The Edinburgh Tour GuideEverything we recommend across the site, gathered in one place. Sixteen tours, tickets and tastings, grouped by what you are actually trying to do rather than by who sells them.
One thing worth saying before you scroll: not everything we recommend is here. The Real Mary King's Close and Johnnie Walker Princes Street are both covered in full on their own guides, they simply do not sell through Viator, so there is no card to show, only a direct link to the operator's own site. We link to them anyway on the pages that cover them, because leaving out the best answer to save ourselves a missing commission would make every other recommendation on this page less trustworthy.
Whisky & distilleries
The full comparison, including which is a real working distillery and which is not, is in the whisky tours guide.
Scotch Whisky Experience: Silver Tour
Brand-neutral tour through Scotland's five whisky regions, a barrel ride, and one of the world's largest whisky collections on the Royal Mile.
Port of Leith Distillery: Tour & Tasting
A working still in the world's tallest whisky distillery. Fill and label your own bottle of new-make spirit, finish with a drink in the 8th-floor bar.
Holyrood Distillery: Whisky & Gin Tour
15 minutes from the Royal Mile. Real whisky and gin production on site, with tastings of both throughout the standard signature tour.
Whisky Tasting & Folklore, Edinburgh Pub
Four single malts from different regions in a cosy Old Town pub, with local stories from the guide between drams. No queues, no theatrics.
Underground & ghost tours
Two different sites get confused constantly, plus a third option covering both above and below ground in one evening. The real difference between the two Vaults operators is in the Vaults vs Mary King's Close guide.
Mercat Tours: Blair Street Underground Vaults
Mercat owns this stretch of the Vaults outright, so the storytelling is built around real history rather than a generic haunted-house script.
Auld Reekie Tours: Niddry Street & Cowgate Vaults
Add Greyfriars Kirkyard for the 90-minute version, or a shorter 60-minute vaults-only tour is also available with this operator.
The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour
An evening walking tour combining Old Town ghost stories with a stretch underground, over 10,000 reviews behind it, the largest sample of any product on this page.
Edinburgh Castle
The one attraction on this page nearly everyone books, and worth booking ahead. More on how to time it in things to do in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry
Skip-the-line entry plus a guide who covers the Crown Jewels, St Margaret's Chapel and the history most self-guided visitors miss.
Hop-on hop-off buses
Three of these four are one operator wearing three colours, not three rival companies, and the maths on which ticket actually saves money is in the hop-on hop-off guide.
City Sightseeing Edinburgh Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
City Centre Loop, Royal Mile, Old and New Town, multi-language audio, free headphones, kids' Horrible Histories track. Kids go free.
Edinburgh Hop-On Hop-Off City Tour with Live Guide
Same core route as CitySightseeing, but a live English-speaking guide on board instead of recorded, multi-language audio.
Royal Edinburgh Ticket: Hop-On Hop-Off + Attraction Admissions
48 hours across all three official routes plus guaranteed entry to Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and the Royal Yacht Britannia.
Big Bus Edinburgh 24 or 48 Hour Hop-On Hop-Off Tour
A genuinely separate operator from Lothian Buses, running its own two routes with commentary in 9 languages.
Highlands day trips
The real stop-by-stop time budget, and why the three-day version is cheapest per hour despite the highest sticker price, is in the Highlands day trip guide.
Edinburgh: Loch Ness, Glencoe and The Highlands
Large-coach day tour, the best-reviewed of the whole route with over 6,000 ratings, and the cheapest per hour of the one-day options.
Loch Ness, Scottish Highlands, Glencoe and Pitlochry Tour
The most-reviewed tour on this route, and the one that adds the Pitlochry stop covered in our time-budget breakdown.
Loch Ness & Highlands Small-Group Tour from Edinburgh with Cruise
16-seat minibus instead of a big coach, with the Loch Ness boat cruise built into the price rather than sold as an extra.
Edinburgh: Isle of Skye, Highlands and Loch Ness 3-Day Tour
Cheapest per hour of anything on this page, once you divide the sticker price by three full days instead of one.
Not sure yet?
This page is a shortlist, not advice. If you have not decided what to do with your time in Edinburgh, the guides are the better starting point: things to do, whisky, vaults & ghost tours, hop-on hop-off or day trips.
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