Scottish Borders Tours & Day Trips

The Scottish Borders have been fought over, written about, and fallen in love with for centuries, and a day here tends to make it obvious why. Ancient abbeys, castle ruins, and villages that have barely changed since the Reivers rode through them, all within an hour of Edinburgh. Our small-group Scottish Borders tours depart from the city, with a driver-guide who knows every story the landscape has to tell.

What's included on a Scottish Borders tour from Edinburgh?

The Borders pack more history into a single landscape than most regions manage in an entire country. Abbeys that were once the most powerful religious houses in Scotland, now magnificent ruins that give you a sense of just how much was lost when the Reivers and the Reformation came through. Castles that spent centuries on the wrong side of a disputed border. And a countryside so deeply embedded in Sir Walter Scott's imagination that he built his home here and spent the rest of his life writing about it. Browse the tours below to find the right one for you.

What makes the Scottish Borders special?

Peace and beauty now define a landscape that was once one of the most fought-over stretches of land in Britain. For three centuries, the Anglo-Scottish border was lawless territory ruled by raiding families known as the Border Reivers, who stole livestock, burned homes, and operated entirely by their own code. Their legacy is still visible in the fortified tower houses, the place names, and the stories your driver-guide will tell you as you pass through the towns they once terrorised.

Sir Walter Scott drew on all of it for his novels, and his home at Abbotsford House sits in the Tweed Valley exactly where you'd expect it to be, surrounded by the landscape that inspired him. The Borders have a way of doing that to creative people. They tend to stay.

Is the Scottish Borders worth visiting?

It's one of Scotland's most underrated regions, and the fact that most visitors head north rather than south is more their loss than the Borders'. Accessible from Edinburgh, yet a world away from the tourist trail. The abbeys, the castles, the Reiver history, and the Border towns that have held onto their own traditions and character make a Scottish Borders tour one of the most rewarding available.

Can you visit castles in the Scottish Borders?

You can, and the Borders has some of Scotland's most atmospheric fortress ruins. Most were built for defense rather than comfort, designed to withstand raids rather than impress visitors. Hermitage Castle sits alone in a remote valley with nothing around it but moorland and a very long history of bad things happening there. Floors Castle, home to the Duke of Roxburghe, is Scotland's largest inhabited castle. And the tower houses scattered across the region are a direct legacy of the Reiver period, when every landowner needed walls thick enough to survive a midnight raid. 

What else can you see on a Scottish Borders day trip?

The Borders rewards exploration beyond the obvious sites. Scott's View, the panoramic viewpoint above the Tweed Valley that Sir Walter Scott loved so much his horses would automatically stop there, gives you one of the finest views in the south of Scotland. The border towns of Kelso, Melrose, Jedburgh, and Hawick have maintained a character that larger towns have long since lost, with local traditions like Common Ridings still very much alive. And the coastline at St Abbs, a National Nature Reserve with dramatic cliffs and one of the best dive sites in Britain, is worth the detour for anyone who wants to see the Borders from a different angle.

What wildlife can you see in the Scottish Borders?

The Borders is one of the best places in southern Scotland to spot red squirrels, thriving in the ancient woodland along the river valleys in numbers that have long since disappeared from most of Britain. Ospreys fish the River Tweed from spring through to autumn, otters hunt the riverbanks at dawn and dusk, and the upland moorland supports short-eared owls and mountain hares in numbers that remind you how wild this landscape still is beneath the surface. Your driver-guide will always make time for a sighting worth stopping for.

When is the best time to visit the Scottish Borders?

The Borders reward a visit at any time of year. Spring brings wildflowers and the first ospreys returning from West Africa. Summer means long days and the Common Ridings festivals that have been running in the Border towns for centuries. Autumn turns the woodland along the Tweed extraordinary shades of gold and red. And winter strips the crowds away entirely, leaving the abbeys and castles with a stillness that suits them rather well.

Where do Scottish Borders tours depart from?

All our Scottish Borders tours leave from Edinburgh, which puts you into the heart of the region in under an hour. Most depart from Edinburgh Bus Station, with full pick-up details on our Departure Points page.

Can I combine a Scottish Borders tour with other destinations?

The Borders sit right where Scotland meets England, which makes them a natural pairing with Hadrian's Wall. Several of our tours cross into Northumberland to walk the Roman frontier before looping back through the Borders on the way home, giving you two thousand years of border conflict in a single day. For anyone wanting to go further, our tours from Edinburgh reach as far as the Highlands and the islands.

Why tour the Scottish Borders with Rabbie's?

We don't do minimum numbers, which means the trip you've booked is the trip you're going on. We travel in 16-seat mini-coaches that fit down country lanes that bigger buses can't manage, stop when something's worth stopping for, and take the roads that actually show you the Borders, rather than the ones that just get you there fastest. Our driver-guides know all about the Reiver families who once ran these hills, the abbeys they occasionally burned down, and which tea room makes the best Border tart. Have questions? Take a look at our FAQs or get in touch.