Edinburgh

Hostels

Edinburgh is a top backpackers destination, and as such isn't short of places to stay. SYHA (the Scottish Hostelling International affiliate) have two slightly out-of-town hostels at Bruntsfield and Eglinton Crescent. They are also building a large new city-centre hostel which is due to open late in 2006. These are competitively priced if you are already a member, and you are more likely to get some sleep here than in the more party-oriented independent hostels. On the downside they are often less social, and have more rules to stick to.

MacBackpackers is the largest independent hostel group in Scotland, and they have a number of quite reasonable hostels in Edinburgh. St Christopher's run their Edinburgh hostel on Market Street, directly opposite the back entrance to the station. Another noteworthy independent hostel is the Caledonian Backpackers, which has a late bar for residents and hosts regular gigs by bands from all over Scotland.

Bed and breakfast

Thanks to the festival and the concentration of sports venues, Edinburgh has hundreds of small Bed and Breakfast establishments. Outside of the festival period (August and early September) you should generally have no trouble finding one with vacancies at a reasonable rates. Two good areas to look are Gilmore Place (about 1km from Princes Street) - just go up Lothian Road, taking the right fork at Tollcross and it is on the right at the King's Theatre, or at Murrayfield (about 2km from Princes Street) - carry on along Westbound from the end of Princes Street past Haymarket station, and they are mostly on the left side of the road. Most buses from Princes Street going through Corstophine will pass Murrayfield.

Hotels

Edinburgh has luxury hotels in spades - perfect for the constellation of stars that regularly visit... Well, actually there are five star hotels at either on Princes Street, a couple of good medium to high quality hotels along the Royal Mile and Grassmarket, and a fair number of basic chain hotels such as Best Western, Travellodge and Novotel on Lauriston Place. Unless you want a late bar, most travellers find a Bed and Breakfast just as good and somewhat cheaper.