Chloe and Gene before they became consumed by pre-wedding chaos. It was both surreal and so fun to see Gene in Scotland, instead of in our New York office. And Chloe was the sweetest ever for inviting us over for dinner on her roof.

We said our “see you soon!”s and headed back to our Airbnb. There was still lots of Scotland for us to see before we met back up with them for the wedding later on in the week! Stay tuned for more of our road trip. Next time, there will be much less Outlander and a lot more rolling Highlands greenery.

References:

¹MacIvor, Iain (1982). Blackness Castle.