The Dainings are Going to Scotland!

 

In just a few days, Paul and I are headed off on a 3 week adventure to Scotland. Finally, after co-vid ruined our travel plans for WAY too long, we are getting out of here!

The travel bug has been hitting us hard, and we are itching to explore this beautiful world again.

As we've been excitedly telling folks that we're going to Scotland, we've met with a lot of curiosity about "Why Scotland?" so I thought I would write about why we chose Scotland this time.

Why We're Going to Scotland

1. We LOVE wild (and beautiful) places.

When we went to Ireland (start here for those travel entries), the thing we loved more than anything else was the wild magical atmosphere of the place. It was so beautiful and sparsely populated and we LOVED the hikes into the wilds of Ireland.

When we went to Germany, Netherlands, and Austria, that wildness was a bit more...lacking. Germany and Netherlands like things nice and tidy, which is lovely, but we missed the wilderness aspect that Ireland had. Austria, however, also had that wild feeling to it and we absolutely LOVED it, but we were only there for a few days (we hope to go back for a full three weeks in the future).

So as we were researching where to go next, Scotland's Highlands were calling out to us. Scotland is divided into two parts: the Lowlands, where most of the population lives, and the Highlands, where it's more wilderness and national parks.

There are SO many incredible hikes and things we want to see in the Scottish Highlands that we are spending almost our entire three week vacation there and it's STILL not enough time to see all the things we want to see.

I just think that is so incredible that a country as small as Scotland can hold so many wild and beautiful places even just in half of their country. The Lowlands of Scotland probably have some incredible places too, but we'll have to postpone thorough-adventuring in that section for a future visit.

2. The food sounds AMAZING.

I know people snub their noses at Haggis, but Paul and I actually like those types of foods, so that's no problem for us. However, one thing that pleasantly surprised us was learning that Scotland is WAY into seafood. 

Ireland didn't have much as far as seafood (though Paul still raves about all of their seafood chowder), but Scotland is in the right area on the gulf stream to get all the goodies from the sea. So we'll be eating lots of: lobster, scallops, mussels, oysters, crabs...mmm...

The Scottish folk also love smoked fish, and they have plenty of trout and salmon to smoke. So we'll be eating LOTS of smoked fish as well. 

Finally, the whole place is practically overrun with deer, so venison is on the menu almost everywhere. Venison happens to be one of my faves, so this will be amazing as well.

3. We're OBSESSED with Scottish Whisky. 

Anyone who knows us will not be surprised that we're going to Scotland. After all, we LOVE our peaty Scotches. YUM. 

Currently, our daily plans in Scotland go something like this: 5 mile awesome hike, whisky distillery, 2 mile hike, whisky distillery, hang out on some beach with good food. 

Perhaps at some point we'll get tired of going to distilleries, but there are also these cool whisky tasting rooms where you can try different whisky from all of the area. We're pretty excited about a large variety of tastings, especially for trying ones that we can't buy in America.

Side note: they're also getting into gin, my other favorite drink, so we're hoping to stop at some of the gin distilleries as well.

P.S.) We are not alcoholics. We just really love scotch and gin. 

 4. Random other reasons...

Paul is looking forward to fly-fishing for salmon and/or trout and also is planning a trip for fishing on the ocean in someone's boat.

I'm looking forward to the weather. 😍 I absolutely LOVED Ireland's summer weather and Scotland should be very similar: super windy and in the upper 50's or lower 60's with lots of clouds and random bouts of misty drizzly rain. Sigh...my dream summer weather. I can't wait! Paul isn't as keen on that as me, but he does love the fact that it will be light until 10-11pm (aka lots of time for him to go fishing after our adventures wind down for the day).

It's also nice that Scotland uses the same language as us (in theory) and so it will be easy to understand the road signs (although it will be on the opposite side of the road, which will be great fun for Paul on the first day). 

Overall, we're super excited and hope to write a bunch here on our adventures on our Scotland trip (and hopefully we don't burn out on writing about it like we did for both Ireland and Germany...).

~Cris (and Paul)