15 best day trips from Aberdeen, Scotland

South down the coast to Stonehaven and Angus

1. Dunnottar Castle and Stonehaven: Scotland’s most dramatic ruin

Dunnottar is the most spectacular castle ruin in Scotland, sitting on a great slab of rock surrounded by sea on three sides. It’s where the Honours of Scotland – the crown jewels – were hidden from Cromwell’s army in the 1650s, and it’s just 20 minutes from Aberdeen.

• Visit: Dunnottar Castle, then the harbour at Stonehaven.
• Walk: The clifftop path from Stonehaven to the castle (around 1.5 miles each way) – by far the best way to arrive.
• Eat at: The Bay Fish and Chips on Stonehaven harbour, one of the best chippies in Scotland.
• Get there: 20 minutes by car. Direct train from Aberdeen to Stonehaven, around 15 minutes, then a walk or short taxi.
• Good to know: Stonehaven has a 1930s open-air heated seawater pool, open in summer – and the famous Fireballs ceremony on Hogmanay.

Read more: Dunnottar Castle and the Angus coast.

2. Montrose Basin and Lunan Bay

Montrose Basin is a huge tidal lagoon and one of Scotland’s great wildlife spectacles. Every autumn, tens of thousands of pink-footed geese arrive from Iceland – up to 80,000 at the October peak – and pour in and out at dawn and dusk. Just south, Lunan Bay is a two-mile sweep of red sand you’ll often have to yourself.

• Visit: The Scottish Wildlife Trust visitor centre at Montrose Basin, which has telescopes and the best views.
• Walk: The length of Lunan Bay, with the ruins of Red Castle above the dunes. Lunan Bay Diner provides a campsite, cafe and farm shop.
• Get there: 45 minutes by car. Direct train from Aberdeen to Montrose, around 35 minutes.
• Good to know: for the geese, go at dawn or in the hour before sunset from late September to November.

3. Arbroath: smokies and the Declaration

Arbroath gave its name to the smokie – haddock smoked over hardwood in a barrel, and protected in the same way as champagne. Buy one straight from a smokehouse near the harbour. The town is also home to Arbroath Abbey, where the Declaration of Arbroath was signed in 1320.

• Visit: Arbroath Abbey (Historic Environment Scotland), and a harbour smokehouse.
• Walk: The Seaton Cliffs nature trail north from the harbour, past sea stacks and caves.
• Eat at: A ‘smokie’ is a delicacy of the harbour town of Arbroath. Haddock is dried in salt and then smoked over oak and beech chips for about an hour, often over whisky barrels. There are now around 15 small family smokie producers in Arbroath, firmly keeping the local fishing industry alive.
• Get there: 1 hour by car. Direct train from Aberdeen, around 50 minutes.

4. Dundee: design, discovery and the waterfront

Dundee has transformed itself, and V&A Dundee – Scotland’s design museum, on the redeveloped waterfront – is the reason to go. Next door is the RRS Discovery, the ship built in Dundee that carried Scott and Shackleton to Antarctica.

• Visit: V&A Dundee (free), RRS Discovery, and the Verdant Works jute mill museum.
• Eat at: Hofn Cafe – a super cool cafe with excellent coffee and Gallery 48 a wine and tapas bar in Dundee’s heritage quarter.
• Get there: 1 hour 15 minutes by car. Direct train from Aberdeen, around 1 hour 10 minutes.
• Make it a weekend: Stay at Hotel Indigo Dundee or the Hideaway Experience just outside the city.

Read more: 10 things to do in Dundee.

5. The Angus Glens and Corrie Fee

The Angus Glens run up into the southern Cairngorms, and Glen Clova is the most beautiful of them. At its head, Corrie Fee is a huge glacial bowl and a National Nature Reserve, with a waterfall pouring in at the back – one of the finest short mountain walks in Scotland.

• Walk: Corrie Fee from the Glen Doll ranger base (around 4 miles return).
• Eat at: The Glen Clova Hotel at the head of the glen.
• Get there: 1 hour 15 minutes by car via Kirriemuir. No public transport into the glens.

Read more: Corrie Fee in the Cairngorms and things to do in Angus.

