There are four sightseeing bus tour companies that operate in Edinburgh. Edinburgh Bus Tours and Bright Bus Tours take you around the city in open top, hop on, hop off buses. The Red Bus Bistro serves meals in an old red bus as it takes you around the city. Ghost Bus Tours is old bus painted black and takes you around the scary bits of the old town at night.
Seeing Edinburgh From An Open Top Bus
Edinburgh is a compact city and so seeing it from an open top bus tour means that you can see most of the popular tourist sights in around an hour.
Most of the tours are hop on, hop off. This means that you pay for one ticket which allows you to get on and get off at any of the stops as many times as you want for the whole day.
Hop on, hop off tours really are great introductions to seeing Edinburgh. You get to see the all of the tourist sights, get off at places that interest you, then get back on again to see more. And you can go on as many times as you want all day, even using kit to get back to your hotel at the end of the day if your hotel is on the route.
Let’s go through the options for touring round Edinburgh in a bus.
Edinburgh Bus Tours
Edinburgh Bus Tours is the biggest company running bus tours and actually operates four tours:
- Edinburgh Tour
- City Sightseeing Tour
- Majestic Tour
- Forth Bridges Tour (not hop on, hop off)
The Edinburgh Tour
The Edinburgh Tour is a hop on, hop off tour around the sights of Edinburgh with a live guide giving a commentary all the way around.
The tour starts in the heart of the city in St Andrew’s Square and takes around one hour to go around the entire route. The route comprises roughly half of the time in the old town and half of the time in the new town.
The Edinburgh Tour is the only hop on, hop off tour that has a live guide. The guide sits upstairs facing you (they’re travelling backwards!) and points out the places the bus is passing and also tells you interesting stories about these places. You can also ask the guide questions.
The first part of the tour starts at St Andrew’s Square, and passes Calton Hill, Holyrood Palace, the Royal Mile, the National Museum, the Grassmarket and Edinburgh Castle.
After the castle, the bus swings northward through Princes St Gardens to the new town, taking you along George Street to the beautiful Charlotte Square before returning to St Andrew’s Square by way of Queen Street and Princes Street, where it passes the Scott Monument.
In all, there are 13 stops on the tour.
City Sightseeing
The City Sightseeing Tour is a hop on, hop off tour around the sights of Edinburgh with a recorded commentary that is synchronised to the places you’re passing. Headphones are included in the fare.
Languages included in the recorded commentary are English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian. Children can hear a special commentary taken from the popular Horrible Histories series.
The tour starts in the heart of the city in St Andrew’s Square and takes around one hour to go around the entire route. The route, like the Edinburgh Tour, comprises roughly half of the time in the old town and half of the time in the new town but goes in the opposite direction.
The first part of the tour starts at St Andrew’s Square, and travels along Princes Street to Grassmarket, Edinburgh Castle, the National Museum, Holyrood Palace and Dynamic Earth, before returning to St Andrew’s Square via Calton Hill.
In all, there are 12 stops on the tour.
The Majestic Tour
The Majestic Tour is also a hop on, hop off tour with a recorded commentary that is synchronised to the places you’re passing. Headphones are included in the fare.
The Majestic Tour takes a different route to the Edinburgh and City Sightseeing tours, going around the outskirts of the city.
The tour starts in the heart of the city in St Andrew’s Square and takes around one hour to go around the entire route. The route heads north through the new town and passes the Botanic Gardens before heading to the shore with the Firth of Forth to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia. It then returns back to the old town, passing Holyrood Palace, the Royal Mile and North Bridge, passing the Scott Monument before returning to St Andrew’s Square.
In all, there are 13 stops on the tour.
The 3 Bridges Tour
The final tour from Edinburgh Bus Tours is not a hop on, hop off tour, but a bus and boat journey to the sea. This tour takes you to the little town of South Queensferry just outside Edinburgh, where you rendezvous with a boat that takes you on a tour under the three great bridges that cross the Firth of Forth: the Forth Bridge, the Forth Road Bridge and the new Queensferry Crossing.
The boat tour also stops at Inchcolm Island where, if you wish, you can get off the boat to explore the island and its old monastery before being picked up by the next boat.
The 3 Bridges tour, like the Edinburgh Tour, also has a commentary from a live guide.
Bright Bus Tours
Bright Bus is a hop on, hop off city sightseeing tour around the sights of Edinburgh. It has a recorded commentary that is synchronised to the places you’re passing and headphones are included in the fare.
Languages included in the recorded commentary are English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin).
The tour in a bright orange open top bus starts in the heart of the city in St Andrew’s Square and takes around one hour to go around the entire route.
Starting at St Andrew’s Square, the bus travels along Princes Street to Grassmarket and Edinburgh Castle. After the castle, the tour takes in the National Museum, Holyrood Palace and Dynamic Earth, before returning to St Andrew’s Square via Calton Hill.
In all, there are 13 stops on the tour.
Red Bus Bistro
The Red Bus Bistro tour is slightly different. Instead of a hop on, hop off tour, you tour the Edinburgh sights while eating a gourmet meal.
The bus itself is an old-fashioned ‘Routemaster’ bus. The Routemaster model is a bus icon and these buses were used by London Transport from 1956. Originally they had an open rear platform but the Bistro bus has had electric doors fitted.
You sit upstairs on the bus to ensure a great view of the sights while you eat your meal. There is a choice of two tours around Edinburgh: the Afternoon Tea tour and the Harry Potter tour.
Afternoon Tea Tour
The tour starts at Waterloo Place, the street that is a continuation of the east end of Princes Street as it winds towards Calton Hill. The tour takes 1hr 30 minutes and runs from Wednesdays to Sundays.
The route takes you along Princes Street, past the Scott Monument and the castle then up Lothian Road toward the Meadows and the little statue of Greyfriars Bobby. You’re then taken along the Grassmarket and down toward Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Parliament before returning to Waterloo Place.
During the tour, Afternoon Tea is served.
Harry Potter Bus Tour
This tour takes you around locations and buildings and streets in Edinburgh that ‘were the inspiration for the Harry Potter series’.
You join the bus at Waterloo Place, the street that is a continuation of the east end of Princes Street as it winds towards Calton Hill. The tour takes 1hr 30 minutes and runs on Fridays and Saturdays.
The route takes you along Princes Street, past the Scott Monument, Victoria Street and the West Bow, the Elephant House cafe, Greyfriars Kirkyard, George Heriot’s school and the Spoon Cafe before returning to Waterloo Place.
The two cafes, the Elephant House and the Spoon were where the Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, wrote the first Harry Potter books.
During the tour, food and drinks are served.
Ghost Bus Tour
Ready to be scared on a bus? The black ’Necrobus’, a converted old-fashioned ‘Routemaster’ bus, is a night bus tour that will take you around the scary parts of the old town of Edinburgh.
A ghost guide (who’s a fully-trained actor) will take you through the terrible happenings of Edinburgh through the years, ‘from royal executions to devious spirits trapped on the material plane’.
You join the tour at the Lawnmarket, which is the top part of the Royal Mile. The tour takes 1hr and 25 minutes and runs from Wednesdays to Sundays.
The route takes you past St Cuthbert’s graveyard, Edinburgh Castle, Greyfriars Kirkyard, down the Royal Mile towards Holyrood Palace, returning past Calton Hill to the Lawnmarket.