Working Remotely in Edinburgh, UK
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Working Remotely in Edinburgh, UK: My Digital Nomad Travel Guide
When you stroll down the streets of Edinburgh, it feels like you’ve entered a magical world of wizards, bagpipes, and horse-drawn carriages. This stunning medieval city is also home to the world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where hundreds of thousands of theatergoers descend on the city to see indie theater productions and musicals put on in both high-end theaters and local pubs.
My partner Kyle and I visited for this Fringe Fest, finding ourselves watching musical adaptations about Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski accident case as well as a well-made one-woman show about a weather girl losing her mind as wildfires sweep California and she searches for her homeless mother.
This festival gave birth to shows like Fleabag, but it’s also a wild time to be in the city. You’re clamoring past crowds as buskers and street performers try to grab your attention by throwing fire or doing magic tricks. You’re trying (and failing) to avoid spending $20 on a sandwich. And as you wind through a narrow stone alleyway past the castle, a lone bagpipe player serenades you under the twilight as torches burn from the top of the towers of the castle.
We threw paper airplanes in pubs that held contests for just this type of activity. We ate amazing naan breakfast rolls at Dishoom and delighted in their creamy chai lattes. We ducked into bookstores to avoid the “summer” weather of rainstorms and wind.
Edinburgh is a special place, but it’s also expensive and cold. If you know what to expect and pack a pair of waterproof boots and an umbrella (yes, even in the summer!) then you’re likely to have a great time in this city.
Where to Stay in Edinburgh, UK for Digital Nomads + Remote Workers
Accommodations are always going to be challenging if you’re opting to visit Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival. I didn’t love where we were staying, so I would instead recommend the Destiny Scotland - Royal Mile Residence* if you want a nice place to stay with a little kitchen. Airbnbs are going to be more heavily regulated moving forward, so your options on where to stay will be pretty sparse.
However, most areas around the city center are really walkable and connect to the tram line or many bus routes, so no matter where you stay in the city it’ll be easy to get around.
What to Do in Edinburgh, UK for Digital Nomads + Remote Workers
This will come as no surprise to you, dear reader, but we spent most of our time running around seeing shows for the Fringe Festival while we were in Edinburgh! We did, however, do two “touristy” activities that we can recommend. Here they are:
Original Harry Potter Locations in Edinburgh Tour.* My partner Kyle did this tour while I was doing some press interviews for my new book, and he said it was a neat tour that showed some of the real-life inspiration for the Harry Potter series including a graveyard where JK Rowling got the names for Professor McGonagall and other characters. If you’re a fan of the series, you should definitely add this to your list.
Dark Side of Edinburgh Tour.* We love taking ghost tours of different cities, and this was a great walking tour that gives some fun insights into different areas of the city and the spooky stories that hide in graveyards and beyond in Edinburgh.
5 Travel Tips for Seeing the Best Theater at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
My partner Kyle and I saw over 30 Fringe shows, and here’s what we learned:
Start tracking the shows you want to see in advance — but don’t book them all yet. Wait for a week or two before the festival to see what the buzz looks like, and watch what shows seem to be about to be selling out. There are different websites that track this, like this one. This website is run by a guy who set up a system that checks the Edinburgh Fringe website to show shows have fewer available tickets. So this is a good thing to check every day to prioritize what you should potentially check out because some of the shows have vague descriptions but are incredible. And you can also dig into different reviewers and see whose opinions you trust.
Don’t overbook yourself. At one point in the festival, we were seeing 3 to 4 shows per day — this was lots of fun, but we did overbook ourselves a bit considering we still had some work to do in between shows.
Group shows by venues. Our friends had a great strategy where they grouped shows in venues: they’d stay around one venue all day and just see a bunch of shows in one spot. The top ones to really focus on are Summerhall and Pleasance Theater
Take a chance on smaller shows, too. Part of the fun of the festival is discovering great small shows. We loved watching CRISPR: The Musical, which was a wild run through the history of this gene editing technique — and a wacky imagining of how it could all go out of control. We also loved an immersive experience called Werewolf run by a theater company out of New Zealand, where the audience members were all given cards with dialog and prompts as we entered a safe house to survive a plague of werewolves. This show was so clever, and it had almost slipped off our radar.
Pack your own lunch and bring healthy snacks with you. There’s a lot of tantalizing junk food being sold everywhere, but it helps to pack your own snacks and maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to stay fueled during the festival. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself eating a ton of not-so-healthy foods — and spending quite a bit of money in the process.
So the strategy could be to go through Summerhall and Pleasance shows two weeks before Fringe starts and pick the five shows that jump out the most to you there. Then I would track the selling-out website I linked above and use that as your barometer for what shows you’ll fill into your schedule next. You only really need a week at Fringe and I’d pick the second week so you can leverage the information, reviews, and track selling out from the first week. The first week largely determines what is good and bad, which means you can mostly eat the good. But it would require you to check the selling-out website every day and decide which almost sold-out shows to get for your second week.
I know it can feel overwhelming but if you follow this you’ll save a lot of time, energy, and money.
