Guest Post: How to Have a Great Time in Edinburgh on a Budget

If you're on a budget and want to visit Edinburgh and think it might be an expensive UK city to visit, don't fret, as it is actually an extremely tourist-friendly place with lots and lots of free and cheap things to see and do, which means you can get the full experience of this beautiful city without shelling out too much! If you have never been before and want some tips on what is free to see in the city then the following will be useful to you.

Art

Get your culture fix by visiting one of the many free art galleries throughout Edinburgh. If you enjoy early Renaissance to early 19th century art, then you should visit the Scottish National Gallery. 

If you prefer modern art, then head on over to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Across the road from the Modern Art Gallery you will find the Dean gallery which has a free section to visit too. 

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery has now reopended too and is free to visit and finally the Fruitmarket Gallery beside the train station is free to enter and has a rotating selection of contemporary installations and well worth a visit.

History

Edinburgh is home to many many historic churches and cathedrals and architectural wonders that you can explore for free. Many are centuries old where you can step back in time as you view the splendor of ancient murals and stained glass windows. Head to St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile it is the Mother Church of Presbyterianism and contains the Chapel of the Order of the Thistle. It is free to enter, but a donation is asked if you want to take pictures inside the cathedral. 

If you are a bookworm then the National Library of Scotland just around the corner is a fascinating place to spend a few hours and with free exhibitions too it is well worth a visit.

If writing is your thing, then the Writers Museum on the Royal Mile offers an insight into some of Scotland's best knows authors including Robbie Burns and Robert Louis Stephenson.

And finally, one of my favourite buildings and not mentioned in the guide books are the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland on Charlotte square - possibly one of the most amazing banking halls in the country - just look up to the dome in the ceiling and you will see what I mean!

For the Kids

If you're bringing the kids, the the following is well worth visiting. Want to see a million pounds... Yes? Well the Museum on the Mound is all about the history of money and banking in Scotland and they do have a million pounds that you can see and all this for free! 

If you want an afternoon of history and also lots of cool stuff for the kids to see then head to the Museum of Scotland. Having undergone a recent renovation not only will you be blown away by the inside of the building but the exhibitions are fantastic, too!

Back on the mound, no trip to Edinburgh would be complete without a trip to the Museum of Childhood. Take a trip through the ages and see the evolution of toys and games and is fascinating for adults and kids too!

And finally, if you have had enough of being indoors head to Edinburgh’s Botanical Gardens this is a fantastic place for a walk and they have exhibitions for children about plants at the John Hope garden entrance. 

And there we have it, a big selection of free things to visit when you are in Edinburgh!

So, for those of you who like to hang on to your money, there are plenty of things to do in Edinburgh on the cheap. You'll have a rich experience without going broke in the process. 

This article was written by Ross who runs edinburghguide.org.uk and lives in Edinburgh.

Road Trippin’ in Pennsylvania

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of PA Tourism. All opinions are 100% mine.

Summer is coming and with the warm weather, plenty of people are packing up their shorts and their kids and loading the car with games and food to take a traditional road trip – and also saving money by staying closer to home and not flying to a destination. Gas prices may be high, but they’re definitely cheaper than airfare, so travelers are willing to make the sacrifice. Of course, there is a lot of fun to be said for road trips. You travel slower, but you see everything in between your house and where you’re going. It gives you the opportunity to get out of the car and see a lot of cool stuff along the way. I always loved family roadtrips and we took a lot of them. As much as I love flying, I will always love a good, old-fashioned journey in the car.

While I have yet to experience the magic of the New England states, I am always finding something fun-sounding and adding to my ever-growing list to see/do when I make it there. I may have to stay for 3 weeks! If, unlike me, you are making your way to Pennsylvania by car this year – or driving around the state in search of entertainment for your family – then you totally want to check out the Fantastic Roadtrip-a-Matic from VisitPA.com. They have a ton of pa-roadtrips to choose from in the state that start with the type of trip you want to take – everything from trips for the history buff, art critic, nature lover, the romantic and everything in between.

I immediately was taken by the title “Small Town Charmy” and clicked on Big times in small towns. I adore small towns and am always searching for their unique qualities and activities. Almost every town has some sort of attraction – maybe not those with only 210 residents – that makes it worth visiting. VisitPA has taken the guesswork out of finding such awesomeness, though, as they gather all the information you want and need and put it right at your fingertips!

