The 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 traveller.
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 cosy 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 favourites, in no particular order.
- Alex Macleod
Lundies House
Featured in our Gold List of the best hotels in the world 2024.
I’ve always loved the subtle sensations of a hotel waking up, but Lundies House takes it to another level. At the crack of dawn, a thin silver light drips over the masses of purple loosestrife flowers that wave against the big solid stones and sash windows of the old manse. Then, for hours, just the wind in the garden and curlews (curlews!) across the Kyle of Tongue: a pristine sea loch that unfurls in a vast façade beyond the house and the little village of Tongue on its eastern shore. Eventually, the distant clatter of someone lighting a fire comes from one of the sitting rooms followed by a padding off along slate flags into a kitchen where a chef is tuning the radio. Is this the most beautiful hotel north of Inverness? I’d say so, and go into a daze thinking about it. Tranquil Scandinavian design and bespoke Scottish cabinetry typify the 15 properties across three significant estates owned by Dane Anders Holch Povlsen, but Lundies is the jewel. Its launch four years ago, just before the pandemic, went somewhat unnoticed. The thick stone walls of the 1842 former clergy house (Reverend Lundie was an early resident) are gorgeously bolstering. Here you’re swaddled from the temperature shifts of Scotland’s rocky Highland coastline. A handful of bedrooms upstairs in a supremely lulling colour palette and a few more in what were steadings in a courtyard make eight. On the ground floor of the main house are warm, communal areas equipped for restoration and relaxation. Lundies has achieved the holy grail of the small hotel: the atmosphere of an intimate country house that is as private or clubbable as the mood takes you. There are no enforced chats between guests, but no awkward silences either. The staff are present but not neurotically so. Lundies’ food is immaculately seasonal and local. Chanterelles are like golden coins and crabs taste of a bracing morning walk along the sand. In the kitchen, I spotted homemade jars of gem-coloured preserves: damsons, rowan bud vinegar, toasted hay and spruce. There’s a natural pool for swimming in a stream in the garden and a luminous little dining room with walls hand-painted by a botanical artist in a shimmering dreamscape of midsummer blossom. When lit by candles it’s quite a thing to behold, especially after sitting around the massive iron fire pit at dusk in the courtyard, drinking Orkney gin and watching the summer’s second batch of swallows whirling in and out of the wood stack. Antonia Quirke
Address: Lundies House, Tongue, Lairg IV27 4XF
Price: Doubles from £450 full board Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire
Featured in our Gold List of the best hotels in the world 2024.
This is a hotel that needs no introduction. An 850-acre estate set against the sprawling Scottish countryside, Gleneagles gained icon status pretty rapidly after it opened in 1924 and soon became known as one of the world’s loveliest hotels for golfing, relaxing and exploring the bonny lands beyond. Home to three world-class golf courses (the King’s Course, Queen’s Course and PGA Centenary Course), the hotel reached new levels of fame in 2014 when hosting the 40th Ryder Cup. Beyond golf, Gleneagles is much loved by an array of celebrities who flock to the estate to spend time in the great outdoors (the hotel offers falconry, fishing, shooting, archery and more) or kick back in the award-winning spa, with two indoor pools, an outdoor thermal pool and 20 treatment rooms where guests can settle down for massages that use lotions and potions made with local ingredients and Scottish botanicals. Lydia Bell
Address: Gleneagles Hotel, The, Auchterarder PH3 1NF
Price: Doubles from £380
hotelCameron House, Loch Lomand
A prized spot on the beauty bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, this quintessential Scottish pile is precisely the wild, romantic tangle of towers, turrets and castellations you would wish it to be. Notable previous guests have included Winston Churchill and Barack Obama, and yet the bolthole 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’s plenty of trad pursuits to blow away the cobwebs with – fishing, country walks, 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 bolthole 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 centre, plus a magical fairy trail to follow and gifted teddy bears to take home. Lauren Burvill
Address: Loch Lomond, Alexandria G83 8QZ
Price: Rooms from around £340- Alexander Baxter, Hästenshotel
The Sail Loft, Eilean Shona
Eilean Shona is close enough to the mainland that deer can swim from one to the other. Best leave that to the deer. You will be met at the jetty in the shadow of the splendid ruin of Castle Tioram and skimmed across to Eilean Shona by boat. Originally purchased by a certain Captain Swinburne in the mid-19th century, the island’s current custodian is Vanessa Branson. Though less widely known than her brother Richard, she has had an interesting career as, among other things, a gallerist, festival organiser and co-owner of El Fenn, a cultishly admired hotel in Marrakech. She filled the main house on Eilean Shona with art and Moroccan furnishings; then, one by one, did up the outlying crofters’ cottages and abandoned school. The Sail Loft, the latest addition to the inventory, is a barn-like structure with a pitched roof that sleeps four. At one end is a cosy twin bedroom, ideal for children. At the other end, overlooking the loch, is a sumptuous master suite, with a football-field-sized £75,000 (yes, you read that correctly) Hästens bed. The kitchen is well-equipped, and foraging on the island is encouraged. Tuesday night is pub night in the so-called Village Hall – a great opportunity to meet guests from the other cottages and locals from the mainland, and, if you like, to retox on biodynamic wine, craft ale or, of course, whisky. Steve King
Address: Eilean Shona, Inner Hebrides
Price: From £3,000 per week
Rusacks St Andrews
To golf nuts, 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 harbour and pier, 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 approximately Victorian in style, with Scottish accents and golf-related accoutrements, plus big bathrooms and Chrome-enabled TVs so golf tragics can live-stream golf 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 specialises 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).