West into Speyside, Royal Deeside and the Cairngorms

6. Speyside: the heart of whisky country

Speyside has more distilleries than anywhere else in Scotland, strung along the River Spey between Aberlour, Dufftown and Rothes. Even if you’re not a whisky drinker, the glens and the Speyside Way are lovely, and Aberlour makes a perfect base for a day.

• Visit: A distillery tour – Glenfiddich at Dufftown, Aberlour, or Ballindalloch. Book ahead.
• Walk: A stretch of the Speyside Way from Aberlour.
• Eat at: The Mash Tun in Aberlour, a whisky bar with rooms and one of the finest whisky collections in Scotland.
• Get there: 1 hour 15 minutes by car to Aberlour. By train, Keith or Elgin, then a bus or taxi.
• Good to know: if you’re tasting, take the train or nominate a driver – most distilleries offer drivers’ drams to take away.

Read more: things to do in Speyside that aren’t just whisky and my guide to Speyside whisky.

7. Crathes Castle and Banchory

A 16th-century tower house with painted ceilings, fairytale turrets and one of the best walled gardens in Scotland, where yew hedges planted in the early 1700s divide the garden into rooms. There’s a Go Ape treetop course in the grounds, which makes it a good one with children.

• Visit: Crathes Castle, Garden and Estate (National Trust for Scotland).
• Walk: The estate trails through the woods above the Dee.
• Get there: 30 minutes by car. Stagecoach buses run from Aberdeen to Banchory.
• Good to know: Crathes lights the walled garden and woodland for Christmas in December – find out more in my guide to light trails in Scotland.

8. Ballater and Balmoral: royal Deeside

Ballater is the prettiest town on Deeside. Balmoral, the royal family’s Highland home, opens its grounds and ballroom to visitors for part of the year, and Royal Lochnagar distillery is on the estate’s doorstep.

• Visit: Balmoral Castle (open seasonally – check dates), Royal Lochnagar distillery, and Ballater’s restored Victorian station.
• Walk: Craigendarroch, the oakwood hill above Ballater, or the Cambus o’ May suspension bridge.
• Get there: 1 hour by car. Stagecoach’s Deeside service runs from Aberdeen.
• Make it a weekend: Stay at The Queen’s Hut at Aboyne, a self-catering hut on its own loch.

Read more: how to visit Royal Deeside.

9. Braemar and the Linn of Dee

Braemar sits at the top of Deeside, deep in the Cairngorms, and it’s where the Braemar Gathering – the most famous Highland Games in the world – is held each September. Beyond the village, the Linn of Dee is a gorge where the river squeezes through the rock, on the edge of the Mar Lodge Estate.

• Visit: Braemar Castle, which is run by the community, and the Linn of Dee.
• Walk: Into the ancient pinewoods of Mar Lodge, Britain’s largest National Nature Reserve, and look for red squirrels.
• Eat at: The Fife Arms, a spectacular art hotel in the village.
• Get there: 1 hour 30 minutes by car.

Inland Aberdeenshire

10. Bennachie: the north-east’s favourite hill

Bennachie is Aberdeenshire’s hill – visible for miles, climbed by generations of locals, and topped by the rocky nipple of the Mither Tap with an Iron Age hillfort around it. It’s a straightforward couple of hours up and down, with a huge view.

• Walk: The Mither Tap from the Bennachie Centre (around 3 miles return, 1.5 to 2 hours).
• Get there: 45 minutes by car. Train to Inverurie, around 20 minutes, then a taxi.

Read more: the best hills for beginners in Scotland.

11. Fyvie Castle and the Castle Trail

Aberdeenshire has more castles than anywhere else in Britain, and the Castle Trail links the best of them. Fyvie is the most atmospheric – five towers, a great wheel stair, and enough ghost stories to fill an evening. Nearby, Castle Fraser and the pink-harled disney princes style Craigievar are both worth the detour.

• Visit: Fyvie Castle, Castle Fraser and Craigievar Castle (all National Trust for Scotland). Most open seasonally.
• Get there: 45 minutes by car to Fyvie.
• Make it a weekend: Stay at Meldrum House at Oldmeldrum, or Saplinbrae near Mintlaw.

Read more: things to do in Aberdeenshire and castles to visit in Scotland.

