The 16 Best Hotels in Scotland
Some of the best hotels in Scotland exist outside of the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow—that's not to say you can't find somewhere exceptional to stay wherever you wish to lay your head. Whether you're looking for a cosmopolitan city break or hoping to explore Scotland's stunning coastline on the road trip of a lifetime, there's somewhere stunning for any type of traveler.
The key to finding a Scottish hotel is to consider what suits your trip: Will you be looking for memorable cocktails, unique shops, and a buzzy atmosphere? Or are you more about long walks, scenic views, and cozy evenings in front of a fire? Whatever your decision, we're confident our pick of the best hotels in Scotland will inspire the trip of a lifetime. Scroll through for our favorites, in no particular order.
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Courtesy Cameron HousehotelCameron House
Readers' Choice Awards 2022, 2023A prized spot on the beautiful bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, this quintessential Scottish property is precisely the wild, romantic tangle of towers, turrets, and castellations you would wish it to be. Cameron House's notable previous guests have included Winston Churchill and Barack Obama, and yet the hotel remains delightfully unpretentious. Rooms are a lovely sight to behold, with beds so high I almost needed a running jump to reach, and draped in all manner of tactile decadence—velvet Bonn headboards, plump pillows embroidered with thistle motifs, and tartan blankets. There are plenty of trad pursuits to blow away the cobwebs with, from fishing and country walks to spa treatments and two golf courses. Follow them up with afternoon tea in the gloriously golden lobby bar, or go the stiff option at the tartan-clad Great Scots’ Bar, home to over 300 whiskies. This is a spot where the whole crew can bed down too—wee ones are well catered for with dedicated menus (even for afternoon tea), pools and water slides in the onsite leisure center, plus a magical fairy trail to follow and gifted teddy bears to take home. —Lauren Burvill
Courtesy Gleneagles TownhousehotelGleneagles Townhouse
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Hot List 2023This much-awaited opening brought plenty of excitement to Edinburgh when it opened its doors in the summer of 2022, and rightly so. Housed in two adjacent buildings on the easterly side of St Andrew Square, this is ostensibly – though not entirely – a members’ club. Still, non-members can dine in the restaurant (spectacular), stay in the rooms (delightful) and get squiffy in the rooftop bar (terrific). In fact, there are only a few things that overnighting non-members cannot do.
In the Townhouse, you can perceive a family resemblance to the original Gleneagles, though in terms of temperament—as well as scale, tone, and emphasis – she is very much her own person. Those who are charmed by teensy-weensy attic spaces with low ceilings and dormer windows overlooking the neighbors’ rooftops will love the Nook-category rooms. Those craving a little more space and a more expansive view – and not averse to some muted tram-rattle and bleeping in the street outside – will prefer the Masters. There is also a category, House, in between. And the restaurant, which has quickly become a mainstay of travel social media feeds, is particularly wonderful.
Courtesy Rusacks St AndrewsRusacks St Andrews
To golf enthusiasts, the Old Course at St Andrews is hallowed ground—and Rusacks is separated from it by nothing more than a low wooden rail. To non-golfers, the hotel is a charming, historic base from which to explore charming, historic St Andrews. The city’s other principal points of interest—the cathedral and castle ruins, the harbor and pier, and the university—are within easy walking distance. The magnificent beach where the opening sequence of Chariots of Fire was filmed is directly opposite, just beyond that broad strip of well-mowed lawn, sorry, beyond the golf course. Following a change of ownership and a major refurbishment, Rusacks reopened in 2021. The rooms are Victorian in style, with Scottish accents and golf-related accouterments, plus big bathrooms and Chrome-enabled TVs so golfers can live-stream tournaments from elsewhere in the world even if there is one taking place below their balcony at the same time. Look out for the sculpted godwits in the chandeliers—a lovely touch, easily missed. The brand-new rooftop restaurant, 18, is a fine-dining affair that specializes in beef, game, and seafood. The views are as delicious as anything on the menu—possibly the best views in town if you step onto the narrow outdoor terrace (which, rather wonderfully, includes a tiny putting green of its own).
Courtesy Virgin Hotels EdinburghVirgin Hotels Edinburgh
Located in the Old Town, Virgin Hotels Edinburgh occupies a prime spot on curvy, hilly Victoria Street, and comprises not one but several connected buildings that extend all the way down to Cowgate. The 222 rooms are all, irrespective of their size, designed in a “two-chamber” style, with sliding doors separating both sleeping/living and bathroom areas, dividing them up in a way that is intended to enhance rather than diminish the sense of space. The Commons Club Restaurant and Bar are both terrific —notable additions to a city already blessed with more than its share of excellent restaurants and bars.
Courtesy The Dipping LuggerThe Dipping Lugger, Ullapool
The view of Loch Broom, on the north-west coast of Scotland from the Dipping Lugger in Ullapool is terrific. This small, staycationer's dream has just three rooms, each different in tone and atmosphere but all equally cozy and comfortable. The food and drink are the main event, though—a tasting menu of seven courses is served at dinner, and four courses at lunch. (Breakfast is served to overnight guests only.) The dining room has space for 18, though it feels smaller and more intimate than that. It makes for a truly special, intimate stay.
