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Welcome to Part Four of our Epic Highland/West Coast Road Trip series! Click here for one, two and three.
Kingussie
Between our stop at Blair Castle and our hostel in Inverness, Casey and I ended up in Kingussie for an electric car charge, nature walk and food.
I’ll get to the food in an epic food summary post, but here’s a small gallery of the “Mill” nature walk we took. Unfortunately, it was rainy and dusk by the time we arrived, so the pictures weren’t that great. We spent about 2 hours in Kingussie and can’t say much about it except it was a pleasant stop for a bite to eat.
We were quite tuckered out after a day of travel, but upon our arrival in Inverness, we got the most exciting news of the day: My little sister got engaged! Shout out to her and her wonderful fiance Michael:
Struy Guest House
Truth be told, Casey and I had never stayed in a hostel before. We found the Struy Guest House on TripAdvisor, but we actually booked a room in one of their sister hostels because it was only £25. Turns out there was a booking error so we got upgraded to the “family” room at the Struy Guest House without needing to pay extra. Sweet! It really was more of a guest house than a hostel, though, and a perfect spot to sleep-and-run.
Price: The 3 person room is typically £45. The two one-person rooms are either £16 or £20 and all come with a shared bathroom.
Cleanliness: No complaints. The room was plain and perhaps a bit out-dated, but perfectly acceptable. The bathrooms were extremely clean — even modern! There was one toilet-only stall (sink in your bedroom), and one full bathroom.
Comfort: Meh. It was very warm in the rooms (in a good way) and the bed was moderately comfortable. Awesome for the price.
Service: Before arriving, the owner warns you that you’ll have to call him and get a code to go inside because he keep costs down by not paying employees to man the area 24/7. No problem! That being said, the owner wanted us to stay up until he could come by to take our payment (and we weren’t allowed to go to bed without paying). We waited for over an hour and a half and were super tired, so that was very annoying.
Parking: They have road and driveway parking available.
All in all it was a great place to stay for a decent night’s sleep. We got there, surfed the free WiFi for a couple hours, conked out and got up the next day for Inverness adventures.
Inverness by Morning
It was a brisk 3° Celsius when we woke up at around 7 a.m. to start our adventure. We found the nearest charge station (By St. Andrews Cathedral, for anyone renting an electric car) and started on a stunning walk up and down the Ness River. You could see Inverness Castle in the distance: Castle #2 on our trip! It was never actually used as a castle, but built in the 19th century and now acts as an office building — hiding in the misty morning, it looked magical.
As a self-proclaimed coffee-addict, I was less than pleased with the fact cafes in Scotland don’t seem to open prior to 9 a.m. Seriously! We could have gone to McDonald’s, but something felt wrong about that. I thought at first it might just be that we were wandering around town on a lazy Sunday morning. Nope! It was the same in Stirling on a bustling Tuesday morning. Crazy!
We ate breakfast and then hopped back in the car, on our way to the next stop: The Clava Cairns and Culloden Battlefield.
Should you go? Absolutely! Even though we were more interested in the sites around Inverness than in the city itself, it’s a major hub in the Highlands and a great central location for a host of castles, nature walks/hikes and historical locations (we’ll get to those soon!).
So tell me, what do you think?
Be sure to check out Inverness on TripAdvisor when planning your next adventure.
Interested in the rest of our trip?
- Part One: The Itinerary
- Part Two: Renting an Electric Car
- Part Three: Killiecrankie and Blair Castle
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Great pictures – I am loving the journey!
Thanks for tuning in 🙂