Bit of a revive (just because I stubbled across this thread in a search for something else)
In the OP’s case – yes compared to England you have a sort of reverse – in England you can’t go anywhere you want, but where you can go theres a requirement to maintain access. In Scotland you can go anywhere you want but theres no requirement for anyone to maintain a route (provide a gate or a style for instance)
For route planning – several tools help you find your way around a new locale:
One is Bing / Google Maps / Apple Map – its worth trying them all and where the facility exists click back through earlier satellite views and paths and routes can sometimes show up more clearly in different seasons.
The National Library of Scotlands interactive maps are a great way to burn away hours – the place current google maps and historic maps side by side and sometimes older maps are more detailed than our current ones will show up routes which newer maps overlook https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/
Seeing a possible route on either of those (or on the current OS map) – you can often recce it using Geograph – https://www.geograph.org.uk – a project to take a photo in every grid square of the OS Map – so you often get an on the ground view of a track and an idea of its condition