Courtesy Waldorf AstoriahotelWaldorf Astoria Edinburgh - The Caledonian
$$$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023Expect nothing but grandeur from “The Caley” (which remains The Caley, no matter what the ownership), one of Edinburgh’s two majestic old railway spots (the other being Rocco Forte’s Balmoral). The sheer scale of the property is impressive, as are the unbeatable views and excellent location. There’s an array of room categories, from a single-bed eyrie with castle views to a range of suites, all different in dimensions and decor, but all classic-contemporary in style. The rooms on the Lothian Road side have the money view of the smoldering black outline of the Castle on its rock.
Courtesy Glenapp CastlehotelGlenapp Castle Hotel
Readers' Choice Awards 2022, 2023If nothing else, Glenapp Castle—once the home of P&O supremo Lord Inchcape—proves that this criminally overlooked corner of Ayrshire does grand baronial-style architecture, moody coastline, rolling moorland, picturesque livestock, and eccentric aristocrats just as well as anywhere else in Scotland. The castle is approached by means of a lovely mile-long drive that winds its way up through a densely forested gorge so wildly luxuriant, so thick with ferns, firs, rhododendrons, and redwoods as to seem almost otherworldly.
This pleasantly disorientating sensation is dispelled as you emerge at the threshold of the castle itself, a textbook affair of towers, turrets, and battlements. From one side, you look onto an immaculately ordered walled garden by Gertrude Jekyll; from the other, across the Irish Sea towards Ailsa Craig, the Mull of Kintyre, and the Isle of Arran. Glenapp reopened in 2021 after extensive renovation. A fantastic new four-bedroom penthouse suite was unveiled. The entire place is a paradise for families and anyone with an outdoorsy bent. The hotel’s Hebridean Sea Safari—a tour of the neighboring islands with an experienced RNLI skipper and a marine biologist, glamping in fancy tents on remote shores, catered to by a private chef—is not to be missed.
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Courtesy The Balmoral, A Rocco Forte HotelhotelThe Balmoral, A Rocco Forte Hotel
$$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023Thanks to its imposing 190-foot clock tower, Edinburgh’s original grand dame The Balmoral is a local landmark and an unmistakable part of the Scottish capital’s skyline. The neo-Renaissance building sitting on Princes Street opened in 1902 as the North British Railway Hotel. A few years ago, the Rocco Forte group gave the place a makeover—all fern greens and heather purples. Most of the rooms have soaring ceilings and gentle nods to Scottish heritage without relying too heavily on tartans and biscuit tin clichés. There’s a Michelin-starred restaurant, Number One; an elegant Palm Court for afternoon tea; and the Brasserie Prince, a more relaxed spot for supper; as well as two bars, private dining rooms, and a spa. Edinburgh’s first stately hotel is still its finest.
Courtesy GleneagleshotelGleneagles
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Gold List 2024 Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023The most famous hotel in Scotland had a seriously slick makeover in 2017. Ennismore, the group behind the smartly urban Hoxton hotels, took the 1920s property under its wing and brought in design studio Goddard Littlefair to oversee the costume change. Rather than leaning into any twee, tartan Scottish clichés, Paisley fabrics and wood paneling nod to the Georgian heritage but keep things fresh and far from dusty. But really, you come here to be outside—this is a hunting and fishing hotspot, with 850 acres of grounds to explore across the heathery Ochil Hills. There is a cluster of restaurants, including the two Michelin-starred Restaurant Andrew Fairlie and the more laidback Birnham Brasserie. This is a place to embrace Scotland’s history and landscapes and is easily one of the most all-encompassing places to stay anywhere in the UK. A true classic.
Simon Callaghan/IHG Hotels & ResortsVoco Grand Central Hotel Glasgow
No other hotel in Glasgow is more intimately connected to the city than this one, physically, socially, and sentimentally. The location—its walls form two sides of the Central Station—is unique. Most locals will have had something to do with it—will have had a drink or dinner there, attended a wedding reception or a work event, will have looked up to check the time on its splendid clock tower. Many city-center hotels exist in isolation from their surroundings, full of people from elsewhere. The Grand Central is not like that—it is Glasgow in miniature. Acquired in 2018 by the InterContinental Hotels Group, it reopened, extensively renovated, under their voco brand name in 2021.
The rooms are comfortable and contemporary yet retain enough of their Victorian swank (and quirks) to lift them out of the ordinary. The gigantic globe chandelier above the Champagne Bar, a glitterball de luxe, might almost serve as a civic emblem, suspended between a gold-leaf-encrusted ceiling and a fine marble floor, while at neighboring tables laddies and lassies partake in fizz and blether on to each other, and wee wise grannies who’ve heard all that before make quick work of their Porn Star Martinis, and outside the currents of a great city go swirling by.
