The best-known castles and palaces in Scotland
Ordered by how much has been written about each place. The numbers match the map.
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Edinburgh has Edinburgh Castle on its rock, the Palace of Holyroodhouse 2 km away and Craigmillar Castle 5 km out. Stirling Castle is a kilometer from Stirling's center with Doune Castle 10 km away; Linlithgow Palace (1424) is 8 km from Grangemouth. On the coasts, Dunnottar Castle is 23 km from Aberdeen, Tantallon Castle and Dirleton Castle lie along the shore from Musselburgh, and Urquhart Castle is 22 km from Inverness on Loch Ness.
RLQuest knows 480 named castles and palaces in Scotland, and 299 of them have a Wikipedia article. Many of the 480 ruins on their own page are castles too, by name. Lighthouses (159), standing stones (285) and waterfalls (224) round out the region. A castle is a satisfying end to one of the app's quests; the route confirms it, and the approach joins your map.
Every dot is a place. The numbers mark the highlights listed below.
Ordered by how much has been written about each place. The numbers match the map.
A selection, best known first, with the nearest larger town next to each.
and 428 more
RLQuest knows these places too. Which means:
Some of your daily quests lead to a real place near you. The app uses your location to check you were really there.
If you're the first person in RLQuest to complete a quest at a place, it's your first find. The Place Book shows you which kinds of place you're still missing.
Every walk uncovers tiles, each about 350 m across. Over time you can see which corners you know well, and where you've never set foot.
Place data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License. Borders: geoBoundaries (CC BY 4.0); Canada: Statistics Canada. As of 2026-10-02. The list shows the places RLQuest knows and isn't complete. Photos come from Wikimedia Commons; author and license are credited on each photo.
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