[Northern Soul]

I love Scotland, and try to go every year. The light is amazing.

I don't have much photography gear, and being from the UK I just take everything - lucky me!

If I had to narrow it down I'd take your body and the two WR zooms - WR particulalry usefel as I suppose you might have to put them in a bag with damp clothes at some point.

Ideally I'd want something a bit longer because the wildlife in Scotland is amazing, but if that's not your thing then you'll be fine. Something like 300mm should be enough for most eventualities.

I'd probably take a flash because on rainy days you might be indoors, and because you can use it to liven up the foreground if it's a dull day. I'd also definitely take a polariser and, if you can find room for a tripod, some ND filters.

If you get to the far north there is very little light pollution so you should get some amazing star shots - although if you are there in the summer you'll find that it never gets truly dark.

Quick plug - if you're on the west coast and you like birds, Handa Island is well worth a trip.

Also, for midges, get yourself a spray of Avon Skin So Soft - most convenience stores and petrol stations sell it. It's only a few quid, and although it's designed as a moisturiser for ladies, the midges hate it - it really does work. The SAS use the highlands for training, and they use it - if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me!

[Northern Soul]

Thanks Jasvox and cats_five for all those suggestions. My wifes a teacher so we have a limited choice of when we can go. She's not a full time teacher yet (working on her first year of experience), so she's got to be back in Canada for mid/late August for possible school placement/job interviews. So July/early August. We want to be there for a minimum of 7 days, but push it to 2 if we can afford it.

I'll have to spend a couple hours looking at flickr and writing down names of places and google earth them and see how many are in proximity of each other. Isle of Skye and Glencoe are certainly beautiful as well as Heather Moors. Its always nice to get non tourism opinions and hear about the smaller local gems such as parks and the like.

Steven

The thing with Scotland is it takes a long time to get anywhere. The roads are not very direct, and they are generally narrow - a lot of roads classed as A roads in Scotland would be 'unclassified' in England (In the UK we have motorways, A roads, B roads, C roads (very rare) and 'unclassified' roads, in descending order of size/speed. Some A roads in Scotland are only wide enough for one car at a time)

By UK standards it's a big place too, and English people are often surprised how long it takes to get anywhere. You might be more used to the distances involved, but nothing can prepare you for the roads. They're beautiful, but my goodness it takes a long time to get anywhere. Even in my younger, less-responsible days in a powerful car it took me a long time to get around. Edinburgh to the main town on Skye (Portree) is over 5 hours by car according to google maps, but I'd allow 6, for example. Edinburgh to Inverness is 4 or 5 hours even if you go by train, depending on which one you get.

Public transport in the far north (the beautiful bit) does exist, but it's patchy and slow - a lot of the bus routes are covered by the postal service using post buses - basically a post van with a couple of extra seats.

I think what I'm saying is that, if you can only do 7 days, you're not going to see much of Scotland - but you'll see more if you hire a car. Plus then you can bring your tripod :-) Not the most environmentally conscious thing to do, but

I can recommend a car hire place I've used where you can get a small car for £255 for 2 weeks in July / August - or a larger car (Focus - that's mid-size in Europe) for £300 or so, if that is of interest.

[Dr_who]

It certainly wouldn't hurt to have that car rental information. I think my wife would dread driving on the "wrong" side of the road thou. What is the name of the travel buses or the equilivant to greyhound in Scotland?

[Northern Soul]

The main car hire players are Hertz, Enterprise and Avis with a few others you can easily find with the help of google, but the one I tend to use on the odd occasion I need to hire a car or van is carhire3000.co.uk- they are brokers so don't have their own cars, and they've always been good (and cheap!) for me. The prices I mentioned earlier were for manual transmission by the way - automatics may be a bit more.

Driving on the opposite side of the road is not so bad once you get used to it - it's a shame such journeys always start at an airport though; they baffle me at the best of times :-) Also, even in high summer, once you get north of Fort William the traffic is relatively light.

Most buses in the UK are run by Stagecoach (a Scottish company as it happens) or Aviva - they tend to work the local routes. The biggest operator on long distance routes (running what we refer to as coaches rather than buses) is National Express, but they tend to link main cities. Because of the ridiculous way we do public transport here, those companies also run some trains, and they probably overlap in the areas they cover, and you won't be able to use a ticket for one company with another company.

I've just found travellinescotland though, which seems to be very comprehensive and covers travel by bus,train, ferry and plane. It doesn't have prices though - some public transport can be quite pricey in the UK so you'd have to try and work out how much you'd be travelling to see if it was worth getting the car. Bear in mind too that petrol is currently US$7.65 per US gallon here.

[ihasa]

I would suggest a 16-45mm rather than the 18-55mm... a bit wider, and a bit nicer IQ. OK it's not WR but you can use it in light drizzle with caution, as you can with any lens... just wipe it and tuck it away when not using.

I can't overemphasise how bad the midges can be. The CIA ought to employ them as a torture technique! They aren't so prevalent near the coast, which may be worth keeping in mind when you plan your route.

[Northern Soul]

I would suggest a 16-45mm rather than the 18-55mm... a bit wider, and a bit nicer IQ. OK it's not WR but you can use it in light drizzle with caution, as you can with any lens... just wipe it and tuck it away when not using.

I can't overemphasise how bad the midges can be. The CIA ought to employ them as a torture technique! They aren't so prevalent near the coast, which may be worth keeping in mind when you plan your route.

