The Scottish Highlands

2 min summary Best time to visit Map & highlights Best cities The Highlands Orkney & Shetland Railway tours Self drive Small ship cruises Wildlife Families Responsible tourism

The Scottish Highlands

Set out north from Edinburgh or Glasgow and you’re there: the Scottish Highlands. The region is both a physical and cultural divide. It's cleaved by the Highland Boundary Fault – a fault line that separates landscapes and the Lowland Scots from the hardy, historically Gaelic-speaking Highlanders. Just a couple of hundred years ago, the Scottish Highlands was seen as a lawless land of clans; it’s no accident that the bootleg whisky trade began here.

The further north you venture, the friendlier and fewer the people. B&B owners welcome you like family, pressing a hot toddy into your hand as you return from a hike.

It’s not just the history that’s hit turbulence. The Scottish Highlands were formed by a geologically stormy past that’s given birth to some incredibly impressive – and incredibly photogenic – landscapes. This is the Scotland you’ve seen in the movies. The Scotland of heather-purpled valleys, Scots pine forests, and castles and lochs, all finished off with two of the highest mountains in the UK.

What kind of Scottish Highlands holiday you go for depends on your fancy. Tailor made train adventures let you mould the itinerary to your liking. Small group trips escort you from place to place accompanied by an expert guide. The timing also depends on you. Autumn photography tour or winter adventure through frosty mountains? The chance of sunshine or pubs with an open fire? Most Highlands holidays kick off in Edinburgh, Glasgow or Inverness, so whenever you go you’ll get to glimpse these superb cities, too.

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Glens, bens & lochs

Any Scottish Highlands holiday worth its salt will get you out into the countryside. This is the realm of some of the last wilderness left in the UK. Up north, photography tours make a beeline for Wester Ross (no relation to Westeros) to capture the pure drama of the scenery and broiling weather. Beinn Eighe rises up as a pale quartz massif. Thick-knit Scots pine forests paint the valleys, fed by pummelling waterfalls. Sandy, seal-friendly beaches round off the Applecross Peninsula.

It’s telling that headstrong Highlanders stick to the Gaelic words for valleys (gleans), mountains (beinns) and lakes (lochs). This trio makes up the weave of the Scottish Highlands.

Further south, the wilderness starts to bubble with people. Ben Nevis (1,345m) is the highest mountain in the UK and well-trod by walkers prepared to take on a straightforward but steep climb. Loch Ness shoots for the deepest freshwater lake in Britain. Your holiday operator will match you up with the best lake cruise in town – tales of Nessie and scrambles over Urquhart Castle included. Just be prepared for coach crowds in the summer.

Alternatively, slide back into Highlands obscurity in Cairngorms National Park. Although it’s home to royal residence Balmoral, Cairngorm Mountain ski hill, and some of Scotland’s most famous distilleries, it’s also got miles of mountain, moorland and forest trails you can vanish into. A wildlife holiday with an expert guide will show you how to forage for wild blueberries and mushrooms, spot otters and red squirrels, and unveil valleys where you can hear red deer roars ricochet through the mountains during the autumn rutting season.

Cathedral cities & fishing villages

You’d be forgiven for thinking Scottish Highlands holidays are all about the countryside. In fact, many trips start or end in northerly Inverness, the self-proclaimed capital of the Highlands. (though Aberdeen might have something to say about that.) Inverness Cathedral and Inverness Museum and Art Gallery put centuries of Highlands history in the frame.

Castles are leftovers from a feudal past when landowners reigned like kings. Eilean Donan Castle, on the northwest coast, is a particularly famous face, starring on almost every tin of Scottish shortbread in existence.

Working harbours – and your custom – are what keep many of the remote villages going. Oban and Mallaig are end-of-the-trainline towns that double as entryways into Inner Hebrides islands like Skye and Eigg. Get your holiday operator to squeeze in a night at one of these to experience the nocturnal rhythms of working fishing towns that haul in much of Scotland’s prawn catch.

Alternatively, help rescue a dying Highlands trade. Arts and crafts holidays teach you how to shear sheep and forage for fruit and roots, before giving you the chance to join a dying and felting workshop.

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You take the high road; I’ll take the rail road

You don’t have to go to Switzerland for one of the world’s most head-turning rail journeys. The West Highland Line whisks you from Glasgow to Oban or Mallaig via deer-speckled valleys, mountain tunnels and marshes aflutter with birds. The 21-arch Glenfinnan Viaduct is the highpoint – a glorious Victorian gem that swoops alongside Loch Shiel. You just have to choose if you’d rather bite the bullet and join the Harry Potter fans on the Jacobite steam train that doubled as the Hogwarts Express, or go outside the summer season and roll across it on a plain old ScotRail train.

You could also ride the Far North Line, where the train trundles alongside peat bogs and whisky distilleries, thundering rivers and lonely castles, and a whole lot of wide-open wilderness. This is about as wild as the UK gets. Read more in our Scottish railway holidays guide.

Itching to explore off-rail? A Highlands holiday specialist can get you staying overnight in towns en route – or they might suggest skipping the trains altogether and hiring a car. That way, you can detour to coves and RSPB bird reserves at your leisure or take a deep breath and tackle the hairpin-harried Bealach na Ba Road through the Applecross Peninsula. It’s like it was designed with photographers in mind.

Or perhaps you want to do away with transport altogether. Self-guided walking holidays take on the West Highlands Way, while guided winter hiking trips teach you how to navigate in whiteout conditions. Cyclists can glide around the empty roads of the Highlands or mountain bike through the Caledonian forest. Or there’s the ultimate UK cycle trail: from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’ Groats in the Highlands. Oof.