A Scottish Journey

The Scottish tour was everything we expected from our reviews of the tour prior to booking. Our guide was very knowledgeable with a good sense of humour making the trip fun. Our driver was excellent and worked well with our guide so that we saw all that was promised even though the weather forced us to reroute on the fly. The accommodations were very comfortable, clean and were as they appeared in the tour documentation. Would recommend this company, guide, driver and the accommodations to everyone.

Good value for money and well organised

See previous comments why do want more of the same?

The small interment group and friendly gride and driver

N/A. Travel agent purchase, ask him.

Loved how we went Backroads to hidden gems …How we learnt about the history of Scotland as we travelled this Journey

Excellent route, beautiful scenery, a great tour leader, alot of interesting history, comfort hotels and coach.

A Scottish Journey was an excellent way to visit Scotland. We covered a lot of Scotland and many historic sites.

For an expensive tour that promised quality all the way, several aspects were disappointing.
The Tour Guide did her best, but some meals were inedible, there were problems with hotel room allocation and some promised experiences could not be delivered ‘ because it was out of season’. If key places close at the end of September, Back Roads shouldn’t take money for tours in October.

The tour was excellent, we've not been on a tour before so we were unsure of what to expect, but from start to finish, we had a great time. Mike (guide) and Andrew (driver) were brilliant, they became part of the tour family, so much so that at the end there were tears and hugs all around. Mike added his own personal Scottish touch (including humour) making it feel that it was a tour of his own back yard. Andrew's driving skills were exceptional, smooth and extremely safe. His friendly nature is an attribute.

All my wife and myself wanted in a tour plus more.

The tour covered many of the wonderful and historical areas in Scotland. Very happy

The cost of the trip was higher than a couple others we looked at.

Purchase transaction was fine

Good price for such a great trip.

As outlined in customer experience feedback

Lots of fun, great scenery and a variety of experiences. The local guides at places we visited were well-informed and passionate, which helped make this trip memorable.

The tour covered everything we wanted to do and see

Purchasing the tour was easy. One of the hotels we stayed in though needs to improve their service.

Great enjoyable very interesting

Well organised & a good variety of locations. Tour guide was informative & knowledgeable

Excellent value for money

Tour covered everything and more that I wanted to experience just wonderful

We loved the places we visited, our driver Abbey and Mike our tour guide, were great people.

The purchase experience was fine and technically the logistics were fine. While the tour description states "Savour time exploring the magnificent Cairngorms National Park", we never went into the park because the ground was wet and several participants had canes. Personally, we would have liked to have done more hiking and spent fewer hours on our own in small towns - albeit quaint not justifying the amount of time spent.

The tour itinerary was good, taking across a diverse range of scenic places and places of historic significance.
Downside was the quality of meal offerings.
Lovely accommodation, except where showers were over bath without benefit of grab handles

Professional guide and driver. Hotels mixed. Meals generally awful.. Food seemed to be trying to meet a budget not a quality standard. I would rather have no meals included if this is the prevailing standard. Consideration of access , especially in bathrooms must be addressed.

Excellent tour guide, safe driver and a great group of people made this tour most enjoyable. We would love to do another tour with Tony and Russell.
Loved all the places we went to, some hotels were better than others but all in all a fantastic tour that I can highly recommend

Guide and driver excellent

Too much driving each day

The tour leader was excellent . He managed people very well and this is a difficult task especially 24hrs . He had a fascinating knowledge of history geography and customs to add as well as his own Scottish background .

To be forwarded with accompanying e-mail.

The tour guide we had treated us like a group of school kids on a school excursion. Some of the motels we stayed were very isolated and left us nowhere to go or an alternative to eat or to mix with the locals. We had to pre order many of our meals and purchase our lunches, leave them on the bus for 2-4 hrs because we were told there was nowhere to buy our lunch at the destination we were going, only to get there and have options available. Eating lunch at a cemetery with the option of sitting on wet grass or graves was disrespectful as far as I’m concerned. Two days of just driving around to fill in the time. I would not recommend this tour unless major changes are made to it.

