Must-see attractions in Caithness

  • Wick Heritage Centre

    Caithness

    Tracking the rise and fall of the herring industry, this great town museum displays everything from fishing equipment to complete herring boats. It’s…

  • Grey Cairns of Camster

    Caithness

    Dating from between 4000 BC and 2500 BC, these burial chambers are hidden in long, low mounds rising from an evocatively lonely moor. The Long Cairn…

  • Dunnet Head

    Caithness

    Eight miles east of Thurso a minor road leads to dramatic Dunnet Head, the most northerly point on the British mainland. There are majestic cliffs…

  • Castle of Mey

    Caithness

    The Castle of Mey, a big crowd-puller for its Queen Mother connections, is 6 miles west of John O’Groats. The exterior is grand but inside it feels…

  • Whaligoe Steps

    Caithness

    At Ulbster, 5 miles north of Lybster, this staircase cut into the cliff provides access to a tiny natural harbour, with an ideal grassy picnic spot,…

  • Dunnet Bay

    Caithness

    Just west of the Dunnet headland, the sweeping curve of Dunnet Bay offers one of Scotland’s finest beaches, backed by high dunes and a campsite. Rangers…

  • Old Pulteney

    Caithness

    Though it can no longer claim to be the most northerly whisky distillery on mainland Scotland (that goes to the upstart Wolfburn in Thurso), friendly…

  • Laidhay Croft Museum

    Caithness

    This museum, just over a mile north of Dunbeath, recreates crofting life from the mid-1800s to WWII. It's in an 18th-century Caithness longhouse with a…

  • Achavanich Stone Setting

    Caithness

    Six miles to the northwest of Lybster and a mile off the A9, these 30 standing stones date from around 2000 BC. The crumbling monuments still capture the…

  • Hill o’ Many Stanes

    Caithness

    Two miles beyond the Camster turn-off on the A99 is a curious, fan-shaped arrangement of 22 rows of small stones, probably dating to around 2000 BC…

  • Duncansby Head

    Caithness

    Two miles east of John O'Groats, Duncansby Head has a small lighthouse and 60m-high cliffs sheltering nesting fulmars. A 15-minute walk through a sheep…

  • Mary-Ann's Cottage

    Caithness

    Mary-Ann lived in this 19th-century croft, on the headland near the main road, for nigh on a century. In-depth guided tours take you round her humble but…

  • Waterlines

    Caithness

    At the picturesque harbour in Lybster, this museum has a downstairs cafe, and an exhibition on the town's fishing heritage above. There's a smokehouse…

  • Badbea

    Caithness

    Seven miles northeast of Helmsdale is Badbea, a crofting village established at the time of the Clearances and gradually abandoned in the late-19th and…

  • Old Wick Castle

    Caithness

    A path leads a mile south from town to the ruins of 12th-century Old Wick Castle, with the spectacular cliffs of the Brough and the Brig, as well as Gote…

  • Clan Gunn Heritage Centre & Museum

    Caithness

    At the Clan Gunn Heritage Centre and Museum in Latheron, 3 miles northeast of Dunbeath on the A9, there's information on the Gunn clan, from its Viking…

  • Dunnet Bay Distillery

    Caithness

    There's something rather fetching about this small-batch distillery on the main road through Dunnet. The very tasty Rock Rose gin and Holy Grass vodka are…

  • Dunbeath Heritage Centre

    Caithness

    This heritage centre has a stone carved with runic graffiti, and a display on the work of Neil Gunn, whose wonderful novels evoke the Caithness of his…

  • Castle Sinclair Girnigoe

    Caithness

    Three miles northeast of Wick is the magnificently located clifftop ruin of Castle Sinclair. It's a short walk from a car park, with some interpretative…

  • Cairn o’Get

    Caithness

    The Cairn o’Get, a prehistoric burial cairn, is signposted off the road in Ulbster. There's a mile of boggy walking from the car park.

  • Seadrift

    Caithness

    Backing the dunes of Dunnet Bay, this is a small wildlife display and base for local rangers, who organise walks in summer.