Scotland’s wild landscape is just waiting to be discovered! Thanks to its rugged and expansive terrain, it is best traveled by car. To make the most of your trip, read on to learn how to successfully rent & drive a car through Scotland.
As you may know, the driver sits on the right side of the car and drives in the left lane in the UK. This is opposite of most of the rest of the world, and can be intimidating. If you are a brave soul looking for a challenge and a bit of an adrenaline rush, rent (or “hire” as the British say) a car! I’ll walk you through the logistics, provide helpful tips, navigation guidance and pros and cons to help you decide if you want to hire and drive a car through Scotland.
Logistics: How to Rent a Car in Scotland
We hired a car for 4 days during our two week backpacking trip through England, Scotland and Wales. Having a car gives you flexibility and the luxury of easily seeing all the sites on your UK bucket list.
First things first, you need to make an itinerary and decide how you plan to get to and from all of your destinations. We relied on trains mostly throughout England, then hired a car to drive up to Scotland.
Once I knew which days we wanted to hire the car, I browsed online booking sites. We have used Enterprise to rent cars in Montana & Wyoming, and New Hampshire & Maine. I booked with Enterprise since we are most familiar with them and found fair pricing.
I played around with pick up locations, and found it cheaper to hire the car from Kendal in the Lake District of England. We were lucky to have friends in Liverpool that had offered to drive us to Kendal to pick up the car, which gave us some flexibility and saved us money.
You can pick up and drop off your car at different Enterprise locations, just like in the states. So for us, we picked our car up in Kendal, England and returned it in Edinburgh, Scotland.
For most drivers, an automatic transmission is probably your safest bet. Automatic cars are harder to come by across the pond, and more expensive. But renting a car with an automatic transmission was a non-negotiable for me. Even if you (or your partner) can drive a manual, keep in mind you will need to shift with your left hand since everything is backwards. Shifting while navigating and driving foreign terrain was just too tall of an order for me. We were happy with our automatic.
Also, the smaller the car the less expensive. We chose a compact option and ended up with a Hyundai I10. Having a smaller car made it easier to navigate tight turns and park in small spaces. Since it was just my husband and I with our backpacks, this option worked fine.
Tips for Renting & Driving a Car through Scotland
Imagine having 367 miles of gas (or petrol) in your car, and 361 miles to your destination. At the beginning of your journey, you decide you’ll fill your tank when it gets down to 1/4 full. That seems like the responsible thing to do.
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You’re driving along, enjoying the scenery because Scotland is insanely picturesque (much more than I expected), and see frequent petrol stations on the side of the road. At 150 miles left in the tank, you decide to start looking for somewhere to get gas. But you don’t see any more stations.
For 150 miles, there were no more stations on the side of the road driving up to Inverness. Don’t be us! Let me help you avoid this very stressful predicament.
I recommend mapping our your gas stops before you get on the road while you have WiFi. And maybe even a back up option too. We did see one or two petrol images on road signs along the highway, but when we took the exit there was no petrol station in sight and no more signs to direct us right or left off the exit. And without service or WiFi, we couldn’t use our phones to help.
How to Navigate
On the topic of navigation, you must download Google Maps and prepare offline maps of all the area you plan to travel. Downloading offline maps means you can access these locations and navigate between them even when your cell phone is without service and WiFi. Fortunately, the drive options will navigate you turn by turn from point A to B on a downloaded offline map, but the feature of searching for things on the road or adding stops was really hit or miss for me.
Rent & Drive a Car through Scotland: FAQs
In case of emergencies, the UK has installed orange “SOS” phones on the roadside of the major thoroughfares about every 2-3 miles. This gave me some peace of mind just in case anything went wrong- since again our cell phones didn’t get reception or service.
There are frequent speed cameras throughout the UK, but most are advertised with a sign. they also have a good presence of unmarked police cars which again, are advertised with signs. Some laws include legislation to deter distracted driving, so no eating, drinking or cell phone use while operating your vehicle.
The UK’s highways use a letter system to denote how large the roadway is. Your “A” highways are major roadways, while your “B” roads are more rural farm roads often with only one lane for both directions of traffic, so use caution! There are often areas with a wider shoulder to use to pull off if needed to allow for oncoming traffic.
Pros & Cons of Renting & Driving a Car through Scotland
If you are anything like me, you like to have all the information and make a list in order to feel good about a decision. I’ve outlined Pros & Cons for you to consider if you are thinking about renting & driving a car through Scotland.
Pros:
-Flexibility
-See off the beaten path sites
-Check “renting a car in a foreign country” off your bucket list
-Independence
Cons:
-May cause anxiety
-More responsibility
-Expenses to consider: petrol and parking fees
-Learning curve to drive on the other side of the road
I was honestly 50/50, and could be persuaded either way to rent a car or not. However, my husband was all in. Since he would be the driver, I let him go ahead and rent the car. We have no regrets! Besides the incident with gas, there is no reason you shouldn’t enjoy the freedom of driving a car and being on your own schedule in England and Scotland.
Some areas that I would absolutely recommend having a car to tour include:
I hope I have provided helpful information to not only aid you in deciding whether you should rent & drive a car through Scotland, but also be prepared and informed to make sure it’s a safe and fun experience.
