For most trips, the best time to visit Scotland is May, June or September. May is the sunniest month in both Edinburgh and the west Highlands, June has the longest days, with more than seventeen and a half hours of daylight in Edinburgh, and September is quieter once the school holidays end. July and August are the warmest but the busiest and dearest, and the midges peak. From November to March, days are short and many sites close, but the cities and the winter festivals are at their best.
The best time to visit Scotland, in short
There is no bad month to visit Scotland, but there are good months for different trips. So the best time to visit Scotland depends on what you want from it: light and long days, quiet roads, festivals, wildlife or low prices. Rarely all of them at once.
For a first trip that includes the Highlands and the islands, we recommend May, June or September. You get long days, sites and ferries on their summer timetables, and fewer people than in July and August. Weather, however, is not a reason to choose: Scotland can give you four seasons in an afternoon in any month.
Scotland month by month: weather and daylight
The figures below are Met Office averages for 1991 to 2020 at two stations: Edinburgh Gogarbank, about 10 km west of the city centre, and Kinlochewe in Wester Ross, which stands for the wetter west Highlands. Daylight is for Edinburgh on the 21st of each month. Averages describe a typical month, not the week you travel.
| Month | Edinburgh °C, max / min | Rain, Edinburgh / west | Sunshine, Edinburgh | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7 / 1.5 | 73 / 302 mm | 47 h | 7 h 56 |
| February | 7.5 / 1.6 | 61 / 247 mm | 78 h | 10 h 05 |
| March | 9.3 / 2.7 | 53 / 209 mm | 111 h | 12 h 15 |
| April | 12 / 4.3 | 46 / 125 mm | 148 h | 14 h 38 |
| May | 14.9 / 6.7 | 50 / 118 mm | 190 h | 16 h 39 |
| June | 17.5 / 9.4 | 69 / 105 mm | 159 h | 17 h 37 |
| July | 19.4 / 11 | 72 / 105 mm | 161 h | 16 h 43 |
| August | 19.2 / 11 | 75 / 141 mm | 146 h | 14 h 41 |
| September | 16.9 / 9.4 | 55 / 177 mm | 126 h | 12 h 20 |
| October | 13.2 / 6.5 | 83 / 235 mm | 94 h | 10 h 02 |
| November | 9.5 / 3.6 | 74 / 240 mm | 67 h | 7 h 55 |
| December | 7 / 1.4 | 75 / 277 mm | 38 h | 6 h 58 |
Two things stand out. First, May is the sunniest month at both stations, and April to June is the driest stretch in the west. Second, the west Highlands get about three times as much rain as Edinburgh for almost the same temperatures, which is why a wet day on Skye can be a dry one in Fife.
Spring: April and May
Spring is our favourite season for a first trip. The days lengthen fast, from about fourteen and a half hours of light in late April to more than sixteen and a half in late May, and the west is at its driest. The ferries switch to their summer timetables in late March, and many castles return to their summer hours in April.
Wildlife is a reason on its own. Puffins return to the cliffs: on the Isle of May, NatureScot names May and June as the best months for breeding seabirds, and on Handa, mid-May to July. Ospreys are back at Loch Garten, whose centre opens on 1 April. For whisky, the Spirit of Speyside festival runs from 28 April to 3 May in 2027, and Islay's Fèis Ìle from 28 May to 6 June.
Summer: June, July and August
June has the longest days of the year, more than seventeen and a half hours of daylight in Edinburgh on the 21st, and more again in the north. It is also the last month before the school holidays: Edinburgh schools break up on 29 June in 2027, while most English schools follow in the third or fourth week of July. From late July to mid-August, both are off at once, and that is the peak.
August is also festival month in Edinburgh. In 2027, the Fringe runs from 6 to 30 August and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo from 6 to 28 August, so rooms in the city go months ahead. Elsewhere, July and August are the warmest months, with an average high of about 19°C (66°F) in Edinburgh, and the best time to see basking sharks off the west coast.
Midges
The Highland midge is the price of a west-coast summer. Adults emerge from mid-May, mass attacks come in July and August, and numbers fall in September. They are worst in the boggy west and north, at dawn and dusk and on still, grey days, and they cannot fly in a breeze of more than about 5 mph. A coast with wind, or the east, is the answer.
Autumn: September and October
September is the month we would choose for ourselves. The schools are back, the midges are fading, the light is soft and long, about twelve hours at the equinox, and the heather is still in flower on the hills early in the month. The red deer rut begins in September and runs through October, when stags roar across the glens. The Braemar Gathering, one of the last Highland games of the season, takes place on 4 September in 2027.
October is quieter still, with autumn colour in Perthshire, but it is a month of change. CalMac switches to its winter timetable in mid-October, the Jacobite steam train runs its last trips of the season in late October, and Scottish schools take a two-week break in the middle of the month.
Winter: November to March
Winter in Scotland is about light and closures. In late December, Edinburgh has about seven hours of daylight, and many castles and gardens close or shorten their hours: Culzean, for example, is shut from November to March. In the hills, snow can close the A93 over Glenshee and the A939 over the Lecht, both fitted with snow gates.
Yet winter has its own Scotland. The cities are at their best: St Andrew's Day on 30 November, Edinburgh's Hogmanay from 29 to 31 December, Burns Night on 25 January and Glasgow's Celtic Connections, from 14 to 31 January in 2027. In Shetland, Up Helly Aa lights Lerwick on the last Tuesday of January. VisitScotland names October to March as the time for the northern lights, in the dark skies of the north.
When a trip to Scotland costs less
Prices follow the crowds. On our self-drive tours, the price we show is the mid-season one, for May, June, September and October; July and August cost about a fifth more, and November to April about a third less. Some routes, however, do not run in winter at all: the North Coast 500 and the Road to the Isles need the long days and the summer ferries.
So if price matters more than daylight, April and late October are the sweet spots: lower rates, most sites open, and roads you share with few others. Our guide to what a trip to Scotland costs covers the rest of the budget.
