Trip to the Highlands - ideas

Murphybear

zagubov said:

Another vote for Oban. Combined it with Inverness on our highlands tour on our honeymoon.

But have you thought of Stirling? Got a weird lovely microclimate (miss out the eastern wind and the western rain) and you've got the castle,  safari park, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and you can still buy Britain's most northerly Waitrose food.

While we're being MSE. if you're driving up from Dorset, you can save petrol money by avoiding motorway services and filling up at nearby supermarkets in Preston (BamberBridge) and Carlisle - make sure you've brought your nectar card and clubcard with you.

There’s some books/articles about Off  the Motorway services.  Useful for cheaper eating and fuel.  We’ve saved loads of money in the past.  We only stop at motorway services to use the loo 

Murphybear

[Deleted User] said:

Cruachan Hydro Power Station tour (near Oban) if you're looking to kill a couple of hours on a rainy day.

If visiting Fort William, Glenfinnan monument isn't too far away, where you can also see the 'Harry Potter bridge' (Glenfinnan Viaduct) and possibly view the Jacobite steam train.

Keep following the A830 towards Arisaig and Mallaig for some stunning west coast beaches.

Oh yes, I’m a huge HP fan.   Glenfinnan has been on my bucket list for a few years. 

Murphybear

martindow said:

And while you're driving up don't forget to stop off at Tebay services on the M6.  A revelation of how good motorway services can be.

We know Tebay well, it’s excellent 

SDLT_Geek

Gavinalt said:

Murphybear said:

I am planning a trip to the Highlands next year and am wondering when the best time to go is.  We are pensioners and want to miss the school holidays but other than that are fairly flexible.  I know the midges can be bad but don’t know if some months are better than others.  The last time I went to the Highlands was about 30 years ago, it was in July and hot.  We didn’t see a single midge.   We stayed a few miles higher than Drumnadrochit on Loch Ness.

We are  planning a 2 Centre holiday, one will be in the Inverness area and not sure yet where the other will be. We live 600 miles from Inverness so will be on the road a few days.  We live in sheltered housing and most of the branches have hospitality suites where we can stay for about £10 a night.  The main holiday will be self catering.  We’ve never visited the Loch Lomond area so might go there as well.

So if anyone has any thoughts or ideas of what to do, especially if the weather is not so good I’d be interested.  We both like scenery (it doesn’t get much better than the Highlands) and would like to visit some of the Islands depending on weather and time.  We both like walking but not too much due to hip and knee problems.  I understand the ferries can be expensive, don’t know if this is so but when we got the Isle of Wight ferry last year we were told it was the most expensive on the planet per km with some of the Scottish ferries coming a close second.  

On my last trip we went to Skye.  It was beautiful and the weather was sunshine and blue sky.  They were building the bridge at the time.  The only definite thing I would like to do is the Jacobite Railway (I am a closet Harry Potter fan).  One of us is a castle fan, I understand there are some stunning ones to see and we are both members of the National Trust.

This post is longer than I planned.    I’d love to hear your ideas.  

Ps I can reciprocate if anyone is planning a trip to Dorset 

It's best to avoid the school holidays and the peak midge season in July and August. May, June, September, and early October are great months to visit. Inverness and Loch Lomond are ideal locations for a two-center holiday. Don't miss the Jacobite Railway and the stunning castles like Eilean Donan and Urquhart. If you're up for it, explore the beautiful Scottish islands like Skye, Mull, or Arran. Enjoy scenic drives, easy walks, and check out the National Trust for Scotland properties. Have a blast!

@Gavinalt Are you a chatbot?

mac.d

We stayed in Beauly near Inverness and did day trips to Fort Augustus at the southern end of Loch Ness and good for watching the boats navigate the locks on the Caledonian Canal, into Inverness itself, to North Kessock for dolphin watching, and a little further afield to Applecross for the drive over Bealach na Bà.

Agree with daveyjp's comments re Oban and it being good for ferry trips. As well as Mull and Coll, could visit Iona or take one of the wildlife boat trips to Treshnish and Staffa.  

Skiddaw1

Murphybear said:

[Deleted User] said:

Cruachan Hydro Power Station tour (near Oban) if you're looking to kill a couple of hours on a rainy day.

If visiting Fort William, Glenfinnan monument isn't too far away, where you can also see the 'Harry Potter bridge' (Glenfinnan Viaduct) and possibly view the Jacobite steam train.

Keep following the A830 towards Arisaig and Mallaig for some stunning west coast beaches.

Oh yes, I’m a huge HP fan.   Glenfinnan has been on my bucket list for a few years. 

Honestly, Cruachan Hydro is fab. It's just like a James Bond set.

Spendless

Scottish school hols are different to England/Wales. In Scotland I believe they finish sometime in June and return mid-August-ish. Whereas England/Wales finish mid-late July and return early Sept at latest. So  if you are  wanting to avoid the whole lot you're looking at most of the summer to swerve from whenever Scottish schools finish in June until the beginning of September. If it's just Scottish OR English/Welsh schools to avoid you could look  outside those dates.  

