Survival Guide - Discover Scotland: Experience the Best of Scotland - page 645

Accommodation
Scotland provides a comprehensive choice of accommodation to suit all visitors.
For budget travel, the options are campsites, hostels and cheap B&Bs. Above this price
level is a plethora of comfortable B&Bs and guesthouses (£25 to £40 per person per night).
Midrange hotels are present in most places, while for high-end lodgings (£65-plus per per-
son a night) there are some superb hotels, the most interesting being converted castles and
mansions, or chic designer options in cities.
If you're travelling solo, expect to pay a supplement in hotels and B&Bs, meaning you'll
often be forking over 75% of the price of a double for your single room.
Almost all B&Bs, guesthouses and hotels (and even some hostels) include breakfast in
the room price.
Prices increase over the peak tourist season (June to September) and are at their highest
in July and August. Outside of these months, and particularly in winter, special deals are
often available at guesthouses and hotels.
If you're going to be in Edinburgh in the festival month of August or at Hogmanay (New
Year), book as far in advance as you can - a year if possible - as the city will be packed.
Tourist offices have an accommodation booking service (£4), which can be handy over
summer. However, note that they can only book the ever-decreasing number of places that
are registered with VisitScotland ( 0845 859 1006; www.visitscotland.com/accommodation ) .
There are many other fine accommodation options which, mostly due to the hefty registra-
tion fee, choose not to register with the tourist board. Registered places tend to be a little
pricier than nonregistered ones. VisitScotland's star system is based on a rather arbitrary set
of criteria, so don't set too much store by it.
Practicalities
• » Leaf through Edinburgh's Scotsman newspaper or Glasgow's Herald ; the latter is over 225 years old.
• » Have a giggle at the popular Labour-influenced tabloid, the Daily Record, or try the Sunday Post for rose-tinted
nostalgia.
• » BBC Radio Scotland (AM 810kHz, FM 92.4-94.7MHz) provides a Scottish point of view.
• » Watch BBC1 Scotland, BBC2 Scotland and ITV stations STV or Border. Channels Four and Five are nationwide
channels with unchanged content for Scotland.