I ws staying with a friend in Edinburgh for just over a week; and took advantage of the opportunity to go on a day trip - saving money on accommodation gave me leeway in my budget to do this. I chose to go on a Scottish Highlands tour run
by The Hairy Coo. I’ve not been paid to do this review, I was not comped the
tour. The friend I was staying with in Edinburgh had randomly stumbled
across their website and sent the link on because she knew that I had been
considering doing a Highlands tour. I was immediately drawn to the ‘free’
(read: tip the guide at the end of the day) format. I’m a huge advocate of
other companies who work off similar models, in fact am preparing a blog entry
dedicated to discussion of the value of injecting guided tours into your
travels. Anyway, after taking a look at a few different offerings, it seemed
pretty evident that you had one major decision to make – did you want to go to some
‘famous’ Loch (such as Loch Ness or Loch Lomond) and spend less time seeing
other landmarks, or were you prepared to forgoe to ‘famous’ Loch to see more?
You can do a day trip to Loch Ness from Edinburgh – you’ll spend nearly the
whole day sitting on the bus, just to get there and see something almost
identical to what you can see just a couple of hours from Edinburgh.
I had to pre-book my space via the company's website which I'd done for Monday, wincing at the weather forecast as I did so. The meeting point was easy to find along the Royal Mile and the day started without a hitch, except for the couple of passengers who arrived late but managed to slide onto the bus just in the nick of time, right before we were departing, making the bus completely full. The day was being run by Russell, who was the driver/guide and I got the impression from what he said at the end that he was the co-founder/co-owner of The Hairy Coo - although don't quote me on this, I may have read too much into his comment. I responded really well to Russell from the get go, he had a wonderful presence as a tour guide, the perfect balance of being entertaining without compromising his authority as being the ‘expert’. He succeeded in delivering his spiels of information without making it sound like he gives the same spiels multiple times each week, an impressive effort. He was Scottish, and if you have difficulty understanding light Scottish accents then you’re probably wasting your time taking the tour, however he did make the effort to speak clearly and by his own admission, his years in the industry have allowed him to hone his ‘Queen’s English’. The demographic on the tour was fairly young and of mixed nationality. The young demographic wasn’t a surprise, it fits with the marketing of the company and I think that the tips-only model is one which fits well with the budget traveller/youth scene.
I got the impression that the itinerary of the tour is a little flexible allowing the driver to make decisions which fit best depending on the weather and the season. It was somewhat vague on the website as to exactly where you’d be going, and even from commentary made by Russell, I gathered that he made spontaneous decisions to take particular routes or make certain stops. If you aren’t particularly set on seeing particular things then to me, this seems to be the most logical way to run a touring company – particularly in a country where the weather can often come into play. From the outset at we were leaving just on 9am, it was looking like a terrible weather day and Russell warned that depending on how things went as we climbed further into the Highlands, there could be roads closed and that he would have to play it by ear.
Although it was a Highlands tour, it was also a really interesting tour in terms of delivery of general Edinburgh and Scotland information, with a mix of history, politics and geology thrown into the mix of the spiels being delivered. There were 11 occasions where we piled off and back onto the bus, by my count. These ranged in length between five minutes and an hour. In summary, the day went as follows:
I had to pre-book my space via the company's website which I'd done for Monday, wincing at the weather forecast as I did so. The meeting point was easy to find along the Royal Mile and the day started without a hitch, except for the couple of passengers who arrived late but managed to slide onto the bus just in the nick of time, right before we were departing, making the bus completely full. The day was being run by Russell, who was the driver/guide and I got the impression from what he said at the end that he was the co-founder/co-owner of The Hairy Coo - although don't quote me on this, I may have read too much into his comment. I responded really well to Russell from the get go, he had a wonderful presence as a tour guide, the perfect balance of being entertaining without compromising his authority as being the ‘expert’. He succeeded in delivering his spiels of information without making it sound like he gives the same spiels multiple times each week, an impressive effort. He was Scottish, and if you have difficulty understanding light Scottish accents then you’re probably wasting your time taking the tour, however he did make the effort to speak clearly and by his own admission, his years in the industry have allowed him to hone his ‘Queen’s English’. The demographic on the tour was fairly young and of mixed nationality. The young demographic wasn’t a surprise, it fits with the marketing of the company and I think that the tips-only model is one which fits well with the budget traveller/youth scene.
