The top deck is open and the wind has just lifted my map off my lap. We swing past the East Princes Street Gardens, the Castle is suddenly behind us, and the bus tips down the hill toward Holyrood with the whole Royal Mile unrolling on the right. I had not planned to ride a hop-on hop-off bus in Edinburgh. Twenty minutes in, I’d already worked out which stops I’d jump off at next.
If you only have a day or two and you want the city’s main sights without flogging your legs up Castle Rock, the bus is the easiest way in. The catch is that there are three different operators, three different ticket types, and the routes overlap in confusing ways. This is how to pick.
In a hurry? Quick picks
City Sightseeing Edinburgh ($24, 24-hour): the classic red bus, recorded multilingual audio, kid-friendly Horrible Histories channel. Best all-rounder. Book on GetYourGuide.
Multi-Tour 3-City Pass ($33, 24 or 48hr): rides three different routes including the Britannia loop down to Leith. Best for two days. Book on GetYourGuide.
Big Bus Edinburgh ($24): open-top, English live guide on board, slightly smaller route. Good if you want a real human telling stories. Book on GetYourGuide.
- In a hurry? Quick picks
- Why the bus actually makes sense in Edinburgh
- The three operators, plain English
- 1. Edinburgh Bus Tours (City Sightseeing red)
- 2. Big Bus Edinburgh
- 3. The 3-Tour Royal Edinburgh Ticket
- Pick the right ticket length
- Where to start: Waterloo Place
- The route, sight by sight
- Top tours to book in Edinburgh
- 1. Edinburgh City Sightseeing Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour:
- 2. Edinburgh Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Pass with 3 City Tours:
- 3. Edinburgh Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour by Open-Top Bus:
- Pair the bus with a Castle + Holyroodhouse + Britannia plan
- What’s actually open today
- Open top or covered
- Add-ons worth bundling
- How and where to buy
- Cheaper alternatives if the bus isn’t for you
- What to do near the bus stops
- Practical tips from a few visits
- Bus or walking tour for first-timers?
- If you’ve still got energy
Why the bus actually makes sense in Edinburgh
I usually skip these things. They feel touristy and the routes always seem to skip the streets I want to walk. Edinburgh changed my mind for two practical reasons.
First, the topography. The Old Town sits on a ridge of volcanic rock that rises 80 metres above Princes Street. If you stay in the New Town and want to see the Castle, you walk uphill. If you stay near the Castle and want to see the Royal Yacht Britannia at Leith, that’s nearly three miles north. Doing both on foot in a day is possible. Doing both with kids, after a long flight, in February drizzle? Not really.
Second, the connections. The bus routes link the four big paid sights of the city in an order that actually makes sense: Castle, Royal Mile, Holyroodhouse, then Britannia at Leith. You can pair the bus with skip-the-line entries into any of those and not waste a minute. The Scotch Whisky Experience sits right at the top of the Royal Mile next to the Castle, so you can knock off the whisky barrel ride and a Castle visit on the same morning, then hop back on for Holyrood after lunch.
The three operators, plain English
This is where most articles get vague. Three different companies run open-top sightseeing buses in Edinburgh and the branding is not always clear from the street.
1. Edinburgh Bus Tours (City Sightseeing red)
Run by Lothian Buses, the local public operator. They badge three different routes under the City Sightseeing brand. City Sightseeing Edinburgh is the workhorse: red bus, recorded audio in eleven languages, dedicated kids channel pegged to the Horrible Histories books (genuinely funny, not patronising). It runs Castle, Old Town, Royal Mile, Grassmarket, Holyrood and back. About one hour for a full loop. Buses every 15 minutes in summer, 20 minutes in winter.
The Edinburgh Tour is the same operator’s live-guided green bus. Same route as the red one, more or less, but a real guide on the mic instead of recorded audio. I prefer the green bus for storytelling and the red bus for kids.
