The Scottish Book Club Tour

Literary sites we visit

• Edinburgh, UNESCO City of Literature
• Writers’ Museum
• Scottish Storytelling Centre
• Scottish Poetry Library
• Arthur’s Seat
• Abbotsford House, home of Sir Walter Scott
• Literary pub tour
• Midhope Castle (Lallybroch)
• Blackness Castle
• Falkland (Outlander’s Inverness)
• Glencoe
• Eilean Donan Castle
• Culloden Battlefield
• Clava Cairns
• A special dinner with a Scottish author

From past tours

Reading list

Download the reading list (PDF)

• JulyOutlander · Diana Gabaldon

  When a British nurse touches an ancient standing stone in the Scottish Highlands and wakes up in 1743, she finds herself caught between two worlds, two wars, and two very different men. Epic, romantic, and utterly addictive, Outlander is the novel that made the whole world fall in love with Scotland — and the one that will make every mile of this tour feel like stepping inside a story you already know by heart.

• AugustKidnapped · Robert Louis Stevenson

  After his uncle arranges to have him kidnapped and shipped off to the colonies, young David Balfour escapes and finds himself fleeing across the Scottish Highlands with a charming, infuriating Jacobite fugitive at his side. A rip-roaring adventure set in the exact landscapes we will cross together, Kidnapped is Stevenson at his most irresistible — and proof that Scotland has always been the perfect setting for a chase.

• SeptemberRob Roy · Sir Walter Scott

  The man who inspired the legend. Scott's sweeping historical novel follows the larger-than-life Highland outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor — cattle thief, clan protector, and unlikely hero — against the wild backdrop of the Scottish Borders and Highlands. We will stand at his grave in Balquhidder and hike the glen he roamed. Read this first and that moment will stop you in your tracks.

• OctoberThe Highland Witch · Susan Fletcher

  In the aftermath of the Glencoe Massacre of 1692, a woman arrives in the valley carrying secrets and a reputation that terrifies the locals. Haunting, lyrical, and deeply atmospheric, Highland Witch is one of those novels that gets under your skin and stays there. Read it in October when the nights are drawing in, and Glencoe will never look the same to you again.

• NovemberThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde · Robert Louis Stevenson

  A respectable London doctor. A monstrous alter ego. A city full of fog and secrets. Stevenson's most famous novel was born in Edinburgh — a city that understood better than most what it meant to wear two faces — and the inspiration is everywhere once you know where to look. On Day 1 we walk past Deacon Brodie's Tavern, named for the real man who gave Stevenson the idea. Read this first and the whole close will send a chill down your spine. Although technically set in London, Stevenson took his inspiration from the streets of Edinburgh.

• DecemberThe Wind in the Willows · Kenneth Grahame

  Mole, Ratty, Toad, Badger. The riverbank, the Wild Wood, and the open road. Grahame's beloved classic has charmed readers of every age since 1908, and it is the perfect book to curl up with in December when the world outside is cold and the fire is warm. Our welcome dinner on Day 1 is held in the Edinburgh childhood home where Grahame grew up — and knowing that, every chapter reads a little differently.

• JanuaryPoems & Songs of Robert Burns · Robert Burns

  Scotland's national poet wrote about love, loss, friendship, nature, and the stubborn dignity of ordinary people with a voice that has never been equaled. January is Burns Month — his birthday falls on the 25th, celebrated across Scotland with suppers, toasts, and the reading of his poems aloud. Join in the tradition this year, and when our guide reads The Birks of Aberfeldy at the waterfall on Day 5, you will already know every word. Don’t feel like you need to read an entire book of poetry. Just read a few and pick a favorite to share with the book club!

• FebruarySunset Song · Lewis Grassic Gibon

  The story of Chris Guthrie — a young woman coming of age in a small Scottish farming community as the world she knows is torn apart by war and change — is one of the most powerful novels ever written about Scotland. Spare, lyrical, and quietly devastating, Sunset Song is the kind of book you read slowly, then sit with for a long time afterward. February's long grey evenings are exactly right for it.

• MarchA Rip Through Time · Kelley Armstrong

  A modern-day homicide detective is attacked while visiting Edinburgh and wakes up in 1869 — trapped in the body of a Victorian housemaid with a murderer on the loose. Compulsively readable and drenched in the closes, wynds, and gaslit shadows of the Old Town, this is the book that will make you fall in love with Edinburgh itself. Every street Armstrong's detective navigates in 1869 is a street we will walk on Day 1 — and if Jekyll & Hyde shows you Edinburgh's dark side, A Rip Through Time makes you want to live there anyway.

• AprilThe Bookseller of Inverness · S.G. MacLean

  It is 1746, the year after Culloden, and the Highlands are under occupation. A bookseller in Inverness is quietly sheltering Jacobite secrets between his shelves when a stranger turns up dead and the past refuses to stay buried. Gripping, atmospheric, and set in the shadow of the battlefield we visit on our final day, this is the perfect April read as the tour draws close and Inverness starts to feel real.

• MayClanlands · Sam Heughan & Graham McTavish

  Outlander stars Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish hit the road across Scotland in a campervan, tracing their Highland heritage through history, whisky, and no small amount of bickering. Warm, funny, and surprisingly moving — and a perfect preview of the trip, since they travel through many of the same landscapes we visit together. Reading this alongside Outlander is like getting a head start on Scotland from two people who love it as fiercely as we do.

Your trip leaders

Vanessa

Founder · lifelong Anglophile

As a girl Vanessa lived in Scotland with her grandmother, who was working on a PhD in British Literature. Touring English manors, gardens and abbeys together turned her into a tea-drinking, scone-eating Anglophile for life. She also runs Wanderlust Crew, and has four children she loves to read with and drag around the world.

Cari & MacKenzie — The Selkie Sisters

Two sisters who believe the best travel isn’t sightseeing, it’s listening — to the soul of a place through its people, its stories and its landscapes. Cari lived in the UK for three years with her husband and four kids; MacKenzie prepares for every trip with the perfect playlist and a deep dive into the literature.

Questions