Address: Pilmour Links, St Andrews KY16 9JQ
Price: Doubles from £215Virgin Hotels Edinburgh
Located in the Old Town, the hotel 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 loo/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.
Address: 1, India Buildings, Victoria St, Edinburgh EH1 2EX
Price: Doubles from £300The 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 cosy and comfortable. The food and drink is the main event, though: a tasting menu of seven courses is served at dinner, four courses at lunch. (Breakfast is served to overnighting 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.
Address: 4 W Shore St, Ullapool IV26 2UR
Price: Doubles from £410Waldorf Astoria, Edinburgh – The Caledonian
Expect nothing but grandeur from ‘The Caley’ (which remains The Caley, no matter what the ownership), one of Edinburgh’s two majestic old railway ladies (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 smouldering black outline of the Castle on its rock.
Address: Princes St, Edinburgh EH1 2AB
Price: Doubles from £290Read our review of Waldorf Astoria, Edinburgh – The Caledonian
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Glenapp Castle
If 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, however, dispelled as you, at last, 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 neighbouring 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.
Address: Glenapp Castle, Ballantrae, Girvan KA26 0NZ
Price: Doubles from £293- Gleneagles Townhousehotel
Gleneagles Townhouse, Edinburgh
Everyone knows all about the original Gleneagles in rural Perthshire, which has long been the stuff of legend. Acquired by Ennismore in 2015, it was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and an invigorating defibrillator blast – and it worked. The place has surely never looked better or felt more lively than it does today. You can perceive a family resemblance in the Townhouse, though in terms of temperament – as well as scale, tone, and emphasis – she is very much her own person. This is ostensibly – though not entirely – a members’ club, though it most respects it also functions as a normal hotel. Non-members can dine in the restaurant (spectacular), stay in the rooms (delightful), and get squiffy in the rooftop bar (terrific). Senior staff members are notable for their presence. You see them all the time, they remember your name, they are actively solicitous of your well-being, and they will actually take time to chat – all of which is more impressive and less common than it might sound. Rooms from around £485. Steve King
Address: 39 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh EH2 2AD
Price: Doubles from £495 The Balmoral, Edinburgh
Thanks to its imposing 190ft 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 about 120 years ago, 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.
Address: 1 Princes St, Edinburgh EH2 2EQ
Price: Doubles from £235Voco Grand Central Hotel Glasgow
No other hotel in Glasgow is more intimately connected to the city than this one, physically, socially, 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-centre 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 neighbouring 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.
Address: 99 Gordon St, Glasgow G1 3SF
Price: Doubles from £79
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Kinloch Lodge, Isle of Skye
This 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, the beds are voluminous, set beneath 16th-century portraits of former Stuart kings and there’s cinnamon-buttered oatmeal for breakfast, and kedgeree balancing a perfectly poached egg like an acrobat (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.
Address: A851, Sleat, Isle of Skye IV43 8QY
Price: Doubles from £360The Fife Arms
In 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.
Address: Mar Rd, Braemar, Ballater AB35 5YN
Price: Doubles from £450The Belmond Royal Scotsman
Something of a marvel, this. A wonder. The outfit that runs it, Belmond, used to be called Orient-Express. You have 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 bricks-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 whatnot. Don’t forget to pack your penguin suit or ballgown, as appropriate. People travelling on the Royal Scotsman really do wear these things. The fun of dancing a reel in your glad rags, late at night on an empty station platform somewhere in the Highlands, with a group of similarly gussied-up fellow-travellers, is not to be underestimated.
Price: Trips from £6,000
Read our round-up of the 6 scenic train journeys in Scotland: see the stunning pictures
- Martin Kaufmann
Killiehuntly Farmhouse and cottages
The 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.
Address: Killiehuntly, Kingussie PH21 1NZ
Price: Doubles from £240