Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire

Things to do in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire

Twelve things, starting in the city and working out. Everything below was checked on the operators' own sites in August 2026. Two notes before you plan. Balmoral is not open through the summer this year, which upends the usual Royal Deeside itinerary. And a great many of the Aberdeenshire castles are shut from November to March or open only four or five days a week, so check the day as well as the month.

1. Dunnottar Castle

The best castle ruin in Britain, and it is not close. Dunnottar stands on a sea stack joined to the cliffs by a narrow neck, a mile and a half south of Stonehaven, and it looks improbable from every angle. Its most famous hour came in 1651 and 1652, when the Honours of Scotland, the crown jewels, were smuggled in and then out again past Cromwell's besieging army. William Wallace and Mary, Queen of Scots both came here.

Practical: Open 9am to 6pm from 1 April to 30 September, 10am to 5pm in early October and March, 10am to 4pm in February and 10am to 3pm from late October to January, last entry an hour before closing. Adult £13.50, concession £12, child (5 to 15) £6.25, family of four £36. Card payments only. The walk in is 300 metres of flat earth path to the cliff-top viewpoint, then 180 concrete steps down and 38 uneven steps up to the door, and the operator states plainly that wheelchair access is not possible and there are no lifts or ramps. Wear something with grip. The castle may close at no notice in high winds, snow or ice, and it is closed until about 1pm on 2 September 2026 for essential maintenance, with the car park and paths shut too. Free car park, small. The Stagecoach X7 and 107 from Aberdeen stop a short walk away, and the coastal path from Stonehaven is the nicest approach. Checked August 2026.

2. The free museums

Aberdeen's two best indoor attractions cost nothing. The Art Gallery reopened in 2019 after a major refurbishment and is genuinely first rate, with a collection strong on the Scottish Colourists and Aberdeen's own painters. The Maritime Museum, built into Provost Ross's House of 1593 on the Shiprow above the harbour, covers shipbuilding, the clipper trade and fishing, and covers the North Sea oil and gas industry that made modern Aberdeen.

Practical: Both open Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 11am to 4pm. The Art Gallery is free. Checked August 2026.

3. Old Aberdeen, King's College and St Machar's

Half a mile north of the modern centre, a cobbled medieval town that is still the university quarter. The University of Aberdeen was founded in 1495 by Bishop William Elphinstone and was the fifth university in the UK, admitting its first students in 1505; King's College Chapel with its crown tower is the centrepiece. Up the road, St Machar's Cathedral has been a place of worship on this site for around 1,400 years, and the present building is early fifteenth century with a heraldic ceiling of 1520 that is one of the finest things in the north-east. Seaton Park runs down to the river behind it.

4. The beach, Footdee and Codona's

Aberdeen has two miles of sand starting a fifteen-minute walk from the city centre, which is unusual for a city of this size. At the southern end, Footdee, pronounced Fittie, is a planned fishing village of 1809 laid out in squares with the houses facing inward away from the sea, and it is one of the strangest and most charming corners of any Scottish city. At the northern end sits Codona's, the seafront amusement park, which has been the local family day out for generations.

5. Duthie Park and the Winter Gardens

A big Victorian park by the Dee with a bandstand, ponds and play areas, and inside it the David Welch Winter Gardens, which the council calls one of the most visited public indoor plant collections in Scotland and which is the wet-weather answer for families. Open all year.

Practical: The park is open 24 hours. The Winter Gardens open 10.30am to 5pm from March to October and 10.30am to 4pm from November to February, closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and 1 and 2 January. Parking inside the park is limited. Checked August 2026.

6. Crathes Castle

Fifteen miles west of Aberdeen on the A93, a sixteenth-century tower house built by the Burnetts with painted ceilings that survive almost intact, and a walled garden with yew hedges thought to have been planted as early as 1702. The estate has trails, an adventure playground and a café in a 1702 building.

Practical: Castle, shop, café and garden open daily 10am to 5pm from 1 April to 31 October, with entry to the castle every ten minutes and last entry at 4.15pm. Pre-booking is not possible; it is first come, first served. Adult £18, concession £14, family £40.50, garden token £8, Wild Wood Adventure Play £5 a child, car park £5, members free. The play area runs weekends only from 20 August to 1 November. Grounds open all year, dawn to dusk, though some trails are still closed after storm damage. Crathes is part of ScotRail's two-for-one offer with a valid rail ticket and a printed voucher. Checked August 2026.