The highlight of our tour was our tour leader, Paul. His knowledge of the Highlands, his background in photography, and his talent in storytelling, and his performances of caber tossing and the ode to haggis all made the trip memorable. At the same time, he attended to every detail to keep things running smoothly, and constantly consulted with our driver, Abby, whose superb skill in negotiating both city streets and narrow winding backroads had us all agog. They both quickly established a close rapport with the group. The minibus was a bit cramped for 20 (18 guests), but it was able to take us to sites larger bus tours had to miss. The accommodations were all good, though often cramped. I am already recommending this tour friends.

We saw so many sights. Truly got the feel of Scotland and the wonderful people!

Again the tour and tour guide were great but the choice of hotels and meals was poor. Certainly not 4 star.

The knee room on the bus seats was a bit tight. The scenic back roads that Giovani chose and Andrew's amazing driving made long drives almost magical

Well worth the money spent.

Great pace and loved having two nights in each hotel. Much more relaxed way of travelling. The small bus enabled travel off the main roads and we had access to beautiful vistas

Recognizing that the tourist industry worldwide is still recovering from COVID, the hotels were clearly trying to provide good service but with limited staff & that required everyone being patient.
Having to provide meal choices so far in advance to accommodate the hotels was somewhat frustrating & confusing.

See previous comments as above

Very well organized, friendly staff

Good experiences over a wide range of Scotland

good value for money, coming from overseas it was a good way to travel the area without the bother of hiring cars and having to organise all the accommodation.

Hotels were great, but not what I would consider four- star. That is not a big deal to me, but is apparently part of the companies branding.

i had a great time, i thought the agent that i dealt with could have been more hands on. i purchased over the phone all information was emailed to me.
i also by another agent purchased another tour with trafalgar best of Israel they called me into there office and gave me all documents and itinerary. maybe i am too old fasion

Really enjoyed this trip but when there was free time, there was little to do as we were away from any major centre at times

Pitched at the right price point for length of tour.

We could have had more meals included. Cultural experiences.

I’ve waited a long time to visit Scotland. It was worth the wait.

Great tour guides, accommodation was adequate, bus comfortable, loved the whole back roads experience of Scotland.

Excellent guide and itinerary. Food and hotels average

Overall very good. Food could be better.

Felt price paid was very good with respect to choice of hotels, guides, comfort of mini-van and our driver was excellent.

Great trip could of been better

Good value. We enjoyed all accommodations (and on some tours they can be a bit dodgy) and all provided meals. Particularly on hotels, they were all different, and that added to the charm of the trip (much better than them all being similar). Professional driver and guides - and you particularly notice that when you don't have them. This tour had them.

The tour did not disappoint
The landscape,history and charming towns were memorable and the leadership from Giovanni Braida made each day interesting.stressfree,fun and very relaxing
Iwould travel on a tour with him again and with Ian the most competent driver on Back Roads and back of Back Roads at times
A fabulous tour of the Scottish Highlands and Islands

I would have preferred ordering meals at the restaurants after arrival, as opposed to preordering before we saw the place.

Everything was great. they tried very hard and were successful

Great overnight locations and tour destinations

Great locations, excellent driver and guide working together as a team.

Confusing instructions as to the identity o=f the company. We booked through Adeo and were referred to Back Roads only to find that Back Roads was not the correct name. It was blue roads.

The itinerary was very good and enabled us to see the best of the best of Scotland in the Highland region and the isles off the West Coast.

See previous remarks regarding.

I enjoyed the trip. We stayed nice places and had wonderful meals. The bus tour showed us most of the beautiful country.

Reasonably price. Good value.

Expensive, compared to other tours of similar length I've taken. Can't understand why, on the Isle of Skye, our accommodation was the Duisdale Hotel which is a long way from either of the two "towns" on Skye. Had we stayed closer to one of the towns, we could have explored the area during our free time. This wasn't feasible from the Duisdale. The breakfast service at that hotel was disorganised and chaotic - even on the second morning, after negative feedback had been provided to them about the breakfast on the first morning.

See comments in the above field.

Change the Hotel at first stop once trip began. Eden Locke however was great. Otherwise other than days of long driving distances it was great

Group was small - a good size (16); tour leader knowledgeable and careful to accommodate all needs; accommodation mostly interesting and in good locations, especially on the islands. Having 2 days in each location worked very well.

Would pay a little more to have rooms on ground floor.

Great variety of sights, hotels and back roads.

I felt the cost of the trip seemed high considering what was included. Several meals were not included and the tour offerings were mediocre.

Time allocated at some activities/venues too long and others too short.