The Majestic Tour (sometimes branded “Regal”) is the longer route that runs north out of the city centre to the Royal Botanic Garden and the Royal Yacht Britannia at Leith. If you want to see Britannia, you need this route or the multi-tour pass.
2. Big Bus Edinburgh
Different company, different livery (more navy and gold than red). Big Bus is the global brand you’ve probably ridden in London or Paris. Same general format: open-top double-decker, recorded audio, free wifi on board.
They run two routes. The City Tour covers the same Old Town and New Town big-hitters as the City Sightseeing red bus. The Britannia Tour runs out to Leith. Their Discover ticket only covers the City route. The Explore ticket covers both. Tickets are also fully date-changeable, which the City Sightseeing tickets are not. If your plans are wobbly, that flexibility is worth something. If you’ve ridden the London Big Bus before, the Edinburgh experience is similar in feel.
3. The 3-Tour Royal Edinburgh Ticket
This isn’t a separate operator. It’s a bundle ticket from Edinburgh Bus Tours that pairs all three of their bus routes (red, green, Majestic) with skip-the-line entry to Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and the Royal Yacht Britannia. Valid 48 hours.
If you intend to visit all three of those big paid attractions, the maths works heavily in your favour. Combined entry alone is around £75 at the gate. The bundle wraps the bus on top for less than a tenner extra. The catch: you have to actually do all three. If you’re only doing the Castle and one bus loop, the standard 24-hour ticket is cheaper.
Pick the right ticket length
This trips people up more than the choice of operator. The buses run on a hop-on, hop-off format, which means your ticket is good for unlimited rides for the time it covers. Time starts the first moment you board, not midnight to midnight.
24 hours is enough if you’re doing one big sight (most people do the Castle), eating lunch on the Royal Mile, and ticking the city off with one full bus loop in the afternoon. That’s a solid one-day plan. Bear in mind that several of the bus operators sell their 24-hour ticket as the cheapest option but the full city loop alone is around an hour, so you really do want at least four to five hours of bus time spread out.
48 hours is what most travellers actually need. It’s the right length for the standard Edinburgh holiday: Castle on day one, Holyroodhouse and Britannia on day two, with bus rides linking everything. The Royal Edinburgh Ticket bundle uses this length.
Skip the 48-hour option if you’re already planning to walk most of the Old Town. Edinburgh’s centre is small and walkable on the flat. The bus earns its keep when you need to cover the up-and-down between New Town hotels and Castle Rock, or the three miles north to Britannia.
Where to start: Waterloo Place
Both Edinburgh Bus Tours and Big Bus use 27 Waterloo Place as the principal departure point, just east of the Balmoral Hotel. You can join at any stop on the route, but Waterloo Place is the easiest to find from Waverley Station. Walk out the station’s Princes Street exit, turn right, three minutes uphill.
If you’re staying in the Old Town, the Royal Mile / Castle Esplanade stop is the most useful starting point. From a hotel near the Grassmarket, walk up to Lawnmarket and pick up the bus at Stop 4 outside Camera Obscura.
From New Town hotels on or near George Street, the St Andrew Square stop is closer than Waterloo Place. The bus calls at all the standard sights regardless of where you start. The order changes; the price doesn’t.
The route, sight by sight
Here’s roughly what you’ll see if you ride the standard City Sightseeing red route from Waterloo Place, in order:
- Waterloo Place + Princes Street: the New Town shopping spine, with Calton Hill on your left as the bus pulls away
- The Mound: connecting Princes Street to the Old Town, with the National Galleries on the corner
- Royal Mile / Castle Esplanade: get off here for the Castle, the Scotch Whisky Experience, and Camera Obscura
- Grassmarket: the old market square below the Castle, good lunch spots, slightly grungy in a charming way
- National Museum of Scotland: free entry, top spot if it’s raining
- Holyrood / Scottish Parliament: get off here for the Palace, the Parliament building, and the start of the Arthur’s Seat hike
- Royal Mile (Tron Kirk): back up through the Old Town, near the cafés and ghost-tour assembly points
- St Andrew Square: top end of George Street, useful for New Town shopping or the Johnnie Walker venue on Princes Street
The Majestic loop adds the Botanic Garden, Newhaven Harbour, Ocean Terminal (for the Royal Yacht Britannia), and a long run back along the Forth shore. That extension takes another 50 minutes round trip on top of the standard loop.
