St Andrews sits on the eastern corner of Fife with the East Neuk villages strung along the coast south of it, Dundee twenty kilometres north across the Tay, and Edinburgh an hour and a half south. Fife is a small county and everything in it is close; the roads are decent, and the train from Leuchars puts Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen within easy reach.
The corner of Fife south-east of St Andrews, and the best day out from the town. A string of fishing villages, each with a harbour, ten to twenty kilometres away and linked by both the coast road and the Fife Coastal Path.
Fourteen kilometres. The prettiest of them — a tiny harbour under a cliff, crow-stepped gables, a pottery and a market cross. The harbour shack sells lobster and crab straight off the boats in season, and Caiplie Caves are along the shore.
Fourteen kilometres. The largest of the East Neuk towns, with a working harbour, the Scottish Fisheries Museum — substantial, indoors and much better than it sounds — and a fish bar with a national reputation. Boats run from here to the Isle of May, a national nature reserve with puffins, seals and one of the oldest lighthouses in Scotland; the trip is seasonal and weather-dependent.
Fifteen kilometres. Pittenweem is the working fishing port of the group and has St Fillan’s Cave and an annual arts festival. St Monans has a windmill, a ruined castle and one of Scotland’s restored tidal pools — sea-water swimming pools cut into the rock, of which the East Neuk has several.
Twenty-five kilometres. Sand, a harbour, a lighthouse walk and one of the best beaches in Fife.
Dundee is twenty kilometres north over the Tay Bridge, half an hour by road. The V&A Dundee on the waterfront is the design museum that transformed the city’s reputation; Discovery Point next to it holds Scott’s Antarctic ship; the McManus galleries and the Verdant Works jute museum fill the rest. It is a genuinely good day and it is close.
Broughty Ferry, on the eastern edge of Dundee, has a castle museum and a beach.
Beyond, Arbroath has its abbey and its smokies, and Glamis Castle is forty-five minutes away.
Falkland, thirty-five kilometres south-west, has a Renaissance palace built as a hunting lodge for the Stewart kings, with the oldest real tennis court in Britain — built in 1539 and still in use. The village below it is a National Trust for Scotland conservation area and has stood in for other places on screen more than once.
Cupar, thirteen kilometres west, is the old county town, with Hill of Tarvit house nearby and Cairnie Fruit Farm for families.
The Lomond Hills, west of Falkland, are Fife’s only real high ground and give a view over the whole county.
Culross, an hour south-west on the Forth, is a preserved seventeenth-century burgh of white-harled houses and cobbled streets, National Trust for Scotland, and one of the most complete small towns of its period in Scotland.
Dunfermline, an hour south, has the abbey where Robert the Bruce is buried and Andrew Carnegie’s birthplace.
Edinburgh is an hour and a half by road or by train from Leuchars — the castle, the Old Town, the museums and the galleries. Perfectly doable as a day, and much easier by train than by car.
Kingsbarns, ten kilometres south-east, has a beach, a links course and the Kingsbarns Distillery in a converted farm steading.
Scotland’s Secret Bunker is ten kilometres south — a Cold War command centre thirty metres underground.
Tentsmuir, ten kilometres north across the Eden, is dunes, pine forest, a vast beach and a large seal colony. Free.
The Eden Estuary Nature Reserve is closer still and is one of the best bird sites on this coast.
Leuchars station, ten kilometres west of the town, is the railhead: two trains an hour from Edinburgh taking about an hour via Inverkeithing and Kirkcaldy, continuing north to Dundee, Arbroath and Aberdeen. There are direct daytime services from London King’s Cross on the Aberdeen run, and the sleeper from Euston calls in the small hours. From Glasgow Queen Street change at Edinburgh Haymarket or Dundee, about an hour and fifty minutes either way.
Buses connect Leuchars to St Andrews frequently, and the town’s bus station runs services down the coast to Crail, Anstruther, Pittenweem and Elie, west to Cupar and north to Dundee. The East Neuk is entirely doable by bus, and the coastal path lets you walk one way and ride back.
Arriving in St Andrews is covered on the getting here page.
The East Neuk day, by bus. Bus to Crail in the morning for the harbour and the pottery, walk the coastal path to Anstruther — about six kilometres of easy cliff-top — for lunch and the Fisheries Museum, then on to Pittenweem and St Monans for the tidal pools and the windmill. Bus back. No driving, and the best day out from St Andrews.
The Dundee day, by bus and train. Bus to Leuchars, train over the Tay Bridge — one of the great railway crossings — and a day in Dundee: the V&A on the waterfront, Discovery Point and the McManus. Home in the evening.
The inland day, by car. West to Falkland for the palace and the real tennis court, on to the Lomond Hills for the view over Fife, and back via Cupar. Slow roads, no crowds and a completely different county from the coast.
Two weeks reshape everything here. The Open Championship, when it comes, brings well over a hundred thousand people to a town of sixteen thousand, and the Dunhill Links in October does a smaller version of the same. Roads, parking and accommodation are all affected across the whole of east Fife.
Outside those, St Andrews is straightforward. Term time, from September to May, gives you a busy student town; July and August gives you golfers and day visitors. May, June and September are the sweet spot.
If you have longer, three things are within reach that do not quite fit a day. Perth and Highland Perthshire are an hour and a half north-west, with Scone Palace and the road into the Highlands beyond. Stirling is an hour and a quarter south-west — the castle, the Wallace Monument and Bannockburn. And Aberdeen and the Aberdeenshire castle country are two hours north on the same railway line that serves Leuchars.
For anyone using St Andrews as a base for a Scottish trip rather than a golf week, the position is better than it looks: two hours gets you to Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Highlands or the north-east.
The East Neuk villages — Crail, Anstruther and Pittenweem — for a full day; Dundee for the V&A; Falkland for the palace.
Twenty kilometres north over the Tay Bridge, about half an hour by road.
Yes — bus to Leuchars, then about an hour on the train. It is a straightforward day out.
The Isle of May, by boat from Anstruther, between April and July. Trips are seasonal and weather-dependent.
Yes, frequently, and combining a bus one way with the Fife Coastal Path the other is the best way to see it.