Review of 2024 As the nights are drawing in and we are cooried in by the fire, now is a good time to reflect on 2024 and look forward to new adventures in 2025, and beyond. Thank you to everyone who has joined us here in Scotland this year. It’s been a busy few months with the season widening out now from March to the end of October (and a few dates in November). And true to form, the weather has been erratic, with wet and windy summers and fine Autumn days. But who comes to Scotland for the weather? A lot it seems now, escaping extreme heat in many places. We have had a varied year, from our regular and Immersive Outlander tours to a wide variety of Ancestry tours, Mary, Queen of Scots tours and an increasing number of custom tours. Our groups have enjoyed Scottish nights at The Torphichen Inn and private concerts from The Outlander Bard, Gillebride MacMillan. Not forgetting our group kilt workshops. We have enjoyed meeting so many new people and once again seeing guests who arrive for our immersive tours become firm friends. Since 2018 we have had 16 groups join us and now it is time to close the curtain on our 5 day tours as you know them. As from 2025 we are moving to 6 days, with an overnight stay in Inverness. We are very excited as this will give us some more time to enjoy the Highlands. Cheers to our 2024 Alumni! |
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No major scandals uncovered in our Ancestry research this year. But, once again we have been so privileged to share in the wonderful stories of the families who have joined us to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors. We spent a lot more time in the South of Scotland this year, The Borders, Dumfries and Galloway and of course Ayrshire was popular, as always, with yet another Robert Burns connection. And we had a lovely day on The Island of Bute and the Cowal Peninsula in Argyll- highly recommended if you want to get away from the buzz. We were invited this year to become an official tours supplier to Ancestry.com and we have already delivered a couple of tours for them. This year we have again been delighted to deliver a number of tours for The Cromlix Hotel, which was voted the AA Scottish hotel of the year, among many accolades. If you want to escape from the City and indulge in luxury, this is the place for you. We would like to thank our partners, Jane at Capercaillie Escapes, who has been invaluable in helping us design and deliver Custom tours, and Paul and his team at Tayforth Travel for safely driving our group tours around. When we haven’t been touring we have been helping out at Midhope Castle/Lallybroch, meeting Outlander fans from across the World. And Paul got married to the lovely Tina, who some of you have met. So quite an eventful year. |
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Looking Forward Now we have a little more time for planning tours and events for 2025 and beyond. We already have some key slots fully booked, so if you do want a particular date, we would suggest locking it in sooner rather than later. And for bigger groups, it is not too early to be thinking about 2026. Finding accommodation at busy times has been a challenge this year (think Taylor Swift)and this will remain an issue going forward, although there are a few more hotels due to open in Edinburgh. Skye and Inverness are quite challenging with high prices and many B&B’s only taking minimum stays of 2 nights. So, the same old song- book early. One key event to bear in mind for 2026 is the announcement of The Commonwealth Games taking place in Glasgow from the 23rd July -2nd August. This time there will be no Athletes Village, meaning that all those participants and their families will be looking for accommodation across Central Scotland. Student accommodation will be used but it won’t be nearly enough. |
Immersive Group Tours As that is the end of our current 5 day Outlander tours to celebrate we will be sharing photos from over the years on our Social Media –watch out for them. But it is not the end of our immersive tours as we are very excited to be introducing our new look 6 day tours for 2025 and 2026. We are adding an overnight stay in Inverness to allow more time to enjoy the Highland scenery. Our Quintessential 6 Day Outlander September tour is already sold out, but we do have availability for May. We are considering adding another date, but need to have expressions of interest very soon, as we need to secure accommodation. If you like the sound of this tour, but the dates don’t suit, please get in touch and we will see what we can do. We are delighted to launch our new Coorie Inn tour for those who want to get away from it all in February. If you haven’t seen it on Social Media – we’ve popped an image below for you! . Spaces are extremely limited so please do get in touch soon if this is for you. Our immersive tours are a great option for solo travellers as our slogan “arrive a visitor, leave a friend” really comes into its own, with lifelong friendships being made in a number of these groups. |
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Landcon 2025 It is exciting to see this very popular Outlander convention expand from its Paris home next year, coming to Edinburgh in September. Similar to what we offer with the MPC conventions, we will have special day tours for delegates. These are already open. We have also been asked to provide a multi-day option and we are considering this, if there is enough interest. Please get in touch if you want more information about Pre & Post Land Con Tours. |
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Ancestry Tours As we come into the Winter months this is an ideal time for Ancestry research. If you would like us to help with the research, please send details to anne@marysmeanders.co.uk and we will take it from there. We can offer a research package or a virtual tour, if you can’t make it to Scotland, as well as a full Ancestry tour. We already have a few tours booked in, including one for 2026, but still have good availability. Just remember, these tours involve a lot of planning, so the more notice we get, the better. We can and have taken everyone from individuals and couples to multi-generational family groups on our personalised ancestry tours. We can also offer more generic Clan tours. Custom/Bespoke Tours We are happy to work with you to design your very own tour, based on your interests. We can do this for individuals, families or groups. We can start with a Zoom call to discuss options and build it from there. Again this year we have been working in collaboration with Capercaillie Escapes to design and deliver custom tours. Jane can also help with self-drive itineraries and accommodation, so please do check out her website. |
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Whatever your dream of Scotland, we are here and waiting to help you realise it. Keep in touch with new developments on our Social Media Channels. Best Wishes Anne and Emma |
January 2024 Newsletter
