 Today we're going to be talking about 10 free things to do in Edinburgh, Scotland. If you do not know, I make videos about my study abroad experience for the year in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh is such a cool city and the thing that I love about it is that it is super student friendly and there are so many free things to do there that you never would expect and things that are just like so cool and fun to see. So these are in no particular order. Number one is going to be Greyfriars Kirkyard. I'm obsessed with Harry Potter and if you do not know Edinburgh is the city where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books and there is so much inspiration that was actually pulled from the city itself. So if you're unaware she used to go to this graveyard called Greyfriars Kirkyard. It was then she realized that no one had ever sounded more American in their whole life. So it's this big graveyard and it's on a hill because most of Edinburgh is sort of like it's a hilly area and the city is sort of built on hills which sometimes makes it difficult to get around because all of a sudden you'll be like oh it's a you know it's only a block away but like the block goes like this so it takes you so much longer because you're out of shape. You're just like a normal human being like going up a million hills like you're gonna run out of breath it's just gonna happen. There is so much to see. Also I love a spooky graveyard. I go to school in Charleston, South Carolina which is the which is one of the capitals of the U.S. for ghost tours and cemetery tours and so I just love the vibes of an old graveyard. I think it's just like a really quiet place like that can be very reflective so I love just like walking around here anytime. It's just if I pass it I'm like let's just like go say hi to everybody. Maybe not in that way. In Greyfriars' Courtyard you can actually see names that J.K. Rowling took for the Harry Potter books. Yeah a couple of the ones that I know you can see is Moody. Tom Riddle's grave is there. He didn't do anything. He's just like a guy. She just like took his name and then I know you can see McGonagall's grave so she did take inspiration and then actually there's a school that is behind the Courtyard which you can't really like go to the school because it's like an operating school but apparently it's a school that she based Hogwarts off of and it faces Edinburgh Castle and it's just a really cool place to go stand and look around so those are some some hot tips and it's completely free. Number two is going to be Arthur's Seat so if you've ever looked up Edinburgh Scotland at all this is the first thing that should kind of come up. It's in like every single photo. It's just like this giant hill and park. It's kind of like a mountain but it's a lot smaller than a mountain because it's it's like a hill kind of but it's a very very large hill and there are so many different paths you can take. I walk up it all the time and if you go at the right time I literally see rainbows here all the time. It's incredibly magical. You can see all of Edinburgh from the top of it. Highly recommend. Number three is going to be the Royal Mile. So the Royal Mile runs between Edinburgh Castle and Hollywood Palace and it it just goes down a hill. Edinburgh Castle being at the top and then Hollywood Palace being down at the bottom and it's a mile and there's just so many cool buildings. Old buildings. There's always like some guy playing the bagpipes. You can stop and get gelata which is what I did too often. There's a lot of good gelata places along there. There are a lot of like touristy shops on this street too but there are a lot of other cool like churches and pubs and historic places that you can see while you're walking up it and it's just it is a very cool thing to see especially if you're like me and you're an American and you're not used to seeing buildings from like the 14th century. It's just wild or maybe even before that. I don't I don't know. Number four is going to be the Botanical Gardens. You can take the bus here. It's going to be a little bit further out of your way. I walked here. It probably took me about an hour from where I live and I live completely on the other side like way closer to like Arthur's seat. So it took me probably like an hour or so to get there but I also stopped a lot. Just a really beautiful place to go. I want to go back. There are Japanese gardens. There are just like old oak trees. There are like community gardens in there. There's so many different there's so many different things to see. I went only one time and I went in the fall but I do want to go back. I went to the Botanical Gardens in like the peak of fall so it was just covered in like beautiful autumn leaves and it was just a very very nice day. It was very peaceful. So number five is going to be free tours. Yeah, you heard me right. It's free. I was actually deeply surprised because I am like technically a business major in college and an arts manager major and I heard that and I was like that's a bad business model. Anyway it is not. I was just being dumb so basically at the end of it you can tip if you want to. If you're a student you know you're not expected to tip like a ton. It is nice to tip but they do run free tours and the tour guides are really really nice people. I went on a free Harry Potter tour and a free ghost tour but I think there's also a free historical tour and I want to take that one as well. So I think it is very nice to tip your tour guide because they do put in a lot of work so technically it's not like free free but definitely a very cool thing because if you're somebody who doesn't have like