Planning a trip to Scotland with kids and looking for family-friendly tours? Keep scrolling to check out the coolest Scotland tours for families that your kids will love!
This list of kid-friendly Scotland tours for families was written by family travel expert Marcie Cheung and contains affiliate links which means if you purchase something from one of my affiliate links, I may earn a small commission that goes back into maintaining this blog.
My family LOVES to do tours when we travel. It’s a nice way for the kids to get a break from us talking to them and they are able to interact with locals.
We recently spent 10 days in Scotland and we did 5 tours that were really cool.
I know how hard it can be to find tours that are family-friendly. These are tours that my family actually did and I’m writing from first-hand experience.
Keep scrolling to see if you’d like to add any of these tours to your Scotland itinerary!
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5 Kid-Friendly Tours in Scotland for Families
The Potter Trail Tour
The first tour we did in Edinburgh was The Potter Trail Tour. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, this is a must-do because J.K. Rowling wrote all the books in Edinburgh and many places there inspired places in the book.
We opted for the private tour (my family likes to ask a lot of questions and get a personalized experience) but there’s also a free group tour that would be great!
Our tour guide Allistair was incredibly knowledgeable and knew exactly how to engage our 7yo and 10yo while still providing tons of info that my husband and I would appreciate.
A few highlights of this tour were exploring Greyfriars Kirkyard Cemetary (specifically to see Tom Riddell’s grave), the real Elephant House (where J.K. Rowling wrote several of the books), and walking around Victoria Street (which inspired Diagon Alley).
My kids also loved learning a spell and using it to change the traffic lights when we needed to cross the street!
Private Outlander Tour with Andy the Highlander
My kids voted this the best thing we did in Scotland and I’d have to agree! We booked a private tour but he also offers group tours that I think would also be amazing.
If you don’t know, Andy the Highlander is a famous Scottish content creator and he’s had some viral videos about how to put on a kilt (which is how we first discovered him). He’s also been featured in a bunch of Outlander scenes and he’s passionate about the show.
He’s a dad with young kids so he knew exactly how to make his tour kid-friendly for our family. That meant that the van was FULLY stocked with snacks/drinks, there were Scottish kids books for them to look through on the drive, a playground stop, and scavenger hunts at historical sites.
It also meant that he dressed up our whole family in kilts, gave us fake weapons, and had us do an epic family battle that he filmed on my phone!
He also taught us how to sword fight, which was a lot of fun!
My kids learned a LOT about Scotland’s history and my husband and I got to geek out with an Outlander fan for a day!
Scotland in a Day Tour with Tartan Viking
While this wasn’t set up to focus on kids, the Tartan Viking Scotland in a Day Tour was a really cool way to see a lot of Scotland in a short amount of time.
Our driver Calum met us in Edinburgh and we only had 1 other person on our tour. She was really cool and we adopted her into our family so it felt like a private tour.
Calum works as an extra on lots of TV shows and movies filmed in Scotland so it was fun to hear his stories along the way.
We drove all the way to Glencoe, stopping several times on the way there and back to take photos, explore an area, or grab something to eat. One highlight was getting to feed Highland Coos!
In hindsight, we should have brought some activities for the kids to do in the car because many of the stops were 30-60 minutes away.
Isle of Skye Tour
Another one of our favorite kid-friendly tours in Scotland was the Isle of Skye tour with John from Aye Tours Scotland. He picked us up from our hotel in Inverness and drove us all the way to Skye with some really cool stops along the way.
John was a lovely man who was passionate about highland history and culture and our whole family learned a lot from him.
A few tour highlights included exploring the caves and jagged peaks in the Fairy Glen (my kids said this was their best adventure ever), walking along the ridge at the Quiriang for epic photos, walking around Eilean Donan Castle while seeing the opening scene from Highlander, and seeing the plastic horse wearing sunglasses!
While it was a long day (about 11 hours), the kids were comfortable in the van and enjoyed hearing the stories and playing on their iPads during the longer stretches. Check out some top things to do on the Isle of Skye.
Loch Ness Tour
One of the most iconic places in Scotland is Loch Ness and that’s mainly due to the sea monster Nessie!
We did an 8-hour tour with Rabbie’s to experience Loch Ness in a day. It included cool photo stops, beautiful waterfalls, lunch in Port Augustus, exploring Urquhart Castle, and taking a cruise down part of Loch Ness.
Rabbie’s picked us all up from a meeting point in Inverness and we hopped on their 15-passenger mini-bus. It was quite comfortable and we appreciated the skylights and massive side windows (which helped with motion sickness).
My husband and I really appreciated the commentary from our guide Graeme because he genuinely seemed interested in sharing his highland history with us. And the kids appreciated the frequent stops so they could stretch their legs.
Best Kid-Friendly Scotland Tours Wrap-Up
I hope this helps you plan your Scotland family itinerary! We had a lot of fun on these tours and my kids learned a LOT about Scottish history and culture!
Looking for more Scotland travel resources? Check out How to Plan a Budget-Friendly Photo Shoot in Edinburgh, Scotland, 13 Must-Read Scotland Travel Tips for First-Timers, Best Harry Potter Places in Scotland Worth Visiting
