This article discusses the importance of tipping a tour guide in Scotland, focusing on factors such as the average tipping rate, alternative options, cultural norms and expectations, personal preferences, and budgets. A tour guide can significantly impact your travel experience, so it is essential to tip them the standard 10 when finding a great guide. The standard tip for a tour in Scotland depends on the tour cost and payment method. A good general rule is around 10-15, with an alternative being to offer cash and tell the service provider to keep the money.
Tip amounts for tour guides vary depending on how you feel you’ve been treated as a customer. Poor service is not expected, while average service is 5. Good service is generally 10-15. For half-day tours, it is recommended to tip around £5-10 per person, while full-day tours should be around £10-20 per person. Tipping hairdressers and spa therapists is generally not expected.
Tipping is not expected in Scotland, as tour guides are paid the rate for their job, so they do not need a tip to make up their pay. Some guides have received tips of five euro/pounds or 20 pounds, but it is not expected from them. The amount of the tip can vary depending on the tour length and quality, but a good rule of thumb is to leave around 10 of the total. If you feel a driver or guide deserves a tip, a couple of pounds or so should cover that.
There are no hard and fast rules for tipping in Scotland, but if you are happy with the service, a 10-15 tip is customary, particularly in restaurants or cafés. Tour guides may expect a small tip for walking tours, especially if the tour is around the entire city or if you ask for additional information. Additionally, tipping about 10 for table service is also important.
📹 Do You Tip in Scotland?
Whether heading to Edinburgh or the Highlands for vacation you should know if You Tip in Scotland. And yes you should Tip in …
Is it rude not to tip in Scotland?
In Scotland, gratuities are regarded as customary rather than obligatory, as they are often perceived as discourteous in other contexts.
Do I need cash in Scotland?
Scotland uses the pound (£) as its currency, and all major credit cards are accepted, with Visa and MasterCard being the most widely accepted. Scotland also has its own bank notes, which have the same value as those in the rest of the UK. With over 300 years of banking experience, Scotland offers a variety of services to meet financial needs. Most banks are open Monday to Friday from 9:30am to 5:00pm, and many are open on Saturday mornings.
Cash machines (ATM) are available in larger towns and cities, and most rural areas have at least one place for cash withdrawal. These machines accept international bank cards and credit cards with a four-digit PIN code.
Is tipping expected in Scotland?
In Scotland, tipping is not strict, but a 10-15% tip is customary, especially in restaurants or cafés with table service. If a service charge is added to the bill, a tip is not necessary. Tipping in bars is not expected, but if staff is helpful, say “take one for yourself”. Taxi fares are usually rounded up to the nearest pound. Visitors are strongly advised to arrange travel insurance to cover loss of possessions, money, health, and dental treatment.
Do you tip hotel maid in Scotland?
In Edinburgh, tips are generally expected, but not expected. For dining, check the menu to see if table service is included in the bill, and if not, tip 10%. At self-service cafes, staff are not expecting tipping. Hotels tip concierges for taxi hire and dinner reservations, while porters are typically charged £1 per bag. Housekeeping is appreciated, and taxi fares are usually rounded up to the next pound. If ordering drinks at a café or pub, no tip is required.
If receiving exceptional service from a tour guide, a small tip is appreciated but not expected. Restaurants in Edinburgh are busiest between 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM for lunch and 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM for dinner. Restaurants and coffee houses are usually open on Sundays in Edinburgh, but may be less so in rural areas and with limited opening hours outside major cities.
Do you tip tour guides in UK?
During a UK holiday, it is customary to leave a small tip to tour guides, bus or coach drivers, and salons or spas. A tip of 10-15% of the tour cost or a couple of pounds per person is appropriate. For bus or coach tours, a tip jar is usually located near the door, with a reasonable tip of £2-3 per person per day. Many tours and curated experiences now offer cashless tipping via an app or QR code, making it easier to tip tour guides. At salons or spas, leaving a tip at the end of an appointment is common practice, with many salons now offering QR tipping to direct the tip to the stylist.
What is the etiquette in Edinburgh?
Edinburgh etiquette involves maintaining a respectful demeanor and respecting local customs. In social settings, informal greetings like “hi” or handshake are common, and politics and religion are generally avoided. Scottish independence and Brexit can also spark passionate responses. Edinburgh is in Scotland, not England, and the England football team is traditionally booed with enthusiasm. The city is known for its diverse accents, but it’s important to be aware of unfamiliar words like haar (a sea fog), Jambos (supporters of Hearts), Hibbies (hy-bees), Weegies (Glaswegians), and salt ‘n sauce (a vinegary condiment for chips). It’s also important to know that Cockburn Street is pronounced “Coe-burn” and Edinburgh itself is “Edin-bru” or “Embra”.
How much should a tour guide charge?
In Europe, independent businesspeople like Alex offer half-day tours with private guides, typically costing $100-300. They don’t charge per person, making hiring them less expensive if you split the cost with fellow travelers. Guides tend to charge the most in big, touristy cities and less as you go farther east. In places like Prague and Kraków, per-hour guides average $40. Guides who grew up behind the Iron Curtain often have fascinating personal stories to share about life in the past.
For example, a Czech guide shared how they collected cans from tourists threw away, bringing a richness to their trips and making them memorable long after the trip. Group walking tours or sightseeing buses can provide similar local information for less.
