Are there any small towns near Edinburgh with good access to rural hiking routes?

There is plently walking to be found within easy reach of Edinburgh. Just south are the hills of the borders. To the north is Fife. A little further north and west and you get into the Highlands area where the country side becomes significantly more mountainous but still has something for every level from walker to climber.

Midlothian Council publish a booklet, downloadable as a PDF, of walks near Edinburgh: Explore Midlothian Walking. Probably the easiest area of hiking to reach near Edinburgh is the Pentland Hills Regional Park. This range of hills is directly due south of Edinburgh city.

Going slightly further south, you will find the attractive Border town of Peebles. This is a small town but has good services and is within easy reach of Edinburgh by public transport such as bus or coach services. There is plenty walking in the countryside nearby. One such walk is the John Buchan Way which runs 22km (18 miles) form Peebles to Broughton.

If you want to get into the Highlands, probably the easiest place to reach from Edinburgh is the small but historic town of Callader at the edge of the Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park. To get here from Edinburgh, first take either a bus or train to the city of Sterling then transfer to another bus to Callader. The journey should be possible in just over 2 hours. A large range of walks, of every level, may be taken from here.

For another option, I'd suggest you first nip into the nearest library, and borrow their copy of the Lonely Planet "Walking In Scotland", which is an excellent source of inspiration and basic information.

Armed with that, if you want hills rather than mountains, then the Scottish Borders are your best bet. Walking In Scotland has a whole chapter on this area. I'm a big fan of the area around Hawick (especially some of the villages about), which is surrounded by the Teviot Hills, but it is a bit of a faff to get to by public transport... There's no train nearby, so you're going to have to get a bus.

That said, there are fairly regular buses from Hawick into Edinburgh, as the X95 from Carlisle to Edinburgh runs through there. If you'd rather one of the villages nearby, that's when things start to get really tricky. Some friends used to live in Denholm, which had a lovely pub and great walks nearby, but we always had to get there by car.

Hawick itself seems a pleasant enough town (I've not spent much time there), with several options for places to stay. A quick google reveals a number of walking routes from there, either along the valley or up into the hills. If you don't want mountains, you should find plenty of nice hills around here.

Otherwise, look through the Walking In Scotland section for the Scottish borders, and look for descriptions of other places and walks near hear that inspire you!