Hello!
I feel like this is a question that always comes up and everyone answers, then OPs delete it so nobody else knows... like what we told them was just for them and it’s top secret knowledge, or they can brag that they did xyz and you didn’t like some kind of medal... I commented this on someone looking for ideas for a day trip, and I got a few likes so this will be kept up and hopefully comes across in searches for everyone to see!
A good walking route around Dundee centre, or just pick things individually if you want:
Get a coffee and a cake. Loads of independent places to try. Fisher and donaldsons fudge doughnut or coffee tower. Loads of breakfast places too - Bach, cannon, west house, hofn, sook and many many more.
Union street has a few vinyl record shops if you collect. At the top is the steeple church and the penguin statues on the wall.
Behind this is the Overgate shopping centre, which has our ‘high street‘ shops - primark, new look, boots, H&M, Fraser’s, flannels, next etc.…
McManus galleries has loads of cool stuff to look at, not just art. You could probably easily spend a good few hours in here on its own. Also a cafe that’s been taken over recently and should be good.
Walk down to Caird hall square - agree that so much could be done with it to make it nicer, but still nice none the less. See the desperate Dan statue.
Walk to Slessor Gardens - if you like planting there’s different areas for different things, I’ve not seen something like that before.
V&A is worth a walk in and around, most of it is free, there’s just one paid exhibition area. Depending on what’s on, and if it interests you, you could again spend a few hours in here. It’s actually got a nice gift shop too, and a cafe with alright views.
Walk around v&a to under the Tay road bridge. Theres a sculpture of a whale, ‘urban beach’/giant kids sand pit, water fountain. There’s a coffee, doughnut and bagel van to this side too.
Around the other side there’s the discovery ship. It has a visitor centre if you’re interested.
To the other side of this is a riverside walk if you fancied more of a walk. You can walk along here to Magdalen green, and from here go up to Perth Road/Blackness Library. From here you can start to walk along Perth Road.
Walk along Perth Road and the shops, restaurants, pubs and cafes. All are good. Get a drink in the speedwell or phoenix or both. Doing every pub along the road is a common pub crawl, there’s about 15 if you count ones that are more restaurants but will happily have you for a drink too. Or get another coffee from many of the cafes like EH9 or Eastfield. Pheonix also does good pub food, probably the best in the centre, but the problem is getting a table to eat at and I don’t think you can book. This will take you past the Lemmings statutes which is opposite the uni. On route look out on the pavement for little art works painted on chewing gum - a local guy does it to deter from chewing gum littered all over the place. You’ll end up back in the centre at Nethergate if you’ve done the riverside walk too.
Another popular area for cafes, bars and restaurants is the West Port, which has places like West House, Molly Malones, Gallery 48, Dukes Corner. Further up Hawkhill way is a places called Canvas - the bar for the local brewery ‘71’ - this has different things going on, club nights, talks, live music, markets and food trucks on the weekend. If you’re here until late then there’s the 24/7 clarks bakery round the corner.
Other things to do include:
-Clarks Bakery is a bit of a local institution, there’s a 24/7 one up Peddie Street - now there’s ones dotted about everywhere, just not 24/7.
-Verdant works for museum on the jute industry.
-DCA for contemporary art, and cinema which doesn’t just do your typical showings.
-Dundee museum of transport… self explanatory.
-Dundee botanic gardens… further along Perth road, ran by the uni (perhaps not for much longer unfortunately)
-Unicorn ship within City Quay.
-Wild shore water assault course, right beside Unicorn in City Quay.
-The Howff is a historic cemetery in the centre. It’s not something I’m interested in, but plenty people rave about how cool it is.
-There’s a mural trail, there’s a map online with all the locations.
-There’s also different art sculptures within the city centre that go from A-Z, theres not much info about it because it is meant to be a hidden thing, but sure online has some info.
-Walk up The Law - it’s a hill in the centre of the city. 360degree views. It’s a fair trek, mostly paved though so not what I’d call a ‘hike’, but aware everyone’s different. There’s also a road and I’m sure a taxi would take you up, wait a bit and bring you back down, but not cheap. You could also get the bus fairly close by and walk the remainder, still steep, but less walking time.
-Theres two bouldering/rock climbing centres in Dundee, avertical world and block10.
-Two bowling alleys with the usual escape rooms and karaoke pods and laser tag, and a separate escape room in the centre.
-Loads of crafty companies who run events, pottery, pottery painting, jewellery etc.
-Walk across the Tay Road Bridge - there’s a separated path all the way along the centre of the bridge. I must say I don’t like walking it, it’s very long and also I hate being so close to traffic zooming past you. I would prefer cycling but then the path is quite narrow if you have a bigger bike... but people do this to then have fish and chips on the other side, or there’s a few restaurants with lovely views and sunsets back across to Dundee. if you didn’t want to walk or cycle there are busses, or a taxi.
-Broughty Ferry which is a suburb, it has its own town centre with independent shops, bars, cafes, it also has a big beach, historic castle which you can go in, walks along the river. It’s a historic fishing village, and also the ‘posh’ area of Dundee. There’s also a regular pop up sauna on the beach, paddleboarding hire or lessons, and you can get boat rides with the chance to see dolphins - pre book this all. Again there’s about 15 pubs and bar/restaurants to have a drink in if you were to do a pub crawl. Loads of regular buses take you there, or some trains. You can also walk or cycle from the centre, past city quay, through a fenced off portion of the port (again not interesting to me, but some might be interested in the industrial type things…), then you come out along the waterfront with a lovely scenic path.
- If you want to be more in nature, there’s loads of woods about for a walk.. camperdown, backmuir, dronley, templeton, monikie reservoir. Theres countless other walks about, sure other websites have info if needed.
If you’re staying in Dundee for longer… a lot of people say getting out of Dundee is the best thing about it, so… there’s plenty of places to go on a day trip. All you can get to from public transport.
-St Andrews (busy tourist, golf, posh student town)
-Falkland (cute village with lovely waterfall walk)
-East Neuk villages (all cute villages with cafes etc)
-Cairngorms (loads of lovely hikes, castles/estates and villages/towns - Ballater is my favourite)
-Dunkeld (cafes, restaurants and some shops, and nice river walk and hermitage walk)
-Tentsmuir (beach, forest, food truck beside the car park which is a nice walk from the bus stop)
-Arbroath Cliffs (walk along cliffs, there’s a guy who does kayak and paddleboarding (pre book), try smokies, or fish and chips - the centre isn’t a great offering but there’s pockets of interesting stuff)
-Loch Leven (walk or cycle full way around, nice cafe and farm type shop too)
-Loads of other castles/estates dotted about - Glamis, Scone, Doune
-Also bigger cities - Stirling, Edinburgh, Glasgow.
if there’s anything I’ve missed then please let me know and I can edit, or hopefully they’ll see below!