The Paper Trail
“Gie me ae spark o' nature's fire That's a' the learning I desire…”
Edinburgh is one of the world’s great literary cities. The Paper Trail is the perfect introduction to the city’s literary past and present: a journey through time, beginning with Burns and ending with Trainspotting.
Conceived and written by two of Scotland’s best up-and-coming Scottish authors, this tour takes guests from past to present, from the Old Town into the New. You’ll meet sweary poets, dog-loving novelists, pirates, nurses, borrowed ponies, seagull-eyed sleuths, religious zealots, high school teachers with dubious politics, and drunken geniuses who changed the destiny of their nation.
Though bookworms and culture vultures are our natural constituency, we’re sure that anyone halfway interested in Edinburgh and Scotland will adore this tour. Though all are welcome, older children may enjoy the tour a little more than those who are new to reading. Whoever you are, you’ll leave the Paper Trail with a head full of ideas, a heart full of stirring language, and a reading list as lang’s yir arm.
Join us
Want a guide all to yourself at a time that suits you?
Book a Private Tour
Prefer to book for free onto our public tour and PWYC at the end?
Book a Public Tour
Ages
This tour is intended for age 12+
Dates
Private tours available 7 days per week Public tours on Sundays at 10am
Duration
Tour lasts 90 minutes
Meeting Point: Makar’s Court aka Ladystairs Close
Tour End: Conan Doyle Pub at the top of Leith Walk
Accessibility Info
The tour is approximately 2.5km spread over 90 mins. There are a few small inclines to go up, but the majority of the inclines are going downhill. There are two downhill sets of steps on the route; one from Ladystairs Close to the Mound (24 steps), and the Playfair Steps (81 steps).
For both sets of steps, alternative wheelchair/pram-friendly routes can be taken to avoid all stairs on without missing any sights from the tour.
If your guide can help you access the tour in any other way to work better with e.g. hearing aids or anything else, please just drop us an email and we’ll do whatever we can to suit your individual needs.
Meet Your Guides
Colin
Colin Bramwell has lived in Edinburgh for many years, but is originally from the Black Isle, just by Inverness. When he isn’t traipsing around town in a cloak pretending to be magic, he is an author and translator, writing in both English and Scots. He studied literature at Edinburgh, McGill, Oxford and St Andrews, and holds a doctorate in creative writing from the latter institution.
His poems have appeared in a variety of publications, most recently in the New Statesman and The Observer.
Fetch, his first book of poems, is a Poetry Book Society recommendation. His translations of poets have won major prizes in the USA and UK; Fower Pessoas his Scots-language adaptation of Fernando Pessoa, was a 2025 TLS Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the 2026 Oxford Wiedenfeld Prize.
Iona
Iona Lee is a writer from Edinburgh, whose work spans poetry, illustration, live performance and music. She has appeared on radio and television, reading her work in venues and on festival stages all over the UK and Europe, from Shetland to Cornwall, dive bars to the Royal Albert Hall. Iona has worked as a tour guide for two years, allowing her interests in history, folklore, magic and the macabre to influence her tours.