This is the page where it all starts: Why this site? Why "World Tour of Scotland"? Why Scotland? Why "world tour"? How did it get to all this? Where did it all start? A lot of questions....
To be honest, I don't really know where and when it all started. The foundation was probably laid when the program to bank holidays for a sabbatical was implemented by my employer a few years ago. Without it I probably wouldn't be able to go on such a long trip until my retirement. When I banked my first days I wasn't really sure what I was going to do once I was eligible for my sabbatical. But I was always likely to be travelling somewhere. Since then I've discovered my love for Scotland, so the next step was almost logical.

After deciding it was going to be Scotland, the open question was where and how. My first thought was to spend a longer period on the Isle of Islay. I had visited it several times before and it is one of my favourite places in Scotland. I could have possibly rented a cottage on Islay and just spent the time with walks on the lovely beaches. May be I could attend the Whisky Academy at Bruichladdich? May be I could follow George Orwell's footsteps on neighbouring Jura? Certainly an option I considered.

After some more thought I decided to expand my tour to the whole of Scotland. There were so many places I hadn't visited yet: The far north of Scotland, the Western Isles, Shetland, Orkney, just to name a few... So it was going to be a tour around Scotland. That one was clear. Being interested in web-publishing the next logical step was to think of preparing something about my tour for the web. I could have used my existing site and just added a new section there. It might have just fitted together with my other travelogues. No, this was the "holiday of a lifetime", I wanted more for it. Time to come up with a name. Hm. Other people travel around the world, I was going to travel around Scotland. OK, the name for my tour was decided: Armin's World Tour of Scotland. I admit, not entirely my idea: Back in 1994 Billy Connolly produced a television series Billy Connolly's World Tour of Scotland (later followed by his World Tour of Australia). If he ever visits this site I hope he won't be angry about me "copying" the title.

Now that the basics were sorted it was time to think about the route...