The Edinburgh Trail

Specialist walking tours in the heart of Edinburgh

Our Tours

The Anatomy Trail

A walk through the medical schools and graveyards of Edinburgh with some gruesome tales of how our city became the centre of medical innovation in Europe in the late 18th century

The Paper Trail

One for the book worms! This walk takes you from Old to New Town discovering the notable writers, poets, and storytellers of Edinburgh’s past.

The Old Town Trail

The story of Edinburgh’s Old Town and all the history that shaped it.

Let us show you what makes Edinburgh great

Reviews

We enjoyed our tour with Caroline So much! She was such a wonderful guide and she kept our two kids thoroughly entertained throughout. Highly recommend to any families travelling to Edinburgh!

Rosie

Sam was an incredible guide! He’s so knowledgeable about Edinburgh and had us laughing throughout. He took us to some gorgeous pubs and my husband found his new favourite beer!


Alex

The Anatomy Trail was brilliant! Matt is such a character and we absolutely loved how interactive and funny his tour was. Visiting the Surgeons Hall afterward was so much better having seen the streets and graveyards where it all happened.

Ali

FAQ

  • The main reason is you’ll have a great time. All of our guides are brilliant performers and genuinely lovely people who we know you’ll get on with.

    The other reason is we offer tours that focus on specific interests so you’re not signing up for a generic history tour. You get to pick a topic you love and your guide will show you that aspect of the city.

    And finally we take great pride in being an ethical tour company. Every penny you spend with us goes to the people making these tours happen each day and that means you get the best guides in the city- there is no fat cat business owner with an offshore account creaming off the profits.

  • All of our tours have their main accessibility requirements laid out in the tour description and we are happy to make any adaptations we can to help your tour suit your needs.

  • 99% of the time we’ll carry on as usual. Edinburgh is gorgeous rain or shine and we get plenty of both.

    If there is a severe weather warning we may have to cancel your tour, but we will always be in touch as soon as we can and try to come to the best possible solution for you and your guide.

  • It depends when:
    - You can have a full refund if you cancel 48 hours or more before the start of your tour
    - You can have a 50% refund if you cancel between 48-24 hours before the start of your tour
    - And the sad final scenario, unfortunately we cannot offer you any refund if you cancel within 24 hours of the start time of your tour

    If you need to cancel just follow the ‘manage my booking’ links in your email confirmation and the appropriate refund should happen automatically.

  • For public tours, you are very welcome to modify your booking anytime, just follow the edit links in your booking confirmation email or any of the reminder emails you received from us.

    Private (paid in advance tours) can be modified but there are some time limits:

    You can reschedule with no penalty if you make the changes 48 hours or more before the start of your tour.


    With less than 48 hours notice we work on a case by case basis trying to make sure you get the tour you want and the guide who has been booked also gets paid fairly

    eg If your train is delayed the night before your tour and you were booked on the 10am private, the same guide may be able to take you on the 2pm private instead and we wouldn’t charge anything extra for that.

    vs

    You tell your guide 2 hours before the start of the tour that you’re running an hour behind and won’t be able to make the start time of the tour. Most of the time we’d need to treat that as a cancellation within 24 hours of the start time, you would miss your tour and you wouldn’t get any refund.

    We will always do our best to be fair to you, but we must balance that with the fact our guides turn away other work to do these tours and we must pay them fairly too. If you let us know about any delays as soon as possible, we will try to find a solution.

    If you need to reschedule or cancel just follow the ‘manage my booking’ links in your email confirmation.

  • Yes! We will just have to make sure we have an appropriate guide available to give you the proper depth you require in all topics.

    Any tour can be extended for £50 per additional 30 mins to include more general Edinburgh History, but if you’re looking to mix eg the Paper Trail and the Anatomy Trail, then we will have to arrange something custom for you at a time when the right guides are available.

    Feel free to email us to let us know what you’re looking for.

  • Each tour lists the start point on the tour description page and it will also be listed in your confirmation email along with your guide’s number, in case you get lost.

  • Absolutely! All of our tours are outdoors in publicly accessible areas so dogs are very welcome.

  • You know your kids best so we leave it up to you to decide. Currently The Old Town Trail contains the most kid-friendly stories, but if your child loves gory medical detail or is a budding author then they’re very welcome on the other tours too.

    Each guide we work with is a pro and knows how to pitch their stories to keep the group engaged and makes sure the storytelling is age appropriate. We have recommended minimum ages listed on each tour and we are happy for parents to use their best judgement around that.

  • We are gradually adding other languages to our offerings but none of them are quite ready to go just yet.