The Falkirk Wheel – A Boat Trip Through the Sky
A few hours.
The route
The Falkirk Wheel is the world's only rotating boat lift, Scottish Canals says, and the best way to understand it is to sail through it.
The boat trip lifts you 35 metres in a slow half-turn from the Forth and Clyde Canal up to the Union Canal and back down again. Lunch is in the visitor centre café beside the basin.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
Book the Falkirk Wheel boat trip
Book the hour-long Falkirk Wheel boat trip online on Scottish Canals' site for late morning, from £17.95 for an adult at the time of writing: there are fewer boats in winter, coach parties often fill them, it takes no phone bookings, and a booking can't be changed or cancelled in the last 48 hours.
The day
The Falkirk Wheel
It's a morning on the canals, rising through the air in a boat as the great wheel turns. Then lunch by the basin, watching the next boat go up.
About two and a half hours
The Falkirk Wheel
An attraction
The Wheel is on Lime Road, west of Falkirk town centre. The car park on site is paid by the day, a short walk from the visitor centre, with a few blue badge spaces right outside it. Book the boat trip online ahead: Scottish Canals takes no phone bookings, coach parties often fill the boats, and a booking can't be changed or cancelled in the last 48 hours. Be in the visitor centre 10 minutes before your boat. The trip takes about an hour: the boat sails into one of the Wheel's gondolas and is turned up through the air, in about five minutes, to the aqueduct 35 metres above, then comes back down again. Adults are from £17.95 at the time of writing, and under-5s go free but still need a ticket. The whole site is level, a wheelchair or mobility scooter can go on the boat if you say so when booking, and confident dogs on leads are welcome aboard. There are fewer boats in winter and the Wheel can shut for maintenance, so check the day's sailings on its page before you set out.
The café at the Falkirk Wheel visitor centre
Lunch
Lunch is in the café in the visitor centre, beside the basin where the boat lands. It's open whenever the Wheel is, 9.45am to 5.30pm, with no booking, and in summer extra outlets serve pizza, mac and cheese, toasties, hot dogs and ice cream. Access is level throughout. Only assistance dogs go into the café; other dogs may sit with you at the visitor centre's high tables. There's an accessible toilet in the visitor centre.
If it rains
The boat is covered and the visitor centre and café are indoors, so rain changes little.