The 16 Best Hotels in Scotland

"If nothing else, Glenapp Castle—once the home of P&O supremo Lord Inchcape—proves that this criminally overlooked corner of Ayrshire does grand baronial-style architecture, moody coastline, rolling moorland, picturesque livestock, and eccentric aristocrats just as well as anywhere else in Scotland. The castle is approached by means of a lovely mile-long drive that winds its way up through a densely forested gorge so wildly luxuriant, so thick with ferns, firs, rhododendrons, and redwoods as to seem almost otherworldly. This pleasantly disorientating sensation is dispelled as you emerge at the threshold of the castle itself, a textbook affair of towers, turrets, and battlements. From one side, you look onto an immaculately ordered walled garden by Gertrude Jekyll; from the other, across the Irish Sea towards Ailsa Craig, the Mull of Kintyre, and the Isle of Arran. Glenapp reopened in 2021 after extensive renovation. A fantastic new four-bedroom penthouse suite was unveiled. The entire place is a paradise for families and anyone with an outdoorsy bent. The hotel’s Hebridean Sea Safari—a tour of the neighboring islands with an experienced RNLI skipper and a marine biologist, glamping in fancy tents on remote shores, catered to by a private chef—is not to be missed." - Steve King