Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
HISTORIC SCOTLAND AND NATIONAL TRUST FOR SCOTLAND
Many of Scotland's most treasured sights - from castles and country houses to islands, gardens
and tracts of protected landscape - come under the control of the privately run
National Trust
for Scotland
(
W
nts.org.uk) or the state-run
Historic Scotland
(
W
historic-scotland.gov.uk);
we've quoted “
NTS
” or “
HS
” respectively for each site reviewed in this guide. Both organizations
charge an admission fee for most places, and these can be quite high, especially for the more
grandiose NTS estates.
If you think you'll be visiting more than half a dozen NTS properties, or more than a
dozen HS ones, it's worth taking
annual membership
, which costs around £48 (HS) or £50
(NTS), and allows free admission to their properties. In addition, both the NTS and HS offer
short-term passes: the NTS has the
Discovery Ticket
, which costs between £25 for an
adult ticket lasting three days to £70 for a family ticket lasting fourteen days; and HS's
Explorer Pass
, ranging from £29 for three days (out of five) to £76 for seven days (out of
fourteen) for a family.
Laundry
Maps
Coin-operated
laundries
are still found in a few
Scottish cities and towns, but are becoming less and
less common. A wash followed by a spin or tumble
dry costs about £3.50; a “service wash” (having your
laundry done for you in a few hours) costs about £2
extra. In the more remote regions of Scotland, you'll
have to rely on hostel and campsite laundry facilities.
The most comprehensive maps of Scotland are
produced by the
Ordnance Survey
or OS
(
W
ordnancesurvey.co.uk), renowned for their
accuracy and clarity. Scotland is covered by 85 maps
in the 1:50,000 (pink)
Landranger
series which
shows enough detail to be useful for most walkers
and cyclists. There's more detail still in the full-colour
1:25,000 (orange)
Explorer
series, which covers
Scotland in around 170 maps. The full Ordnance
Survey range is only available at a few big-city stores
or online, although in any walking district of
Scotland you'll find the relevant maps in local shops
or tourist o
ces. If you're planning a walk of more
than a couple of hours in duration, or intend to walk
in the Scottish hills at all, it is strongly recommended
that you carry the relevant OS map and familiarize
yourself with how to navigate using it.
Virtually every service station in Scotland stocks at
least one large-format
road atlas
, covering all of
Britain at around three miles to one inch, and
generally including larger-scale plans of major
towns. For getting between major towns and cities
a sat nav or GPS-enabled smartphone is hard to
beat, but you'll have less luck in rural areas, where
landmarks and even entire roads can be positioned
incorrectly, leading to long and sometimes
expensive detours.
Mail
A stamp for a
first-class letter
to anywhere in the
British Isles currently costs 60p and should arrive
the next day; second-class letters cost 50p, taking
three days. Note that there are now size restric-
tions: letters over 240 x 165 x 5mm are designated
as “Large letters” and are correspondingly more
expensive to send. Prices to Europe and the rest of
the world vary depending on the size of the item
and how quickly you would like it delivered. To get
an idea of how much you'll need to spend, check
the
Royal
Mail
website
(
W
royalmail.com/
price-finder).
Note, that in many parts of the Highlands and
Islands there will only be one or two mail collections
each day, often at lunchtime or even earlier.
Stamps
can be bought at post o
ce counters or from
newsagents, supermarkets and local shops, although
they usually only sell books of four or ten stamps.
For general postal enquiries phone
T
0845 774
0740 (Mon-Fri 8am-6pm, Sat 8am-1pm), or visit
the website
W
royalmail.com. Most
post o
ces
are
open Monday to Friday 9am-5.30pm and Saturday
9am-12.30pm. In small communities you'll find
post o
ce counters operating out of a shop, shed
or even a private house and these will often keep
extremely
restricted hours
.
Money
The basic unit of
currency
in the UK is the pound
sterling (£), divided into 100 pence (p). Coins come
in denominations of 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and
£2. Bank of England £5, £10, £20 and £50 banknotes
are legal tender in Scotland; in addition the
Bank of
Scotland
(HBOS), the
Royal Bank of Scotland
(RBS)