I got the impression that the itinerary of the tour is a little flexible allowing the driver to make decisions which fit best depending on the weather and the season. It was somewhat vague on the website as to exactly where you’d be going, and even from commentary made by Russell, I gathered that he made spontaneous decisions to take particular routes or make certain stops. If you aren’t particularly set on seeing particular things then to me, this seems to be the most logical way to run a touring company – particularly in a country where the weather can often come into play. From the outset at we were leaving just on 9am, it was looking like a terrible weather day and Russell warned that depending on how things went as we climbed further into the Highlands, there could be roads closed and that he would have to play it by ear.
Although it was a Highlands tour, it was also a really interesting tour in terms of delivery of general Edinburgh and Scotland information, with a mix of history, politics and geology thrown into the mix of the spiels being delivered. There were 11 occasions where we piled off and back onto the bus, by my count. These ranged in length between five minutes and an hour. In summary, the day went as follows:
1. South Queensferry –photo stop – to allow for
photos of the Forth Bridge and North Sea (pictured to left)
2. Wallace Monument, Stirling – 40 minutes – time to walk up the monument, photos of the view, as well as a bathroom/gift shop/cafe stop
3. Stirling Castle, Stirling – photo stop– a quick stop on the way out of town to take photos
4. Lake Menteith – 10 minutes - the only Lake in
Scotland (see picture to left)5. Aberfoyle – 60 minutes – lunch stop/free time. Aberfoyle is one of those typical cute tourist trap towns that likely gets a lot of through traffic from both people driving and tour buses.
6. Queen Elizabeth Forest Park – 20 minutes – seemed to be a spontaneous addition to take a ‘wee walk’ to a waterfall
7. Just a short way from the forest walk, we all
piled off again with a slightly aerial view of the area to take some photos – photo
stop only8 . Hairy Coo Feeding Time – 20 minutes?? – clearly a tourist attraction with the tamest cows I’ve ever seen. As Russell pulled up he honked his horn and the cows came toward the fence and were waiting as we approached with bread that we were given to feed them. It’s amazing how animals always provide such entertainment, even just a bunch of Highland cattle! (see left)
10. Hamish the Cow – quick rest stop/photo stop. Apparently Hamish is famous, I’m not quite sure why, the other ones were way cuter.
11. Doune Castle – 20 minutes – apparently where Monty Python was filmed. I can just see the Monty Python buffs cringing at me saying ‘apparently’ since I honestly had no idea.
Free tours with payment on a tips-only basis are the way forward in the touring industry, as far as I’m concerned. Tourism and travel is more accessible than other, which has led to a saturation of the market in tourist offerings. Tourism, hostels, flight routes – they are all driven by a benchmark which is set among their competitors. If it becomes ‘standard’ for a tour to be ‘average’ then there is little incentive for anyone to offer much more, if tourists are willing to pay that price. It takes a company being innovative and wanting to offer quality to change that benchmark – and the way forward in doing this is the tips-only market. What tips-only ensures is the quality of the actual guide – the actual scenery, the stops visited, where you go for lunch, what the bus looks like – this stuff is nowhere near as relevant as the actual person presenting the information. It’s just like in school how your favourite teachers were the ones who were engaging, how public speakers who have great manner will command more authority than those who simply present solid content in a monotone voice. Tips-only tours offer entertainment. You don’t just get a tour guide, you get a comedian, an entertainer, someone who will offer general advice about the base city – and often, it comes without the commission driven ‘route’ of a typical tour.
Anyone who has been on a traditional tour would be familiar with the kinds of stops these are, even if you aren’t aware. For example, in 2010 I took a day tour from Toronto, Canada to Niagara Falls and on the way back, they stopped at what is apparently a winery owned by Dan Akroyd. You do a ‘free’ wine tasting, after which point they leave you to wander through and look at the wines that are available for purchase. It also applies to when you take a tour and they drop you off right outside a certain cafe and make some elaborate claim about how you simply must go into that specific place and try the ‘insert *local* dish’. See, the tour company makes a commission from the purchases made by members of the tour. Russell was very up front about this being an element of the tour industry, and was quite clear in that he was not involved in any such schemes – if anything, he was very honest about pointing out where to not shop or dine, as he knew that the prices were inflated for the tourist trade. This was something I very much so appreciated.
I would recommend this tour and The Hairy Coo company to anyone. As I said in the outset, I didn’t do this tour having made any sort of ‘arrangement’ to attend the tour in return for a review or anything of the like – it was an independent decision for me and one which I walked away from so impressed that all I can do is rave about it to anyone. It was a time efficient and economic way for me, as a solo budget traveller, to see not only beyond Edinburgh but a tour that was somewhat off the beaten track. Thanks to Russell for a top day and I think the company has a bright future ahead!