Murphybear

Thanks for the ideas everyone.  It looks like I’ll need a month, not 2 weeks 

pogofish

Once you get into September, midge levels start to fall-off rapidly and they will be gone by late in the month, although the odd warmer day can see a hatch bit on a more localised/sporadic basis in the most sheltered spots.  It is also the case that dry/hot weather can drive numbers right down at any time in high season as they need standing water to hatch.  If it rains though, expect the worst! Has anybody mentioned Clegs?

September/into October can be a great time to go.  You still have reasonable daylight hours, numbers are less than at peak season and in areas like Argyll/Highland Perthshire, the larger proportion of broadleaved forest means glorious autumn colours - you also can get the first frosts and even snow on the high tops, plus the lower angle sunlight light can be magnificent.

April/May can also be great. The landscape is coming to life again after winter, so everything looks fresh and green. Apart from the school holidays, visitor numbers are still fairly low. 

I'd take Oban/Argyll over Fort William almost any day, unless I was planning on hiking the Ben or taking the Jacobite Train (the Harry Potter Train is at the studio experience nr London!)  The difference between the places is huge - Oban is a very attractive bustling town with good choices and and the hub of Argyll, a wonderful area with a huge amount to offer that isn't nearly as high on the international tourist radar and all the better for it! It is also the ferry hub for Mull and a number of other islands, all of which are worth considering. Fort William by comparison is a dull/semi industrial tourbus town, developed for  "big tourism" despite being considered unvisitable because of how little it had to offer until a certain boy wizard got in the way of Visit Scotland's plans to remainder it in the early 2000s. Fort William's saving grace is its immediate proximity to some of our best mountain landscapes, Glen Coe and the gorgeous bays and beaches of Arisaig, plus excellent pies from the Nevis Bakery but if you have a vehicle, they are easily visitable from Oban - in fact there is a great circular route from Oban along Loch Awe (incl Cruachan and the architecturally bonkers but magical St Conan's Chapel at Lochawe), up the rapids of the River Orchy, across Rannoch Moor, through Glen Coe (consider a side trip down magnificent Glen Etive as well) and back via Duror and Appin. 

In fact, if you want somewhere a bit special, Port Appin is a lovely little village with great choices and one of the few remaining highland foot ferries to Lismore, a lovely, quiet, very historic and virtually traffic-free island surrounded by mountains.

If you are headed to Inverness, Staying somewhere around the city that's really nice is a wise move. Inverness itself is a dull mostly modern place in a not very highland setting. It has also been running second only to Edinburgh during the Festivals for being an expensive place to stay.  All the suggestions above are good and I'll throw-in Cromarty, Nairn and Grantown on Spey as potential alternatives.

Other favourite parts of the Highlands for me are Assynt and Coiagh, north of Ullapool - a landscape the full-equal of Skye but off the NC500 route, hardly anyone goes there. Applecross/Sheildaig/Torridon/Kinlochewe - again more mountain magnificence and costal/island scenery of the highest order and Applecross itself is a great little place with an excellent Inn and the Walled Garden restaurant. upper Speyside and the central Cairngorms, incl the glorious Rothiemurchus Forest and the Ballater/Braemar area of upper Deeside to the east.

Highland Perthshire - notably the Aberfeldy/Kenmore/Fortingall area is another truly lovely part of the country with some very good choices.

pogofish

Gavinalt said:

It's best to avoid the school holidays and the peak midge season in July and August. May, June, September, and early October are great months to visit. Inverness and Loch Lomond are ideal locations for a two-center holiday. Don't miss the Jacobite Railway and the stunning castles like Eilean Donan and Urquhart. If you're up for it, explore the beautiful Scottish islands like Skye, Mull, or Arran. Enjoy scenic drives, easy walks, and check out the National Trust for Scotland properties. Have a blast!

Two big mistakes! - Thanks to the late 1990s PWC report taken-on enthusiastically by Visit Scotland and the Inverness business community, the entire development of Inverness as a tourist destination (to the detriment of everywhere else in the Highlands!) since the early 2000s has been predicated on the assumption that its visitors are not the sort of people who want to have anything to do with the "wild highlands" - ie Skye and Eilean Donan is not a castle! The castle was blown-up by the English in 1719 and its remains were later demolished in order to build the entirely modern structure that sits there today. Even its interior was shipped-in from Canada because the First World War had left us a but short of good wood and the men to work it. It has been rinsing visitors ever since.

The purpose of the new structure was to celebrate old Gilstrap Macrae's gaining the Chieftainship of Clan Macrae on a legal technicality arising from the arcane laws of heraldry, not because he actually had a claim to it - Prior to this, the Macrae branches got along pretty nicely, so had never needed a chieftain!