Bildagntur/AlamyhotelKinloch Lodge
Gold List 2023This is the centuries-old home of the McDonald clan, a former hunting lodge on the Isle of Skye that’s still looked after by the family. Windows overlook the inky sea-loch Na Dal and across to Skye’s craggy mountains. Inside Kinloch Lodge, the beds are voluminous and set beneath 16th-century portraits of former Stuart kings, and there’s cinnamon-buttered oatmeal for breakfast. On that note, the kitchen really is something special, care of chef Jordan Webb who has swapped tasting menus for a more pared-back affair that hones in on local produce. All the bedrooms have widescreen loch views, fires roar throughout, and there’s a spa where long-serving masseuse Anita Myatt oversees a holistic menu of treatments.
Courtesy The Fife ArmshotelThe Fife Arms
$$ | Gold List 2020 Readers' Choice Awards 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023In 2009 Manuela and Iwan Wirth—arguably the most influential contemporary art dealers in the world today—transformed Durslade Farm, a working farm near Bruton, Somerset into a wildly successful gallery-guesthouse-restaurant combo. Mud, manure, macrobiotics, and masterpieces. Ten years later they put a similar kind of lightning in a different sort of bottle at the other end of the country, in the Scottish Highlands with the Fife Arms, a former hunting lodge in Braemar not far from Balmoral Castle.
Balmoral was the preferred rural hideout of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Together they more or less invented the tartan-clad, caber-tossing, shortbread-tin version of Scottishness that most of us these days accept as historical fact. The Fife Arms takes this quaint fantasy, spikes its whisky with acid, electrifies the bagpipes, and dials them up to 11.
It would be difficult to overstate the strangeness of the place or the sense of childlike wonder to which it gives rise. Scotland has some fine hotels but the Fife Arms is something else. For now, at least, it’s in a category all its own.
Courtesy The Belmond Royal ScotsmanThe Belmond Royal Scotsman
The outfit that runs this experience, Belmond, used to be called Orient-Express—and you've probably heard the name. As well as the familiar Venice-Simplon affair, Belmond operates lots of other similarly glamorous rail routes, together with some of the world’s top hotels, including the Cadogan in London, the Cipriani in Venice, and the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro. The lusciousness quotient of these places is replicated aboard the Royal Scotsman; the main difference between those brick-and-mortar hotels and this hotel on wheels is a difference of scale. Belmond offers half a dozen or so itineraries across Scotland, varying in route and duration. All involve excursions off the train to visit castles, whisky distilleries, seal colonies, and much more. Don’t forget to pack your penguin suit or ballgown, as appropriate—people traveling on the Royal Scotsman really do wear these things—the fun of dancing late at night on an empty station platform somewhere in the Highlands with a group of similarly gussied-up fellow travelers, is not to be underestimated.
Courtesy Killiehuntly Farmhouse & CottagehotelKilliehuntly Farmhouse & Cottage
$$ | Hot List 2017The good life never looked better than it does at this impeccably renovated 16th-century farmhouse set on a 4,000-acre Highland estate near Kingussie, south of Inverness. There are four double rooms upstairs in the farmhouse, a hayloft above the steadings, and two self-catering cottages. Only one of the farmhouse rooms has an en suite bathroom, which, if nothing else, increases your sense of being at home rather than in a hotel—but all are decorated with great flair and subtlety. The style is a charming Scandi-Scot hybrid, combining sleek, angular, modern Danish design with a stodgy, four-square, Highland farmhouse vernacular. Hence you’ll find your Bamse chair sprouting a shaggy Shetland sheepskin, pale linen curtains framing your shuttered sash windows, and thickly knotted rugs in elegantly hushed tones to soften and warm the bare wooden floorboards. In short, not a trace of the usual Victorian tartan-and-antlers kitsch.
Congratulations for which are due in large measure to Anne Holch Povlsen, the wife of Anders Holch Povlsen, a Danish billionaire and conservationist who, with various Wildland-branded properties (of which Killiehuntly is one), not long ago leapfrogged the Duke of Buccleuch to become the largest private landowner in Scotland.
Fran Mart/Courtesy Lundies HouseLundies House
The latest addition to the portfolio of Wildland properties owned by Anders Hoch Povlsen, an extremely rich Dane, and his wife Anne, is a Victorian manse in the tiny town of Tongue, near the top of mainland Scotland, two-and-a-bit hours from Inverness. The town comprises a couple of pubs, a post office, a doctor’s surgery, a handful of bungalows, and not much else. There are four double rooms at Lundies House, three in an adjoining building, and a self-catering, two-bedroom bunkhouse suitable for families.
The style throughout is muted, pared-down, and a little woolly-bobbly-scratchy—yet utterly sumptuous in that way that northern Europeans do better than anyone else. Rustic, yes, but only if your definition of rustic includes museum-quality furniture, collectible art, and piles of coffee-table books. Lundies House is perhaps the most versatile of the various Wildland properties, equally good for families and solo recluses, daydreamers, and sporty/outdoorsy types—nearby Kinloch Lodge (also Wildland) is a fully equipped sporting estate. Povlsen has made no secret of his desire to rewild great tracts of the Highlands. This is a fascinating, complicated, and, in Scotland, sensitive subject. A visit to a Wildland property could easily become something more than a spoiling mini-break in agreeable surroundings. It might change the way you think about the world around you.
A version of this article originally appeared in Condé Nast Traveller.
