Scotland

Scotland is the trip for people who want to drive empty roads through landscapes that look CGI'd. Edinburgh as the city base, then the Highlands and the Isle of Skye as the core circuit; the Outer Hebrides and Orkney are the deeper version. Pack for rain in any month.

The classic loop is a week: two nights in Edinburgh, then north through Glencoe on the A82, over the bridge to Skye, and back via Loch Ness or the Cairngorms. Days are castles, single-track roads, distillery tours, and pulling over every twenty minutes for the view. With ten days you add the North Coast 500 or a ferry to the Outer Hebrides. Your money goes on the rental car, fuel, and rural hotels that cost more than you expect.

The weather is the honest part: it will rain, possibly all week, in any month you choose. Midges make Highland evenings miserable from June to September, and Skye in August is a single-track traffic jam of campervans. Food outside the cities is hit-and-miss and never cheap. If you need guaranteed sunshine, go elsewhere. But when the cloud lifts over Glencoe, you understand why people keep coming back regardless.