You Have Already Done Loch Ness. Now What

The Second Visit List

Invergordon: skip Loch Ness, do Culloden and Cawdor Castle, or Chanonry Point for dolphins, or a Speyside distillery. Greenock: skip Glasgow city centre, do Loch Lomond and Stirling Castle, or the Kelpies and Falkirk Wheel. Leith: skip Edinburgh Castle, do Rosslyn Chapel, Dean Village and the Royal Yacht, or St Andrews and the Fife coast. Southampton: skip Stonehenge, do Salisbury and the New Forest, or Portsmouth dockyard, or the southern Cotswolds. Dover: skip London, do Canterbury and Leeds Castle. Liverpool: skip the Beatles route, do Chester. Oban: skip the town, do Glencoe. In every case the second choice is quieter and usually better.

Going Deeper Instead Of Wider

The other approach for repeat visitors is depth. Instead of three sights in a day, do one thing properly: a single distillery with a warehouse tasting rather than three standard tours; a photography day timed to the light rather than to opening hours; a single castle with the guidebook and two hours instead of forty minutes; a food day built around a market, a producer and a long lunch. Repeat cruisers often have the confidence to do this and it produces a far better day than another highlights loop. Tell us which ports you have done before and what you saw, and we will build the second visit around the gaps rather than repeating what a ship excursion would give you.