My wife and I are planning to travel from Portland, OR to Glasgow in April of 2027.
This will be a completely new experience for both of us. I’ve never flown international before (and indeed haven’t flown period in almost 20 years) so just getting there and back will be a new and almost certainly anxiety-provoking experience.
Our primary purpose in visiting is to attend a wedding. We’ll be there for two-ish weeks, roughly from April 2 to April 16. The specific days of travel are still to be determined. We have not settled on our lodging yet but are leaning toward the Hotel Du Vin. April 11 is the day of the wedding but we will be mostly free the rest of our time there.
We won’t be renting a car but rather relying on public transport: Uber, taxis, busses, and trains.
I’m not sure yet if we will be visiting Edinburgh. What I’m reading online says that the castle is mostly one big overpriced tourist trap these days. However, I’d like to walk the Royal Mile, mostly just to say I’ve been there and seen it. Also on the “maybe” list is a visit to the Rosslyn Chapel (if we do go to Edinburgh) and a visit to Pitlochry. A family member suggested that one as a quintessential Scottish market town experience.
Neither my wife nor I drink and have no use for whisky so doing a tour of the local distilleries is not on the list.
We will almost certainly be visiting the Riverside Museum. We will also be visiting the Glasgow Botanic Gardens.
We would also like to see a performance of The Mousetrap at King’s Theatre.
I’m eager to hear from folks who live in Glasgow or who have visited regarding various things to see and do in and around the city. We are, of course, open to other lodging suggestions as well.
I’ve been living in Scotland for a couple of years now, and I’ve been to Glasgow pretty often, though I don’t live there.
Edinburgh is still nice, with plenty of stuff to do for a day trip and the castle is truly spectacular from the outside, but yes, the inside is barely a castle any more, it’s a sanitised, dull, ‘visitor experience’. There are approximately 1 gazillion castles in Scotland, many of which are accessible on public transport, and are both far cheaper and more interesting. Stirling castle is the one I have been recommended most by locals[1], which is very easy to get to from Glasgow on a day trip- it’s literally 40 minutes on a train. Glamis is also a very nice old one, when it comes to castles- it is technically accessible on public transport, but it’s a bit of a pain.
Personally, I would be very tempted to spend at least a night or two elsewhere in Scotland rather than just stay in one hotel. Pitlochry and Birnham/Dunkeld area is all very nice and very scenic, and easily accessible again by train. There are either trains or decent clean, reliable coaches (I use Ember buses a lot, they’re flexible bookings, give accurate tracking info, and you can take a big suitcase) to pretty much all the decent size towns on the mainland. Most people seem to try fit a month’s travel into 5 days, but two weeks straight in Glasgow is maybe going too far the other way, and although you could get pretty much anywhere as a day trip, you won’t get much time there if you do with the transport options.
You’re not going at a bad time of year, most things will be open -some hotels shut for winter- but not booked out. It may be chilly though.
I’m probably not a good person to suggest food options, as when I go to Glasgow it’s largely for the international cuisine which I don’t have available locally. You are maybe less excited about getting good Mexican food…
ETA: do you have any specific interests other than ‘not whisky’?