Top tours to book in Edinburgh
I’ve cycled through all three of the main HOHO products on different visits and these are the ones I’d actually point a friend at. The order below tracks the volume of bookings on the platform plus how the experience held up against my own expectations on the day.
1. Edinburgh City Sightseeing Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour: $24
This is the one I’d pick if you only ride one. The route hits everything you came to see and the recorded audio is well-paced (not a constant talking head). The Horrible Histories children’s channel is a real pull if you’ve got kids over six. Our full review walks through the stops and timing.
2. Edinburgh Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Pass with 3 City Tours: $33
If you want to do Britannia at Leith without booking a second separate ticket, this is the pass. Same buses as the standard City Sightseeing red, but valid on the Majestic Tour out to Leith too. Best on a 48-hour ticket spread over two days. Our pass review covers the route differences in more depth.
3. Edinburgh Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour by Open-Top Bus: $24
I’d pick Big Bus over City Sightseeing if you specifically want a real human guide rather than recorded audio, and if your travel dates might shift. The route is a bit shorter than the City Sightseeing red, but it covers the major stops and the live commentary is sharper. Our Big Bus review compares the two head to head.
Pair the bus with a Castle + Holyroodhouse + Britannia plan
If you’re going to ride the bus, pair it with the three big paid sights it was built to link. Here’s the plan that works.
Day one, morning: board the bus at Waterloo Place, ride to the Castle Esplanade. Walk down five minutes to the Castle entrance. Two and a half hours inside is plenty. The Castle ticket guide covers timed-entry quirks.
Day one, afternoon: hop back on at the Esplanade, ride to Holyrood. Tour the Palace of Holyroodhouse (allow 90 minutes including the abbey ruins). The bus stop is 50 metres from the gate.
Day two, morning: catch the Majestic loop or Big Bus Britannia route from Princes Street, ride out to Ocean Terminal, tour Britannia. Two hours is the minimum.
Day two, afternoon: ride back into town, hop off at Lawnmarket for the Scotch Whisky Experience or further down for a South Bridge Vaults tour if you fancy something underground.
That’s a properly full two days and the bus does most of the connective tissue.
What’s actually open today
One thing the booking pages don’t always make clear: the routes change in winter and during the August festival. From November to March, frequencies drop to every 20-25 minutes and the open top is closed (you’ll be on the lower deck or under a glass roof). In August, road closures around the Castle Esplanade for the Military Tattoo can detour the bus around the south side, adding ten minutes per loop and skipping the Esplanade stop entirely.
If you’re booking for August, check if your bus is actually stopping at the Castle on the date you board. The ticket is still valid; you’ll just need to walk five minutes uphill from George IV Bridge.
Open top or covered
Edinburgh weather changes hourly. Check the morning forecast and pick your seat accordingly. The open upper deck has the best views and the worst weather exposure. The covered upper deck (Big Bus Discover or City Sightseeing in winter) is glassed in. The lower deck has the worst sightlines and the warmest seats.
My rule: if there’s any sun in the forecast at all, take the open top and bring a hat. If it’s solid grey, the lower deck and a coffee from a stop along the way is fine. Don’t waste a sunny morning on the lower deck. Don’t fight a horizontal February rain on the top deck.
Add-ons worth bundling
Two add-ons genuinely improve the bus day. The first is a Forth bridges cruise from South Queensferry, which the Majestic loop doesn’t reach but which makes a brilliant half-day pairing with a 48-hour bus ticket. The Three Bridges sightseeing cruise runs from the South Queensferry pier 25 minutes out by train from Waverley.