What to Eat in Edinburgh, UK for Digital Nomads + Remote Workers
I’ll be honest, I didn’t love the restaurant scene in Edinburgh. However, we did manage to track down some hidden gems, which I’ve listed below:
For Hot Chocolate: Thomas J Walls Coffee. Ask for the hot chocolate with the marshmallow and you won't be disappointed! This place has the best hot chocolate in all of Edinburgh, and the homemade marshmallow melts into creamy goodness in the drink. Perfect for a cold, rainy day. There are also lots of seating if you need a place to rest in between shows if you're here for the Fringe Fest.
For Turmeric Lattes: Black Sheep Coffee. Sensing a trend? Yes, I did quit caffeine last month, and have been desperately searching for alternatives! Edinburgh was also very cold during our stay, so turmeric lattes were a must in the random August rainstorms. Black Sheep Coffee is a chain brand here, and they also have smoothies that reminded my partner of the smoothies we used to have in Japan 7/11’s (frozen, not fresh produce — but still good.) Their turmeric lattes are a pretty great alternative to coffee, and have at least some health benefits compared to hot chocolate.
For Breakfast or Dinner: Dishoom. You have not lived until you’ve tried Dishoom’s breakfast menu. The naan wrap is incredible: I got the vegan naan with plant-based sausage, and it is delectable. Pair it with a chai and you’ve got yourself the best breakfast in Edinburgh. Lunch and dinner is great here as well.
For Lunch: Alby's Sandwich. This sandwich shop has some of the best focaccia sandwiches I’ve had in the entire world — second only to Florence, Italy. So delicious, so good.
For Lunch: Union of Genius. It can be a bit tough to find a fairly priced lunch in Edinburgh that isn’t unnecessarily expensive, but that ends with Union of Genius. Easily the best soup in all of Edinburgh, and it’s very close to a lot of the venues for the Fringe Fest!
For Dessert: Basement Gelato. There are a lot of good dessert places, but this was our favorite gelato stop!
For Dinner: 3 Blind Mice. We stumbled upon this place after a tour, and their pizza hit the spot.
Overall Thoughts on Edinburgh, UK as a Digital Nomad
Edinburgh is a stunning destination if you love medieval cities, rain, and theater. If you choose to visit during the Fringe Fest, just be prepared for high prices and lots of crowds.
Overall, I really enjoyed the vibe of the city, and wandering through graveyards and castles made me feel like I was in a fantasy novel. I imagine that visiting during a less crowded time would change the whole dynamic of the city, but I still enjoyed the Fringe Festival and all the shows we went to.
Edinburgh is worth a visit — but you may not need to stop by for very long to get the essence of the city.
My Ratings of Edinburgh, UK as a Digital Nomad
Affordability: ⭐️⭐️ 2/5 stars. I’ve heard that prices double during the month of Fringe in August, and it definitely felt like we were overpaying for most things. Edinburgh was 30% more expensive than London (which was our next stop!) just to give you perspective. However, if you visit during a month outside of the festival, the prices might be a bit more affordable.
Food Quality: ⭐️⭐️ 2/5 stars. Once you find your favorite food spots, there are some great restaurants here. However, the average food scene isn’t as flashy as cities like Buenos Aires and Istanbul.
Vegetarian Options: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. If you’re a vegan or vegetarian, you won’t have any problem finding good options at the restaurants and food trucks here. I knocked off a star just because I wasn’t a big fan of the food quality and restaurants here, but it’s still very accessible for plant-based eaters.
Adventures/Day Trips: ?/5 stars. Because we were visiting during Fringe Fest, there was so much to do around town that we didn’t venture out. I’ve heard there are good quality day trips, though — so I’ll hold off on commenting on this category this time around.
Cafes/Co-Working Space Availability: ⭐️⭐️ 2/5 stars. There were very few work-friendly cafes and coffeeshops near where we were staying and closer to the show venues. The coffeeshops we did visit had bad wifi or were overcrowded. Maybe this would have scored better if we had visited in a less busy time.
Digital Nomad-Friendly City: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars. While it’s nice being back in an English-speaking country, I think the pricing here is pretty high for nomads. If you stay in another month that’s not a festival month you’ll get a better deal, so just keep the timing of your visit in mind. Other than that, public transportation was easy to navigate (the tram line goes straight to the airport!) and it was easy to get around.
Value of Accommodations for Remote Workers: ⭐️⭐️ 2/5 stars. Accommodation pricing will be different in other months as I mentioned, but I did find it a bit pricey for Fringe Fest. Airbnb will be facing more restrictions here in the future as well, which will likely cause an increase in prices.
General Weather: ⭐️⭐️ 2/5 stars. The weather in August — the heart of summer, mind you! — was cold, rainy, windy, and cloudy. Occasionally we’d get some nice sun, but overall the summer weather was so depressing that I can’t imagine what winter must be like. However, if you don’t mind a bit of bad weather, it’s a very moody vibe and feels quite writerly.
Air Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. The air quality was pretty good most days we were here, and there are some good green spaces.
Water Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. Edinburgh has good quality water, and our Airbnb’s tap water tested pretty well.
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars. Edinburgh is a charming destination, but I wouldn’t recommend it for long-term stays. If you’re visiting for Fringe, it will be quite expensive, and if you’re visiting any other time of year, I would imagine you’d run out of things to do quite quickly. But it’s still a moody and interesting place to visit, so worth adding to your list.
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