7. Drum and Craigievar

Two more castles within half an hour, and they could not be less alike. Drum, near Banchory, has one of Scotland's oldest tower houses at its core, granted with the Royal Forest to the Irvine family by Robert the Bruce in 1323, with a Jacobean mansion grafted on and a rose garden behind. Craigievar, up towards Alford, is the pink one: a seven-storey tower finished in 1626 that looks like something from a story book, and its recent Pink Again project has put the harling and the colour back.

Practical: Drum's castle is open daily 10.30am to 4.30pm from 1 June to 30 August, then Thursday to Monday to 1 November and Thursday to Sunday through the winter; entry is by guided tour, last entry 3.15pm. Adult £18, walled garden only £5, car park £5. Craigievar is guided tours only, maximum ten people, roughly every 45 minutes, first come first served with no advance booking, so expect a wait at peak times: daily 10.30am to 4pm in June, July and August, Friday to Monday in September, weekends only to 25 October. Adult £18, car park £5, grounds free all year. Checked August 2026.

8. Balmoral and Royal Deeside

The A93 west from Aberdeen up the Dee is one of the great Scottish drives: Banchory, Aboyne, Ballater and Braemar, with the Cairngorms rising on both sides. Balmoral sits between the last two, and 2026 is an unusual year for it because the grounds, gardens, exhibitions and restaurant were closed through the summer and the public season has moved to the autumn. Ballater has the restored Old Royal Station, and Royal Lochnagar distillery is a mile from the castle gates at Crathie, founded in 1845 and one of the smallest traditional distilleries still working.

Practical: Balmoral's 2026 public season runs Tuesday 29 September to Sunday 1 November, 10am to 4pm, at £10 adult, with tickets on sale online from early September; general admission covers the Castle Ballroom, the grounds, the exhibitions and the shop. The Main Gate gift shop and Terrace Café also open daily 10am to 4pm through August and September. Our guide to Ballater, Braemar and Strathdon covers the upper Dee, and the Cairngorms page has the national park itself. Checked August 2026.

9. Slains Castle and the Bullers of Buchan

North of Aberdeen at Cruden Bay, the gaunt roofless shell of Slains stands right on the cliff edge, free to walk into and completely unfenced, which is both the appeal and the warning. Bram Stoker stayed at Cruden Bay and the castle is widely linked to Dracula. A mile up the coast, the Bullers of Buchan is a collapsed sea cave forming a circular chasm with an arch to the sea, ringed by nesting seabirds in early summer.

Practical: Both are free and open at all times, and both have unfenced drops straight into the sea. Keep well back from the edges, keep children close and keep dogs on leads. Our Slains Castle guide has the walk in. Checked August 2026.

10. Stonehaven

The best small town on this coast: a harbour with boats still working out of it, a long shingle bay, Dunnottar a mile and a half south on the cliff path, and the UK's only art deco Olympic-sized sea water lido, opened in 1934 and heated. On Hogmanay the town swings fireballs down the high street, which is exactly as spectacular as it sounds.

Practical: The open air pool's season runs roughly from the end of May to early September, with peak hours 10am to 7.30pm on weekdays in July and August and 10am to 6pm at weekends. Day ticket £10.40, family £28.10, evening swim from 5.30pm £6.90, under-5s free with an adult. Midnight swims run on Wednesdays from 10pm through July and into August and are worth booking. No booking needed for daytime swims. Checked August 2026.

11. The castle trail: Castle Fraser, Fyvie, Haddo and Pitmedden

Aberdeenshire markets itself on castles and it has the stock to back it up. Castle Fraser is one of the largest tower houses in Scotland with a portrait collection and a walled garden. Fyvie is the grand one, five towers and a wheel stair, with a collection that includes Raeburns. Haddo House is the Adam mansion of the group, done by William Adam in the 1730s, with a country park around it. And Pitmedden is a recreated Renaissance walled garden in formal parterres that is at its best in July.