I could take a 2-day road trip centered on the Great Lakes Region. Day One starts in Erie and Day Two sees me off to Meadville, Cambridge Springs and North East. Not only do I check out an art museum, but I’m going to tour an art-deco theater, see a play, shop some local merchants, taste some wine and a whole lot more! I even get maps and suggestions on where to stay and dine. Love it! And, because I’m taking my own car, I can spend more or less time anywhere I want. If I want to expand my 2-day road trip into a 3- or 4-day one, nobody’s stopping me. VisitPA’s Roadtrip-a-Matic makes it super easy to plan activities, find accommodations and get your eat on, since the great outdoors makes one H-U-N-G-R-Y. It’s all that fresh air and exercise!

Show of hands for who hates vacation planning! Okay, I can’t really see you, but I bet it’s a lot. I am in the minority of people I talk to that love planning trips, but I with a site as comprehensive as VisitPA and their Roadtrip-a-Matic, I feel like a quick search on the site would give me options for anything else in the area I would want to do and then I could pack my bags and go. Print out your road trip(s) information on PDF, gas up and get out of Dodge! It’s so easy. It takes the guesswork out of vacation planning and saves you all that time you didn’t have anyway. Spend less time hearing “I’m bored!” and more time hearing “Yay!” when you declare “Yes, we are there yet.”

Hiking a Lava Cave 6.6.12

Over Memorial Weekend, while trying to find unique and cheap activities, we headed out to Lava Cave National Park and spent $5 on a parking pass to wander down into a deep, dark cave with uneven footing and small shafts and winter temps. We could have spent an additional $5 to rent a lantern from the entrance, but chose to bring our own emergency light from our house to guide us and kept that Lincoln in our pockets to use towards lunch.

A lava cave or tunnel is formed when a river of lava rages through and the lava on top forms a thick crust from being exposed to the air. The 2,000 degree lava continues to rush under the crust – and in some cases over it and forms a new shape – and leaves behind an arch that forms a cave. The flooring can be quite rocky, but eventually it gets covered in a layer of sand. Halfway into the lava cave in Bend it became fairly leveled out and had a thick sandy floor. It was like being at the beach, except cold and super dark. So, pretty much like any evening at the Oregon coast, just without actual water.

The cave is only open in the summer, as it is home to bats all day in the winter time. The inside temperature is 42 degrees all year long, so it could be warmer inside than outside during the cold months of the year and is a great activity to do when the desert heat is pounding down on you in the summer. As long as you bring some good walking or hiking shoes with you and layer up to keep out the chill, you are good to go. It’s an activity fit for almost everyone that is sure on their feet. We shared the cave with experienced rock-climbers and hikers and also with families that had small children in tow.

I would not suggest doing this after watching a movie like Decent or The Ring, but perhaps you’re braver than I and are not afraid of monsters hiding in the shadows (or, in this case, everywhere) that will attack and eat you or scare you to death. Being afraid of the dark, it was sometimes disconcerting when it was just you and you couldn’t hear or see anyone in any direction. I could only imagine how eerie the cave would have been if we had not been visiting during a particularly busy time.

Some of the cool things we saw and learned were ice sculptures that formed at the mouth of the cave (this used to be a tunnel, but the one end has been filled in with sand deposits) and then the sand formations seen further into the cave. Water drips from the roof, just like in a regular cave and forms structures called lavacicles instead of stalactites. Water from outside the cave seeps in and forms lavacicles and sand. You can also see the layers or rock that were formed by the lava when you examine the cave walls. Pretty cool.

Bend isn’t the only place you can hike a lava tube, though it is the longest continuous tube in Oregon. Want to visit a lava tube, too? Some of the more popular ones worldwide, according to Wikipedia, are:

• Iceland
• Surtshellir - For a long time, this was the longest known lava tube in the world.
• Víðgelmir - Another long lava tube of Iceland.
• Portugal
• Gruta das Torres - Lava tube system of the Azores.
• Spain
• Cueva del Viento - 17 km lava tube. Tenerife, Canary Islands
• USA
• Lava River Cave in Arizona's Coconino National Forest
• Lava Beds National Monument - The site of the largest concentration of lava tubes in the United States
• Kazumura Cave - Not only the world's most extensive lava tube, but has the greatest linear extent of any cave known
• Ape Cave, Washington - May be the third longest lava tube in the continental United States

There are also caves that aren’t shown in the list above in Utah, Hawaii, New Zealand and many more places. You just have to seek them out.

Have you ever hiked a lava tube/cave/tunnel?