What do you tip a VIP tour guide?
It is customary to tip your guide $20. A travel agent can facilitate the addition of a VIP tour guide to a booking and can also ascertain pricing and other pertinent details. Amy Westerman, the Chief Magic Officer at The Mouse Experts,
How much do you tip a local tour guide?
A common practice is to provide gratuities of 10-20% of the tour cost, or $5-10 per person per day for the guide. However, if the guide provided exemplary service, a higher gratuity may be appropriate.
Do I tip a tour guide in Scotland?
It is recommended that tourists in Scotland offer gratuities to their guides in order to enhance the quality of their experience. Such tours may be conducted privately, over multiple days, on foot, or even free of charge. It is crucial to provide them with a rating of at least 10 out of 10, as their performance can significantly impact the overall success of your journey.
Is it rude not to tip UK?
It is customary to tip in London, particularly in the restaurant sector. However, it is not always appropriate to do so, except in situations where the service has been of an exceptional standard. In the UK as a whole, the practice of tipping is discretionary and dependent on the quality of service received.
📹 A Guide to Driving in Scotland
Enjoy the freedom of planning your own amazing holiday around Scotland on a road trip, and you can choose your own …
I’m Scottish and generally tip on meals and taxi fares. Never to any given percentage, generally I’ll just round the bill up to the nearest whole amount or with taxis, throw in an extra few pounds on top of the fare. ~10% though is a decent amount to aim for if you want to be specific. Do watch though as some restaurants recently have started adding service charges to the bill so tipping really isn’t required on top of that.
I don’t know why people from Scotland are on here saying we don’t tip. The advice you have given is spot on. 10% on your bill for a restaurant and 10% for a taxi or round it up nearest quid. As for pubs/bars you will occasionally say “one for yourself” and the barman/maid will take a pound. There are other times you would tip such as haircuts and other services like so but these aren’t things a tourist would likely encounter. Any Scots saying we don’t tip must just be miserable and doing us no favours with the short arms deep pockets stereotype.
I’m a Scot and this is what I do – round up taxi fares or give them 50p (a £1 if it’s a much longer journey than usual) and generally give 10% at restaurants (after checking there’s no service charge being added). I also try to tip in cash at restaurants as some restaurant chains will retain any tips added to card transactions rather than give that money to the waiting staff. Other than that I don’t usually tip, and if the service is bad I don’t bother at all. I don’t know if this differs in the rest of the UK.
While it is a little off topic, one thing we discovered while in Scotland is that ATMs will only give out Scottish Pounds. They look almost exactly like English Pounds but as we discovered, are generally not accepted as payment in the UK. So if you have Scottish Pounds make sure you spend them before heading south.
You DO NOT have to tip ANYONE in the UK 10%. If your in a taxi you can wait for them to hand over all the change due to you, usually if it’s £8.70 or £9 people may hand over the £10 and get out, that’s fine, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TOO, I only do it after a night out and just want to get in the house. We have a set minimum wage “wait” staff don’t need to live on tips, some of them maybe on the amount as those eating, YOU DON’T HAVE TO TIP in ANY RESTAURANT and we only do if we feel like it and the service has been attentive, but not intrusive, but YOU CAN JUST PAY THE BILL AND LEAVE, if YOU WANT TO TIP, then TIP IN CASH, don’t add it to the card payment as it WON’T GO to the the person you intend it to. OVERALL YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TIP ANYONE IF YOU WANT TO LEAVE A TAXI WITH YOUR CHANGE OR LEAVE THE RESTAURANT HAVING JUST PAID THE BILL DO IT, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TIP ANYWHERE IN THE UK!!!!!
I agree with your comments about tipping in Scotland; I’m Scottish and in fact live not too far away from Loch Ness; glad you seem to have had decent weather too and that you met up with “Nessie”, ha ha 🙂 Actually I think throughout most of the UK, not just Scotland, tipping about 10% is about right, although perhaps in some places a bit more (say 15 or 20%) might be expected for some things – for example for some fancier establishments in London.
I’m from the USA and I never tip. We have an individualistic culture where people won’t vote for health care reform but business owners want the customer to subsidize their employees wages lol, I never tip and never will. FYI i worked in a restaurant in my college years and that whole sob story that waiters make 2 dollars an hour is BS, every waiter that I worked with there cleared 100 dollars in a 6 hour shift, I feel bad for the dishwaters drenched in sweat busting ass and only making 60 bucks on a 8 hour shift
Thanks for the article Jocelyn but you have been misinformed about tipping in bars/pubs. Nobody regularly tips at bars in U.K., and there is never table service, so the question of waiting staff in pubs doesn’t arise. If someone is a regular, they may (very) occasionally say “have one yourself “, but it’s not expected. It always worries me getting tipping right when abroad, and I wouldn’t want any extension of what we have already. A welcome development is the number of restaurants now saying “service included ” and you shouldn’t ever add a tip to this.
We don’t take tips unless you want to be kind and that the service you recived was good… otherwise save you’re money. That is the general way of the UK (Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland… each are differnt country’s, use differnt currency’s (Scottish money is still classed as legal tender in England and vise versa – if a shopkeeper in England says it’s not – they are bullshitting you and so don’t take that crap… us Scots don’t and we get English notes all the time – more so at the border, lol) and very few laws will be different, but we are still a “United Kingdom” (Uk).