Practical: All are National Trust for Scotland, all charge £18 adult except Pitmedden at £11 and Leith Hall at £17, and all charge £5 for parking. Seasons vary a lot: Fyvie closes from 2 November to the end of February, Pitmedden from 31 October to late March, and Leith Hall from 2 November to April. Castle Fraser is closed 14 to 18 September 2026 for maintenance. Haddo's house is by guided tour at 11am, 1pm and 3pm, Friday to Monday. Check the day before you drive. Checked August 2026.

12. Huntly and Kildrummy

Two Historic Environment Scotland ruins inland, and both are worth the detour. Huntly Castle is a palace as much as a fortress, with a magnificent carved heraldic frontispiece over the door and one of the finest Renaissance facades in Scotland. Kildrummy, west of Alford, was one of the most important castles in northern Scotland and was slighted after the 1715 rising.

Practical: Huntly opens daily 10am to 4.30pm from 1 April to 30 September and 10am to 3.30pm in winter but is closed Thursdays and Fridays from October to March. There are currently no visitor toilets and the round tower is closed, though the rest is open. Kildrummy opens 1 April to 30 September only, Wednesday to Friday and Sunday, 10am to 4.30pm with a lunch closure, and is closed entirely from October to March. Both are £7.50 adult online. Deer Abbey, north of Ellon, is free, open 9.30am to 5.30pm from 1 April to 30 September and 10am to 4pm from 1 October to 31 March, and closed 20 December to 4 January. Checked August 2026.

Where to eat

The Atrium and No.10 cover the city centre, and Café Neuk is the daytime one. Out of town, The Old Schoolhouse is the sort of country restaurant worth driving for. Beyond those, Aberdeen's best eating is around Belmont Street and the Merchant Quarter, Stonehaven punches above its size around the harbour, and Ballater on Deeside has more good rooms than a village of that size should. The north-east is also the home of the Aberdeen Angus and the butteries, and the fishing ports at Peterhead and Fraserburgh land more than anywhere else in Scotland, so eat accordingly. If you run a place to eat in the north-east and want to be found here, get in touch.

Getting there and around

Aberdeen is well connected for somewhere this far north. Trains run from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Inverness, and the Caledonian Sleeper comes overnight from London. The airport is seven miles out with flights across the UK and to the Northern Isles and Norway. The A90 runs up the coast from Dundee and the A96 comes across from Inverness. NorthLink ferries sail from the harbour to Kirkwall and Lerwick, which makes Aberdeen the mainland gateway to Orkney and Shetland.

Within the city you will not need a car: the museums, Old Aberdeen, the beach and Footdee are all walkable or a short bus. Outside it you will. Stonehaven and Huntly are on the railway, and buses reach Banchory and Ballater on Deeside, but the castles are scattered across the countryside and most of them are a mile or two off a bus route. Crathes, Drum, Pitmedden and Leith Hall all take part in ScotRail's two-for-one entry offer if you arrive by train with a printed voucher.

Drive times are approximate and for normal traffic.

When to visit

May to September is the season, and this is a region where that really matters. Fyvie, Pitmedden, Leith Hall and Kildrummy all close for the winter entirely, Huntly shuts on Thursdays and Fridays from October, and several of the National Trust properties drop to four days a week from the end of August. Dunnottar, the free city museums and the Winter Gardens stay open all year, which makes a winter city break perfectly viable if you accept that the castle trail is not part of it.

The north-east has its own weather quirk worth knowing: the haar, a cold sea fog that can roll in off the North Sea and sit on the coast for days while it is sunny fifteen miles inland. If the coast is grey, drive west. Two dates stand out. The Braemar Gathering is on the first Saturday in September, 5 September in 2026, and is the most famous Highland games in Scotland. And the Stonehaven fireballs on Hogmanay are one of the great Scottish traditions, with the town packed for it.

Day trips and nearby

The Cairngorms start an hour west of the city up Royal Deeside, with Ballater, Braemar, Balmoral and the Linn of Dee all inside the national park, and the Lecht road over to Speyside beyond. Dundee and Angus is an hour and a quarter south, with Glamis and Arbroath on the way. Inverness is a little over two hours west on the A96, with the Moray coast and the Speyside distilleries strung along the road. And the Aberdeenshire coast north of the city, through Cruden Bay, Peterhead and Fraserburgh to the Moray Firth, is an underrated day: cliffs, seabirds, fishing towns and the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses at the top corner.