a super high income or you're a student it doesn't have to be like a 35 you know dollar tour or however many thousands pounds I don't know. So yeah and you can take a lot of them. Number six is going to be the National Gallery and the National Museum. So the National Museum in Scotland is so cool. It reminds me of just like a Smithsonian type of thing in DC where I'm from. It just covers like a lot of the history and categories of Scotland like they have rooms on fashion, technology, science which I actually didn't know that Dolly the cloned lamb is actually Scottish. I had no idea because I feel like we all learned about that in school but I had no idea that that was in Scotland. So see I learned something new and the buildings are just absolutely breathtaking and beautiful. The National Gallery I actually I really loved this museum. I think that it's very very cool because you go in and they have explanations about like the time period of the art and kind of what it means and where it came from which I find very helpful as someone who didn't know that much about art history. I did take art history last semester so like I know a little more but not much still so because I'm not doing that again. Number eight is going to be wandering to some churches. I love doing this. So there is like St Giles Cathedral you can go into. There is the Greyfriars Curcuree Church. There's literally a church every other foot like there's so many churches and the architecture is just so cool. I just love like going and like taking a peek and like I love it when like there's like something going on. We did this in London too and it there was like a church cat and we got to see the church cat and that was just a very exciting moment for me because it was just it was just giving me cat vibes and we had seen Phantom of the Opera that weekend which is like my favorite show ever alongside cats which yes is a controversial opinion but it I love that show and anyway I was just very excited that I saw a church cat because it's like a fun like category of cat that is in London. So number eight is going to be Dean Village. So this is just a place that you can walk. Yeah so it's a former village immediately northwest of the city center in Edinburgh Scotland and I will just show you some videos of it. There's like a little river that runs through and it's just like this really cool architecture. You can always see somebody like taking photographs in this part because it is just so picturesque. It is such a lovely place to walk and just go explore for the day and I highly recommend it. Number nine is going to be Princess Street Garden. So you've seen the movie Eurovision. There's like the scene where Will Ferrell is like yelling at a bunch of Americans like by fountain and Edinburgh Castle is in the background and when I got to Scotland I was like where is this? I don't know what this is and so it took me a while that I figured out that it was actually this place called Princess Street Garden. So there's this huge garden behind Edinburgh Castle where you get like this just incredible view of the castle and there's this big fountain where Will Ferrell was crying and I just loved it. You can walk around it. There's like little vendors I think. When I was there they were they were setting up for like some sort of like wedding or something. I don't even know but I just honestly when you get to Scotland if you've never been anywhere like Scotland or Edinburgh before seeing the castle up on the hill is just it literally never gets old. It is the wildest thing I have just ever seen. I feel like I'm looking up at Hogwarts every time that I look up and I'm that tourist every time where I'm like taking my camera and I'm like I don't know how many pictures that I need of this castle but like it's a lot apparently. So number 10 is going to be a mixture of like two outdoor areas. So it's going to be the Meadows and Caulton Hill. So starting with Caulton Hill we love a hill in Scotland but on top of Caulton Hill there's this there's always people picnicking up there. Having a drink because that's another thing you can do in Scotland is you can just like have a drink wherever. You see people just like having picnics like with their like little like gin and tonics in a can and it's just like a really fun time. And there's this big thing that kind of looks like the Parthenon-ish vibes and I did have to google that because I was calling at the Coliseum a minute ago. But yeah just a very cool place to like check out the sunset, see her, you know. And then the Meadows is another like outdoor space and it's just a very large park and there's lots of trees and it's always in my videos because I walk through it all the time. It's right by the college and it's just like such a pretty place. There's always dogs running around. There's always bikers and people walking. There's this man that sings songs in like this little alleyway. In the winter time I think he goes away but I'm really I'm so excited for him to come back. All right so that is gonna be it for the 10 things for free that you can see in Edinburgh Scotland and honestly outside of like the label of free all these things are just really cool to see in Scotland in general. So I really I highly recommend all of them. They really do live up to the hype. I hope that I hyped them up enough because sometimes I can be a little deadpan in my delivery. Anyway if you liked this video give it a like, subscribe because I'm gonna post more videos about Edinburgh and what I'm doing there. Some vlogs but then also like some more informative videos like for students who want to come or and other people like this is just for people so shout out to people.