The second is a Royal Attractions combo, which packages the bus with a stack of paid entries. Our Royal Attractions guide compares the bundles.
Skip the food add-ons that some operators push at boarding. Edinburgh has too much good food on the Royal Mile and Grassmarket to bother eating bus-ticket lunches.
How and where to buy
Three options. Buy online before you leave home (best price, instant confirmation, you board with a QR code). Buy at the Waterloo Place ticket booth from a real person (helpful if you’ve got a question, slightly more expensive than online). Buy on board from the driver as you board (works fine but the queue at peak hours slows everyone else down).
I always pre-book. The savings are small but real, the confirmation hits your inbox in 60 seconds, and you don’t have to faff with cash or contactless on a moving bus.
Refunds: most online tickets are refundable up to 24 hours before activation. Big Bus’s flexible-date policy lets you change once free of charge. City Sightseeing’s standard ticket is non-refundable but transferable.
Cheaper alternatives if the bus isn’t for you
If the bus seems steep for what it is, the alternatives are decent. A Lothian Buses day saver costs £5 and lets you ride any local bus in the city for 24 hours. You don’t get commentary or open top, but you do get the connectivity. Useful if you’re staying out near Leith or Newhaven and just need to get into town.
Walking pays off if you’re under 35 and your accommodation is central. Old Town to Holyrood and back is about 90 minutes of slow strolling. The Castle to Britannia walk is 50 minutes one-way along the Water of Leith path, which is genuinely pretty.
And the Edinburgh Trams (since 2014, extended to Newhaven in 2023) run a single line connecting the airport, Princes Street, and Newhaven. Useful from the airport, less so as a tour.
What to do near the bus stops
The bus stops put you within a few minutes of basically every major Edinburgh experience worth booking. At the Castle Esplanade, you’re 100 metres from the entrance to the Castle and the same distance from the Scotch Whisky Experience. From the Royal Mile / Tron stop, you’re a five-minute walk from the Underground Vaults, the Real Mary King’s Close entrance, and the Edinburgh Dungeon. From Holyrood, the Palace gate is at your shoulder and the Arthur’s Seat trailhead is 200 metres up the road.
From the Lawnmarket stop you can pick up a Harry Potter walking tour meeting at George Heriot’s School in twelve minutes.
Practical tips from a few visits
A few things I wish I’d known on the first ride.
- The headphones are flimsy. If you’ve got your own earbuds with a 3.5mm jack, bring them. The audio jack is on the seat in front.
- Top deck front seats fill up first. Get on at the start of the loop (Waterloo Place) for the best chance.
- You can stay on for a full loop and not get off. It’s a perfectly good city orientation in 60 minutes if you’ve just arrived.
- August Tattoo dates rearrange the route. Check the day of departure on the operator’s website, not just the booking confirmation.
- Sundays in winter: the One O’Clock Gun at the Castle is silent, but everything else runs as normal. Don’t waste your Castle slot on a Sunday morning expecting the bang.
- Boarding outside Waverley: there’s no clear queue. Stand on the pavement, wave at the driver as the bus pulls in.
Bus or walking tour for first-timers?
If it’s your first day in Edinburgh and the weather looks decent, do the bus first. One full loop on the upper deck gives you a sense of the city’s geography that no walking tour can match in the same time. Then book a walking tour for day two when you’ve got your bearings.
If it’s pouring, swap the order. Walking tours run rain or shine and the guide is right there to dodge under awnings. The bus in the rain is a damp, glass-streaked affair.
If you’ve still got energy
Once you’ve done the bus loops and the Castle, Edinburgh keeps giving. The Underground Vaults sit five minutes off the Royal Mile and feel like a different century once you’re below ground. The Scotch Whisky Experience earns its place on the Castle Esplanade for the tasting alone. If you’re in the UK on a longer trip, the bus operator playbook in London and the canal-cruise alternative in Manchester use the same logic.