North up the Aberdeenshire coast

12. Bullers of Buchan and Slains Castle

The Bullers of Buchan is a collapsed sea cave – a great circular chasm in the cliffs with the sea surging in through a natural arch. In early summer the cliffs are packed with puffins and guillemots. A short walk along the coast is Slains Castle at Cruden Bay, a gaunt clifftop ruin said to have given Bram Stoker the idea for Dracula’s castle.

• Walk: The clifftop path between the Bullers and Slains (take care – the drops are unfenced and there are no barriers).
• Get there: 40 minutes by car up the A90.
• Good to know: puffins are usually on the cliffs from around April to July. Find out more about Puffins in Scotland.

13. Crovie, Gardenstown and Pennan: the prettiest coast in Scotland

Three tiny villages on the Banffshire coast, built at the foot of cliffs so steep the houses sit gable-end to the sea. Crovie is a single row of cottages with no road – residents park at the top and walk. Pennan is where Local Hero was filmed, and its red phone box is still there.

• Visit: All three, and the beach at Gardenstown.
• Get there: 1 hour by car. Parking is very limited in Crovie and Pennan, so go early.

Read more: things to do around the Moray Firth.

14. The Moray coast: beaches, beach huts and Bow Fiddle Rock

The Moray coast has the best beaches in the north-east and some of the sunniest weather in Scotland. Findhorn has a huge sandy bay, Hopeman has its brightly painted beach huts, Lossiemouth has two beaches and a lighthouse, and at Portknockie the Bow Fiddle Rock arches out of the sea like the tip of a violin bow.

• Visit: Bow Fiddle Rock at Portknockie, the beach huts at Hopeman, and Findhorn.
• Eat at: Cullen, for a bowl of Cullen skink in the town that invented it.
• Get there: 1 hour 15 minutes to Cullen, 1 hour 30 to Findhorn. Trains run from Aberdeen to Elgin, around 1 hour 20 minutes, then buses along the coast.

Read more: things to do around the Moray Firth.

15. Fraserburgh and Peterhead

The two big fishing towns of the north-east, and both have great museums. Fraserburgh has the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses at Kinnaird Head, where Scotland’s first mainland lighthouse was built on top of a 16th-century castle. Peterhead has the prison museum, in the jail that held some of Scotland’s most notorious prisoners until 2013.

• Visit: The Museum of Scottish Lighthouses and Peterhead Prison Museum.
• Get there: 50 minutes by car to Fraserburgh, 45 to Peterhead.

Day trips from Aberdeen without a car

Several of the day trips above are easy by train on the coastal line south, or the line west to Elgin:

• Stonehaven for Dunnottar Castle (15 min direct)
• Inverurie for Bennachie (20 min direct, then a taxi)
• Montrose for the geese (35 min direct)
• Arbroath for smokies and the abbey (50 min direct)
• Dundee for the V&A (1 hour 10 direct)
• Elgin for the Moray coast and Speyside (1 hour 20 direct, then buses)

Stagecoach buses run west along Deeside to Banchory, Aboyne, Ballater and Braemar, and north up the coast to Peterhead and Fraserburgh.

For the Angus Glens, the Castle Trail and the smaller coastal villages, you’ll need a car.

When to visit

• Spring (April–May): puffins return to the Bullers of Buchan, the castles reopen, and Aberdeen’s cherry blossom is out.
• Summer (June–August): the long light evenings, the Moray coast at its best, and Stonehaven’s open-air pool open.
• Autumn (September–October): the Braemar Gathering in early September, autumn colour on Deeside, and tens of thousands of geese arriving at Montrose Basin.
• Winter (November–March): snow on the Cairngorms above Braemar, Crathes lit up for Christmas, and the Stonehaven Fireballs on Hogmanay. Many castles close for the winter, so check before you travel.

Day trips from Aberdeen: frequently asked questions

Love from Scotland x

Read more

• Things to do in Aberdeen
• Things to do in Aberdeenshire
• How to visit Royal Deeside
• Things to do around the Moray Firth
• Things to do in Speyside that aren’t just whisky
• Things to do in Angus
• Day trips from Edinburgh · from Glasgow · from Inverness