Best Scottish Tours

Best Scottish Tours: escorted small group travel across Scotland

Best Scottish Tours is a family business based in Dunoon, Argyll, that has spent more than two decades organising escorted tours of Scotland. Its standard product is a small group format capped at eight passengers per vehicle, with departures ranging from one to thirteen days. The company presents itself as a specialist in inclusive packages: driver/guide, vehicle, dinner, accommodation and attraction admissions are bundled into the tour price rather than sold separately.

The operator describes its drivers and guides as the element that brings an itinerary to life, citing their knowledge of the country and their role in interpreting places that a guidebook cannot convey. Pick-ups are offered from anywhere in Scotland, most commonly Edinburgh or Glasgow.

Tour formats and how they are sold

The catalogue is organised around several distinct products:

• Scotland tours by departure month, with a published calendar running from October 2026 through September 2027 and again from April to August 2028.
• Ireland tours, listed as a separate line alongside the Scottish programme.
• Custom tours, built around the client's own idea of a holiday.
• Mini tours, the shorter end of the range, with itineraries such as a four-day Historic Castles route.
• Private tours for groups of two or more, using a dedicated vehicle and personal driver/guide.

Accommodation is described as hand-picked, and the company states that bookings for lodging, meals and attractions are included in the package. The stated intention is that guests stay, eat and visit what it considers high-quality, authentic properties and attractions.

Private and custom itineraries

For groups of two or more, the company offers a private version of its tours in which the party travels in its own vehicle with a personal driver/guide for the duration. On set itineraries this allows more time at the attractions that interest the group; the itinerary itself can also be redrawn to include specific places or activities. The same private format is used for custom tours, where the route is designed around the client's interests and budget.

One of the customer accounts reproduced on the site describes a custom tour built around family genealogy, tracing ancestors from Stirling Castle into Perthshire and the Black Isle, with the itinerary adapted to the research the travellers had already done.

Where the tours go

The company summarises its coverage as spanning the Highlands and Lowlands, the Western Isles of Skye, Harris, Lewis, Mull and Iona, the malt whisky regions of Strathspey and Islay, the islands of Orkney and the North Coast 500. Individual itineraries named on the site include a five-day Winter Highlands & Skye tour departing from Glasgow or Edinburgh.

Prices and availability as listed

At the time of writing this profile, the site listed the five-day Winter Highlands & Skye tour on three departures — 26 October, 7 November and 23 November 2026 — at £2,575 per person based on two sharing, with eight spaces remaining on each date. These figures and departure details reflect the catalogue as published and are subject to change.

Recognition and customer feedback

The company refers to itself as award-winning and displays the title Scottish Tour Company of the Year 2023. It also points readers to reviews on TripAdvisor, where the testimonials reproduced on its site are rated five stars. Those accounts, dated between June and September 2024, describe multi-day trips of four and ten days and a private genealogy-focused tour, and single out individual driver/guides by name.

Company details

Best Scottish Tours LTD is registered in Scotland under company number SC282879, with a registered address at 137 Ardenslate Road, Dunoon, Argyll, PA23 8GZ.