For next spring we are planning to visit Scotland for about one week, and I’d like to see if anyone out here has good suggestions for where to go… we love hiking as well as visiting historical places, so ideally we would like to find a place where both are reachable at less than 2 hours driving.
We have three kinds with us, the youngest aged 5, and they can walk a couple of hours without problems.
Obviously I will have my camera with me, and I’d love to get away with some nice landscapes
Oh, gosh! So much to see, so little time.
I would recommend Skye: it’s got everything within easy reach. BIG mountains, low ridges, weird sticky-up bits, beautiful sea lochs. Otters, Sea eagles and wild Haggis. Good food and drink. The natives are very friendly. Can get a bit touristy in places.
Enjoy, where ever you go.
Biff
PS. I was joking about the wild Haggis. They can be quite tame …
Scotland has plenty of awesome everywhere you go. The key thing is to stay overnight in a place which gets you close to one such awesome place at golden hour in the evening or morning.
Draw an imaginary line from Oban in the south via Fort William via Ullapool and end it by Durness in the north - keep west of it. There are lovely places everywhere else but that area has my favorites.
If moving around is not a problem (i.e. rent a car), then you could see the Outer Hebrides - go by ferry from Oban to Castlebay on Barra, then travel up north and return from Stornoway on Harris to Ullapool. I did that on foot + hitchhiking.
If you have a week, I’d say skip Ben Nevis and go to Glencoe. Stay there a day or two - awesome sights.
Hi Andrea, I also like the north-west part of scotland. Here you find some shots I took about 6 years ago. All are tagged with geo coordinates, so you can see where I shot them.
I think, Skye would be the obvious answer regarding your requirements. However, you can find beauty everywhere in Scotland. Some impressions from our 2011 visit of Loch Awe, back then edited with Photivo.
No-one seems to have answered the “historical places” part of your question. So I’d suggest Glencoe - scene of the massacre of the MacDonalds by the Campbells. Then you get two for the price of one.
Thanks to all of you for the suggestions! The Skye island was also out first idea, so we might go for it if we find a nice and not too expensive place to stay.
The thing is that we would prefer to rent a place for one week, and then do one-day trips from there, so this limits a bit the possibilities.
The best option seems to take a flight from Paris to Glasgow, then rent a car and drive 5h to Skye. All other travel options seem to be a bit too complicated with three kids…
Glencoe seems to be another very interesting option, and closer to Glasgow…
@Carmelo_DrRaw regarding transport you could rent a car/camper van (if you plan to go anywhere by ferry then be advised that the ferry ticket price for a camper is through the roof), or if you are fine with public transport then I highly recommend getting an “Explorer Pass”, this is a ticket valid for a period of time on any CityLink coach, and these coaches go everywhere. The “5 days travel out of 10” costs 62£ and you cannot travel for less (unless you hitchhike). Buying normal tickets for 5 days of travel would cost 2-3 times as much.
When returning, see if you can fly back from Edinburgh. That way you would return from the highlands to Edinburgh the day before your departure, without stress, and spend a night in the center of Edinburgh (there are very cheap places right in the center), and Edinburgh is a lovely place worth seeing.
One last thing. If Scotland has all these wonderful sights, how come it isn’t overrun by tourists like the south of Europe? There are two forces at work. First there is the weather. When it starts raining, it doesn’t stop, making it very difficult for people camping to dry up. But when it stops raining, you wish it started raining again, because… midges.
Whenever the wind doesn’t blow, the midges come out. They bite. They crawl in your nose and ears - they are attracted to the CO2 you breathe out. They are tiny, making them difficult to kill. Get a head net for each person. I was wild camping in Scotland several times and never had a problem with them, but if you happen into an area where there is a swarm of midges you will either wish you had a head net, or leave.
