This holiday is going to cost you four figures and you’re baulking at paying a few $100 for boots?
You’re clearly not sufficiently experienced if you’re not listening to what you’ve been told. And how used to mud are you? If you’re visiting Culloden - which I recommend - when I was there there was lots of long grass that held moisture (and critters) really well. It wasn’t a manicured battlefield or cemetery.
You’re visiting in April. It can be very wet. Be sensible and shoe yourself properly. You’ll get years of use from them.
You’ll need the boots. Especially in April. Otherwise you’ll be trying to hop from dry spot to dry spot. And that, I can tell you from experience, doesn’t work.
You could wait until you get to Inverness and buy a couple pairs there. There are less expensive alternatives than wellies. I believe we bought our Dunlop’s for 20£. Hiking and sports stores are everywhere in Scotland. In all of the uk actually.
We stayed on Skye late last year, at a place called The Cowshed in Uig. It’s towards the Northern end of the island so a bit further on from Portree. They have these little 2 person self-contained pods on the side of the hill, with a fabulous view over the harbour and out to sea. Highly recommended.
For the OP, I concur pick one or the other, 4-5 days in each country you’ll barely scratch the surface. If I had to choose, I’d pick Scotland. However I do like Ireland. My wife and my personal travel style for a week or more is to hire a car and migrate around a bit. We’ve spent a week or so on two occasions driving around Scotland and could happily do so again.
In terms of things to do in Scotland, I like history and Castles, so that is many of my highlights. A few off the top of my head, mostly not in Inverness by the way.
- Edinburgh (Edinburgh Castle, The Royal Mile)
- Falkirk (The Falkirk Wheel, The Kelpies)
- Stirling (Stirling Castle, Wallace Monument)
- Scone Palace - worth a visit to learn about Scottish royalty.
- St. Andrews - Home of golf, was worth a visit. Plus visit Balgove farm shop nearby, with an attached Steak Barn. We specifically a stop our second time to have lunch here!
- Cairngorns National Park makes for a great drive. Just south is a town called Pitlochry, where the Edradour Distillery is located, they do a good tour of the distillery.
- Near Inverness- Culloden Battlefield well worth a visit. My wife still swears black and blue that she felt a ghostly hand while we were out on the battlefield.
- Loch Ness - just going for a drive along the shoreline is beautiful, make sure you stop at Urquhart Castle, and take in the video presentation. Urquart is one of m6 favourite ruined castles in the U.K. & Ireland.
- Fort William actually is pretty central for a lot of exploring, and in town you’ve got the Old Inverlochy Castle, and Neptune’s Staircase, which is about 12 locks on the Caledonian Canal.
- I highly recommend the drive out to Mallaig. Very picturesque. Or catch the Jacobite Steam Train. Well worth it.
- Glencoe - absolutely stunning part of the world.
- Glenfinnan is nice, you’ve got the monument to Bonny Prince Charles there and the viaduct most recently of Harry Potter fame. A bit of a hidden gem is the Glenfinnan Church.
- Isle of Skye is beautiful, and you could easily spend 4-5 days exploring. On the way out stop in at Eileen Donan Castle.
- Loch Lomond & the Trossarchs is another National Park providing some beautiful drives and hikes.
Geez, get me started! 
Wow! Outstanding tips and advice, thanks! Definitely reconsidering the plan and may just do Scotland this trip, since the Inverness area is my main focal point.
Because there is zero chance of you walking over purely dry paths in Scotland in April. You will meet bogs, streams, mud, puddles, cowpats and rain. Probably lots of it. And there is nothing more miserable than hiking in wet feet.
I don’t know why you’d even put up a fight over this!
Ooh, I forgot about Glenfinnan and the viaduct! We did that drive last March, definitely very cool to see. Especially if you’re a Harry Potter Fan, but even if you’re not it’s a spectacular view.
We also stopped at some random castle out on an island on our way from there to Oban. I don’t remember the name, and it wasn’t open to the public, but you could walk around the grounds and take in the surrounding beauty.
Unfortunately the Harry Potter train only runs from like, June to September. We drove like mad to get there for the time it was supposed to cross the viaduct before we noticed the dates. Haha. Still worth it.
That was probably Castle Stalker. Which would be very familiar to any Monty Python fans, as the film site from The Holy Grail’s end scene.
You will get quiet appreciation there if you pronounce it Faw-kirk.
Yes. The visitor centre is very nice.
It’s nowhere near as bad as you think. Being British but living elsewhere I switch back and forth all the time.
The first level of adaptation takes about 10 minutes (best done in a parking lot). At level two you’ll spend about an hour driving on the roads, occasionally looking in the wrong mirror then remembering. After that you’ll be at the final level of adaptation and you’ll be pretty much set for the rest of the day, though it’ll feel a little like taking a bath with your socks on. Next day you’ll cycle through those levels really quickly and you’ll feel completely OK about it. By day three it will just feel natural.
However the danger lies when you’re distracted by something. For example when I was in the US I took a wrong turn, then turned around in the road, I was annoyed and thinking about something else and set off on the left, only to be reminded of my mistake when I saw a huge semi barrelling towards me flashing its lights.
So for that final, occasional eventuality, I put my watch on the wrong wrist. It’s subtle but enough to kick me out of complacency. My dad switches back and forth a lot, and he sticks a post-it arrow on the dash.
I don’t think it was. We walked to this castle. It was muddy and very wet, and surrounded on three sides by water. Mostly in ruins, and no entry. I’ve googled a few images and it looks kind of like Castle Kilchurn maybe? We stopped on a whim and didn’t stay long. The only picture I have left from that trip is the viaduct. :smack:
Or there isn’t anything to remind you. There was a very sad case some years back where a driver from the continent (France, I think) set out before dawn - so it was dark - and turned out of the driveway into the wrong side of the main road and oncoming traffic, killing someone. IIRC the judge accepted it was an accident and imposed no penalty.
Sorry, if you walked out to it, not Castle Stalker then. :o It was the only island Castle I was aware of on a likely route between Glenfinnan and Oban.
You’ve given me a good bit of info though thank you. I remember seeing Castle Kilchurn from the road, (not that I knew its name) but we couldn’t stop at the time. I have a name to add to the visit list on our next visit.
I checked with my daughter who has pictures, it was definitely Castle Kilchurn. Like you, we saw it in the distance, but since we had the time we decided to stop. Road trips are like that.
I remember we stopped at this waterfall on the road south on the east side of Loch Ness. it was amazing! We were drenched, it was SO loud, and there was just SO much water. A few months later our friends did the same trip. The waterfall was barely a trickle. I felt so bad that we had suggested it as a stopping point.
Ireland is fantastic, don’t get me wrong. It is just not Scotland, which is amazing.