Scotland Travel Blog August 09

"August already?"

One of the nice things about this time of year is that we start to get travel reports coming back from our customers who have returned from their holidays in Scotland. We love to read about the things that they enjoyed most in Scotland and how they got on with our itineraries. We probably should put these emails on our website as testimonials, but the comments are often so full of praise that we think you'd assume that we wrote them ourselves. We feel that it is much better to let you read reviews on independent websites hence the prominent link on the homepage to www.extramilescotland.co.uk.

Extra Mile Scotland is a great concept started by Gibert Summers who also writes a very entertaining blog at www.ScotlandInAWeek.com. Gilbert had the idea of creating a website where people could leave reviews about Scottish tourism businesses that do that little bit more to help their customers. It's not just about doing things well, its about going that little bit further than expected.

Something that we have noticed more of this year is customers using Facebook and Twitter to document their travels as they drive around Scotland. It is interesting for us as it allows us to follow how they are enjoying our tour suggestions in "real time".

Most of our customers write back to us to say how surprised they were with the ease that they adapted to driving on single track roads in the Scottish Highlands. To quote one customer "The scenery was breathtaking along the routes you recommended and we're now missing those lonely one-lane roads that we enjoyed so much... "

I say most, but one customer (who shall remain nameless) seemed to get very scared on single track roads and we learnt about this as they frequently "Twittered" on the subject during their holiday ("Twittered"...is there such a verb?).

To allay any fears that you may have about driving on Scottish roads, we think that we should post some pictures to let you see some of the "hazards" that you might expect to find.

Cows pop up everywhere, but they don't move fast so you can usually miss them. However, the hairy Highland Cows have a bit of an attitude problem and don't usually move at all unless you get out and chase them away.

As the old joke starts "Why did the Chicken cross the road!?"... well in this case it was walking back from the Glenlivet Distillery. I bet those eggs have a kick!