Edinburgh is well placed for days out. The train network radiates from Waverley, the buses cover what the trains do not, and almost everything below is under two hours each way.
Rosslyn Chapel — 45 minutes
Rosslyn, at Roslin in Midlothian, is fifteenth-century carving of extraordinary density in a building that was never finished. The Apprentice Pillar, a hundred Green Men, and rather more Da Vinci Code tourism than the fabric deserves.
Combine it with a walk in Roslin Glen below, which has the castle ruins and a good wooded gorge.
Getting there: Lothian bus 37 from the city centre.
Stirling — 50 minutes
Stirling Castle on its own volcanic rock, with a Renaissance palace restored to full colour, and two battlefields visible from the walls. The Wallace Monument and the Bannockburn centre are both nearby.
Getting there: train from Waverley, frequent.
The Forth Bridges and South Queensferry — 30 minutes
Three bridges across the Forth in one view: the Forth Bridge of 1890, a cantilever railway bridge in red steel and a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Forth Road Bridge of 1964; and the Queensferry Crossing of 2017. Seeing all three together is genuinely impressive.
South Queensferry below is a small burgh with a cobbled high street and boat trips out to Inchcolm Island, which has a well-preserved twelfth-century abbey and a lot of seals and puffins.
Getting there: train to Dalmeny, or bus.
North Berwick and the coast — 35 minutes
A seaside town on the East Lothian coast with two beaches, a conical hill called North Berwick Law to climb, and the Scottish Seabird Centre, which runs boat trips to the Bass Rock — a volcanic plug in the Forth carrying the world’s largest colony of northern gannets, around 150,000 birds. It looks white from the shore because of them.
Nearby: Tantallon Castle, a red sandstone curtain-wall fortress on a cliff opposite the Bass Rock, and Dirleton Castle with its gardens.
Getting there: train from Waverley.
Glasgow — 50 minutes
Scotland’s other city, and utterly unlike this one: Victorian, commercial, built on shipbuilding, and with the better music scene and the better architecture if you like Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and the Burrell Collection are both free and both excellent.
The rivalry is real and mostly good-humoured. Go, if only to understand what Edinburgh is being defined against.
Getting there: trains from Waverley every fifteen minutes.
St Andrews — 1 hour 45
The cathedral ruin, the castle, the university, three miles of beach and the Old Course. Best in decent weather.
Getting there: train to Leuchars, then a bus.
The Highlands
Loch Ness and Glencoe are sold heavily as Edinburgh day trips and they involve twelve hours on a coach for a couple of hours on the ground. If you want the Highlands, stay overnight.
A better single-day option is the train to Perth or Pitlochry, which gets you into real hill country in under two hours and lets you walk.
Practicalities
ScotRail tickets are cheaper booked in advance for longer journeys; local routes can be bought on the day. Contactless works at most Lothian stations.
Sunday services are thinner, and rural bus timetables drop off sharply at weekends.
Bring a waterproof regardless of the forecast.
Choosing between them
One spare day and you want Scottish history: Stirling. One spare day and you want something strange and beautiful: Rosslyn. Travelling with children: North Berwick and the Bass Rock boat. Interested in cities rather than castles: Glasgow. Short on time: the Forth bridges, which is barely half a day.
Booking and tickets
ScotRail advance fares are much cheaper for longer journeys such as St Andrews or Perth; local trips to Stirling, North Berwick and Dalmeny can be bought on the day, and contactless works at most Lothian stations.
For castles, an Explorer Pass from Historic Environment Scotland covers Edinburgh Castle, Stirling and others, and pays off from about three sites.
Weather and daylight
Scottish weather is genuinely changeable and coastal East Lothian is windy in any season. Take a waterproof whatever the forecast says.
Daylight matters more here than most places. In December it is dark by half past three, which rules out an afternoon start for anything involving a view or a walk. In June it is light past ten, and a day trip can comfortably run into the evening.
Doing it without a tour
Almost everything on this list is straightforward on public transport, and organised coach tours to Rosslyn, Stirling and the Forth bridges cost several times the fare for the same destinations. Their advantage is a guide and not having to read a timetable.
The exception is anywhere genuinely rural — parts of the Borders, the Trossachs — where Sunday buses are sparse and a tour or a hire car earns its cost.