Welcome to Outlandish Scotland Journey
Huzzah!
In September of 2015 we were finally able to begin working on a travel guidebook based on Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series of books.
Outlandish Scotland Journey will take you to a variety of real-world places in Scotland:
- Locations mentioned in Diana Gabaldon’s first three novels
(Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager). - Sites that inspired Diana’s grandly-evocative, fictional location descriptions.
- Places where significant events occurred during the 1745 Jacobite rebellion.
- Scottish film sites seen on screen in the Outlander STARZ network TV series.
Real-World Scottish Locations Include:
● Culloden Battlefield, where James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser intended to die on April 16th, 1746.
● Holyroodhouse Palace, located at the foot of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, where Jamie & Claire lodged during part of their involuntary participation in the Jacobite rising of ’45.
● Castle Leod, the Seat of Clan Mackenzie—a building that is over 500 years old—called “Castle Leoch” in Diana’s novels.
Scottish Places that Inspired Fictional Gabaldon Locations Include:
● The Callanish Stones, a late Neolithic era stone circle erected on an Outer Hebrides island. Consisting of 13 standing stones with a massive monolith near the circle’s center, this is the Scottish stone circle that most closely resembles Gabaldon’s Craigh na Dun description. Additionally, stones constructed for the STARZ TV series Craigh na Dun set look as though they were modeled after the Callanish Stones!
● The Dun Bonnet Cave, near Foyers on Loch Ness, where the real-life James Fraser of Foyers hid for seven years after surviving the Battle of Culloden. (Sound familiar?).
STARZ TV Series Scottish Film Sites Include:
● Doune Castle, just west of Stirling, is where exterior Castle Leoch scenes were shot. Rooms inside the castle inspired several sound stage set designs. Thus, many of the sets look almost exactly like the real-world rooms you can wander through.
● Culross is the village where exterior scenes were shot for Gabaldon’s fictional village of Cranesmuir. Scenes in Geillis Duncan’s parlor were filmed within Culross Palace, and the palace’s painstakingly restored 17th-century garden was used to shoot Castle Leoch garden scenes.
● The Highland Folk Museum in Scotland is Britain’s first mainland open-air museum. Footage filmed here includes exterior and interior scenes of the hut where Murtagh delivered Claire after rescuing her from Black Jack Randal, as well as several of the villages Claire visited while accompanying Dougal during his rent collections.
We look forward to guiding fans of Diana Gabaldon’s novels to each of these marvelous places—and many, many more.
In the mean time …
See our Outlandishly-large collection of Scottish places pix [75 Boards, and still not finished!]—with associated Outlander screenshots and film location fan pix—on our Outlandish Scotland Journey PINTEREST Page.
And, don’t forget to LIKE us on the Outlandish Scotland Journey Facebook Page.
Happy Outlandering!