Awesome trip, great lodging, knowledgeable guide!

Accomodation on the first 2 nights was definitely sub standard with awful meals for dinner and breakfast. Thank heavens they couldn’t do dinner for us the second night so we were taken to a nearby hotel by the coach driver, and that was excellent. Absolutely dreadful start to the tour . Luckily the remainder of the accomodation and meals were better.

Lack of communication with Backroads even though I emailed them the first day about the poor start. I should have received a personal email to acknowledge what I was saying rather than a standard reply.

No tour guide, only a driver. Filthy hotel rooms. Inedible food at one location, astronomic prices at one other. NOT a good value for the money. Everything I "learned" about Scotland was through Google.

See comments to question 1

Again, tour itinerary and guide were excellent.

Dreary and at times boring.
Unfortunately weather not conducive to touring.

Did not enjoy this trip/ tour al all. Only one star but really should be no star

Good value for the money spent

Have already just done so but your site seems not to like it

Excellent Guide and Driver

Wanted to see Scotland and travel thru places that my Scottish ancestors lived in or near.

As above,the whole package was good.

Value for money both tour and accommodation.

Although the scenery was spectacular, the tour leader's lack of knowledge about Scotland and some accommodation caused us to feel bitterly disappointed with this tour.

Excellent tour guide and driver hotels not as expected

This was a very interesting tour, Scotland has such a wonderful diversity of scenery. If there were a fault, maybe more personalised one off tours could be organised like the private tour of Duart castle. It would have Been nice to have seen a piper, for instance after all its what you think of Scotland

Isle of Skye and Isle of Mull, were fabulous. Scenery throughout spectacular.

Good value for money
Accommodation and meals

We enjoyed getting to see everything in Scotland, The Isle Of Skye, The Isle of Mull, and the Isle of Iona. The accommodations were great and the food delicious!! Our guide ,Gordon, was very good, being a Scotsman himself. He certainly knew his country.

As I had booked 2 tours following each other I think one free night at the beginning or at the end of either tour should have been offered ...I feel that the "early bird " customer discount was not enough...considering the price .
Other than that point I have no complaints

Lovely places to visit, places we stayed were lovely.

The only negative was a couple of the Hotels being very tired.
Extremely poor lighting in some rooms .
Other Hotels on the other hand were excellent.

Excellent value for money

Loved all the places we travelled to, most of the hotels were good. A nice number of passengers and all got on well. The driver and tour guide were wonderful

The guiding was comprehensive, informative and flexible. We learnt a lot about the ecology, history and people of Scotland.

The bus was comfortable and clean. We really enjoyed all the different styles of hotels we stayed in and the food service was amazing. Thank you for the extra evening meal which we enjoyed at Duisdale House Hotel.

My interests lie with flora and fauna along with history and old architecture. I was suitably impressed with everything we stopped to see.

The only slightly down point of the journey, which relates to personal preferences, was the lunch stop at the Waterside Seafood Restaurant. Yes it was supposed to be a taste experience and it was, but the meal needed to include more food without a smoked flavour. I think this would have enabled a better appreciation of the smoked flavours.

The one thing that I felt was missing was a balance to the history, ecology and amazing food and accommodation - a arts/musical experience. Could you please consider including a music and dance experience (as in try it out) in the future?

We were very,very satisfied with out trip.

From start to finish our tour was the most enjoyable experience. Our tour guide Rob was full of knowledge and showed a genuine passion for his country and it's history. I was amazed at just how much we packed into our tour. All of the places we visited and what were able to see was done at a relaxed and comfortable pace without feeling rushed at any time. We had free time in most destinations and our guide was always ready with recommendations of what we could do and where to eat. I am a convert to Back-Roads and will be back for another tour!

We saw breathtaking views with very few tourists around because early in season. Tom Mcgiver was very knowledgeable about the history which was of interest to us. He was very humorous. But may need to work on his jokes??
Only 5 people on the tour so was very easy to know everyone and all blended well.
Thoroughly recommend these tours

The places we visited were all "must sees" when you think of Scotland.St Andrews was great for golf lovers and Inverness was interesting as a larger city. There was so much history to become immersed in -some relating to current TV shows!
My favourite places were the Isles of Skye and Mull with their pretty towns and stark countryside.

Overall very good
Days a little too long and hence unable to enjoy interesting hotels