The midges can be annoying, but Skin So Soft really works. Just don't make the mistake I did on my first trip, of parking up in a layby near a stream and leaving the car door open while I got my tripod out the boot. The car was full of midges when I got it, although they can't fly in wind speeds of over 4mph or so, so I just put the a/c on full for the rest of the journey. As ihasa says, they tend to be less prevalent near the coast - largely because of their inability to fly in much more than a slight breeze.

[cats_five]

It certainly wouldn't hurt to have that car rental information. I think my wife would dread driving on the "wrong" side of the road thou. What is the name of the travel buses or the equilivant to greyhound in Scotland?

Driving on the 'wrong' side is a lot easier in the right kind of car. Driving a UK car in France was tricky on main roads as I couldn't see round slow cars to overtake, and in the Pyranees I tended to dive to the left when there was oncoming instead of to the right. A motorbike was much easier as it's not 'handed'.

WRT buses, there are also:
http://www.citylink.co.uk/
http://www.megabus.com/uk/

And these might be useful:
National Rail Enquiries - Official source for UK train times and timetables
Traveline Scotland - Plan your journey

GoogleEarth of course is very useful, and so is www.streetmap.co.uk which provides mapping for the entire UK at a variety of scales - obviously your screen limits how much you can see at a time.

[Kerrowdown]

As a Highlander I was gonna suggest waterproof clothing.

There's been heaps of good advice given on this thread already, but just to add, our electrical plugs are big & beautiful and also it pays to drive on the left here, as everyone else does.

[Dr_who]

Thanks for all the suggestions, it certainly has given me some ideas to mull thru over the next couple months. I might try lookin gat doing half tour bus half personal traveling. Obviously there will be much missed but thats sorta the nature of trips. It is first and foremost our wedding trip, but at least I'll have my avon skin so soft on me!

[piesforyou]

Thanks for all the suggestions, it certainly has given me some ideas to mull thru over the next couple months. I might try lookin gat doing half tour bus half personal traveling. Obviously there will be much missed but thats sorta the nature of trips. It is first and foremost our wedding trip, but at least I'll have my avon skin so soft on me!

You'll love Scotland. Get on the west coast, if you have time visit an island like Skye.

Personally I haven't had much success with Avon SSS, it's the strong-ass 50% DEET you want. If you're concerned about it's carcinogenic tendencies, you can just spray it on a scarf and your sleeves. But it WORKS. Avon SSS is slightly effective, in my experience.

Also I would agree with previous suggestions that driving on the other side of the road than you're used to, in a car designed to be on that side, is not a problem at all. Your brains just seems to make the switch very easily. I did it in Turkey, traffic is madness there, and I was fine. I can imagine Edinburgh would be a bit of a Baptism of fire though - maybe plan to get the car on your way out.

Tourism wise, well there are certain places you just can't miss like Glencoe (sometimes listed as one of the most beautiful places in the world) but you really should drive yourself through it and be able to stop at any particular lay-by you feel like stopping at. There's lovely waterfalls and lochs and hillsides and if you were on a coach you'd pass them by imagining the awesome photo you would have got there if you were able to stop.

Personally I don't lend much weight to Loch Ness, you won't see the monster and when you get rid of that whole mystery it just becomes a big black loch. After Glencoe I would visit some of the less traveled parts, like the coast road up to Ullapool. The beaches are awesome by the way, on the right day it can look like the Caribbean.

I leave you with a teaser of what you're in for :-) From me and my girlfriends drive around Scotland last summer. Unfortunately most of my photos are marred by overcast skies (that's not meant to be the teaser...) , this was a nice day however, with an excellent view. A real photographer could have done something nice with a view like this:

[Dr_who]

piesforyou that is a nice picture you took there. It was indeed a teaser as I opened up this forum post just before leaving a wifi area and got down to the bottom and saw the text "image" on my ipod but couldn't open it till I got home lol.

Did some searching and my wife is 23 which is the minimum of driving in Scotland, so we will look into the pricing for doing that. We'll have to figure in gas prices. I don't suppose anyone wants to take 5 days off from work in Scotland and drive around

We will probably land in London as its about $200/per person cheaper then to land in Glasgow or Edinburgh, and the sleeper train is only 20 pounds over night. I did find someone at work how's mom sells avon so I got the skin so soft covered oh and got a weatherproof jacket for me and the misses

[Northern Soul]

Oh you must go on the sleeper - it's something I'd love to do, but I'd have to travel 200 miles the wrong way to get the train, which seems a bit silly - plus I'd end up hiring a car when I got there despite owning two! I'll do it one day though.

Just looking through my flickr and and utterly despondent at the quality of what's there - all the more reason to go back. Might be a few years sadly as it's a long drive with a toddler - otherwise I'd be off this summer and offer you two of the spare seats in the car :-)

[piesforyou]

piesforyou that is a nice picture you took there.

Thanks, I just wish I knew about ND grad filters and everything else I now know about photography before I took it!

[jbinpg]

Allow this northern Canadian a bit of a chuckle for the warning about a 5-hour drive The big problem with DEET is not that it is a neurotoxin (it is), but that it can dissolve certain synthetic materials in a matter of minutes. So do not let the top come off the bottle, and remember to wash it off your hands before handling your camera.

Jack

[Dr_who]

Looks like July 6th-20th for the stay. Really looking forward to it and pretty excited. I don't have any ND filters ;/ I probably should pick up a couple and practice. Edmonton has similar sky atm, cold and overcast and grey. Trying to find more info on the highland games locations while I am there as well. Looks like it changes location thru out the summer.

Ps why has no one suggested a kilt yet?