Outer Hebrides
Luskentyre is one of the biggest and most beautiful beaches in Scotland, famed for its acres of low-tide white sands and turquoise waters. A minor road…
Must-see attractions in Northern Highlands & Islands
Trotternish
Staffin Bay is dominated by the dramatic basalt escarpment of the Quiraing: its impressive land-slipped cliffs and pinnacles constitute one of Skye’s most…
East Coast
Magnificent Dunrobin Castle, a mile past Golspie, is the Highlands' largest house. Although it dates to 1275, most of what you see was built in French…
North & West Coast
As you head south from Durness, heather gradually gives way to a rockier landscape of Lewisian gneiss pockmarked with hundreds of small lochans. This is…
North & West Coast
South of Cape Wrath, Sandwood Bay boasts one of Scotland’s best and most isolated beaches, guarded at one end by the spectacular rock pinnacle Am…
Ullapool to Kyle of Lochalsh
Six miles north of Gairloch, this splendid place is a welcome splash of colour on this otherwise bleak coast. The climate here is warmed by the Gulf…
East Coast
This intriguing museum has some excellent carved Pictish stones. When ‘crop circles’ appeared in aerial photos some years ago, the foundations of an Iron…
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…
Outer Hebrides
One of Scotland’s most evocative historic buildings, the Arnol Blackhouse is not so much a museum as a perfectly preserved fragment of a lost world. Built…
North & West Coast
Photogenically sited at the entrance to Loch Duich, Eilean Donan is one of Scotland’s most evocative castles and must now be represented in millions of…
Outer Hebrides
The Callanish Standing Stones, 15 miles west of Stornoway on the A858 road, form one of the most complete stone circles in Britain. It is one of the most…
East Coast
Consecrated in the 13th century, beautiful Dornoch Cathedral, one of the Highlands' loveliest churches, is an elegant Gothic edifice with an interior…
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…
East Coast
Four miles south of Lairg, the picturesque Falls of Shin provide one of the best places in the Highlands to see salmon leaping on their way upstream to…
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…
Skye
Skye’s most famous historic building, and one of its most popular tourist attractions, Dunvegan Castle is the seat of the chief of Clan MacLeod. In…
Outer Hebrides
The Butt of Lewis – the extreme northern tip of the Hebrides – is windswept and rugged, with a very imposing lighthouse, pounding surf and large colonies…
Outer Hebrides
The Baronial mansion across the harbour from Stornoway town centre was built in the 1840s for the Matheson family, then owners of Lewis; it was gifted to…
Forsinard Flows Visitor Centre
North & West Coast
On the platform at Forsinard railway station is the RSPB's Forsinard Flows Visitor Centre, an exhibition dedicated to the neighbouring nature reserve…
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…
Skye
The community-run visitor centre serves as a base for tours of Eilean Ban – the island used as a stepping stone by the Skye Bridge – where Gavin Maxwell …
Outer Hebrides
Castlebay takes its name from the island fortress of Kisimul Castle, first built by the MacNeil clan in the 11th century. A short boat trip (weather…
Outer Hebrides
The 'Museum of the Isles' opened in 2017, occupying a modern extension built onto the side of Lews Castle. Artefacts, photos and videos celebrate the…
Skye
Just along the road from Armadale pier is the part-ruined Armadale Castle, former seat of Lord MacDonald of Sleat. The neighbouring museum will tell you…
Russian Arctic Convoy Exhibition Centre
Ullapool to Kyle of Lochalsh
The Arctic convoys were a vital supply line for Russia during WWII; these merchant ships escorted by Allied warships brought supplies into the northern…
Outer Hebrides
At the southernmost tip of the east coast of Harris stands the impressive 16th-century St Clement’s Church, built by Alexander MacLeod of Dunvegan between…
North & West Coast
Housed in an old church, this museum tells the sad story of the Strathnaver Clearances through posters created by local kids. The museum contains…
Outer Hebrides
In 1996 archaeologists excavated an entire Iron Age village at the head of Bosta beach. Afterwards, the village was reburied for protection, but a…
Outer Hebrides
Six miles north of Lochboisdale, Kildonan Museum explores the lives of local crofters through its collection of artefacts, an absorbing exhibition of B&W…
Skye
Just east of Elgol is the Spar Cave, famously visited by Sir Walter Scott in 1814 and mentioned in his poem 'Lord of the Isles'. The 80m-deep cave is wild…
Ullapool to Kyle of Lochalsh
Just west of the junction of the A835 and A832, 2 miles south of Braemore, a car park gives access to the Falls of Measach, which spill 45m into…
North & West Coast
A few miles north of Scourie Bay lies this nature reserve run by the Scottish Wildlife Trust. The island's western sea cliffs provide nesting sites for…
Outer Hebrides
Dun Carloway is a 2000-year-old, dry-stone broch, perched defiantly above a beautiful loch with views to the mountains of North Harris. The site is…
Outer Hebrides
This distillery started production in 2015, so its first batch of single malt whisky will be ready in 2019; meanwhile, it's producing Isle of Harris gin,…
Spa Pavilion & Upper Pump Room
East Coast
In Strathpeffer's heyday, the Pavilion was the social centre and venue for dances, lectures and concerts. These days it's a renovated performing-arts…
Trotternish
The peat-reek of crofting life in the 18th and 19th centuries is preserved in the thatched cottages, croft houses, barns and farm implements of the Skye…
Outer Hebrides
This vast expanse of firm golden sand (the name means ‘Big Strand’) serves as Barra’s airport (a mile across at low tide, and big enough for three …
East Coast
In the heart of Helmsdale, this heritage centre has an impressive display covering local history, including a Pictish stone, the Clearances, the fishing…
Trotternish
The 50m-high, pot-bellied pinnacle of crumbling basalt known as the Old Man of Storr is prominent above the road 6 miles north of Portree. Walk up to its…
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,…
