Walk the Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore, founded in 1935 by Dr Isabel Frances Grant, and step into Baile Gean, its reconstructed early-18th-century township

Watch the live interpretation in the reconstructed buildings

Walk through the buildings that take the story on to the mid-20th century

Dr Isabel Frances Grant founded the Highland Folk Museum in 1935, having curated a Highland Exhibition of 2,100 artefacts in Inverness in 1930; she started it in a disused church on Iona, and it is now an open-air museum at Newtonmore owned by the Highland Council. It shows everyday life in the Highlands from the 1700s to the mid-20th century through reconstructed and relocated buildings, with live interpretation, and at its heart is Baile Gean, a reconstructed early-18th-century township.

Newtonmore: The Highland Folk Museum

Aviemore

Ten nights from Dunkeld to Stonehaven: Big Tree Country and Blair Castle in Highland Perthshire, reindeer and ospreys around Aviemore, the Speyside whisky trail and Tomintoul's dark skies, then Braemar and Balmoral on Royal Deeside.

Highland Perthshire, the Cairngorms and Royal Deeside

Tour the Dalwhinnie distillery, at 355 metres one of the highest in Scotland

Taste the Dalwhinnie 15-year-old, one of the six Classic Malts

Drive over the Pass of Drumochter, the highest point on the A9

Walk or cycle the track along the shore of Loch Ericht

Dalwhinnie — Dail Chuinnidh, the meeting place — sits at the head of Glen Truim and the north end of Loch Ericht, and at an average of 6.6°C it is one of the coldest villages in the UK. Its distillery, built in 1897 as the Strathspey Distillery between the Great North Road and the Highland Railway, stands at 355 metres, one of the highest in Scotland, and in the late 1980s it became one of the six Classic Malts. Just south, the Pass of Drumochter carries the A9 over the Grampian watershed at 460 metres, its highest point, and the railway beside it at 452 metres, the highest main line summit in the UK.

Dalwhinnie: One of Scotland's Highest Distilleries

Walk the 5km trail around Loch an Eilein, 5km south of Aviemore, to the 14th-century island castle linked with Alexander Stewart, the Wolf of Badenoch, which Dame Grizel Mor Grant defended against retreating Jacobites in 1690

Ride the preserved Strathspey Railway from Aviemore

Visit the Highland Wildlife Park near Kincraig

Look for crested tits and red-throated divers around the loch, in a national park that holds more than half of Scotland's surviving Caledonian forest

Five kilometres south of Aviemore, a trail of about 5km goes round Loch an Eilein, whose island castle is linked with Alexander Stewart, the Wolf of Badenoch; Dame Grizel Mor Grant held it against retreating Jacobites in 1690. Crested tits live in the pines around it, in a national park holding more than half of Scotland's surviving Caledonian forest. From Aviemore the Strathspey Railway runs preserved trains, and the Highland Wildlife Park is at Kincraig.

Loch an Eilein, the Strathspey Railway and the Highland Wildlife Park

Join a hill visit to the free-ranging reindeer herd, reintroduced to the Cairngorms in 1952, from the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre at Glenmore

Watch the ospreys from the RSPB's Loch Garten Nature Centre in Abernethy Forest, where two Scandinavian birds nested in 1954

Look for capercaillie, crested tit and the Scottish crossbill, the only bird species unique to Britain, in the Caledonian pine forest

Reindeer were brought back to the Cairngorms in 1952, and the free-ranging herd is visited on the hill from the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre at Glenmore. In 1954 two Scandinavian ospreys nested of their own accord at Loch Garten in Abernethy Forest, the return of a species that had been wiped out in Britain, and ospreys have nested there almost every year since 1959. The same Caledonian pine forest holds capercaillie, crested tits and the Scottish crossbill, the only bird species found nowhere but Britain.

Cairngorms Wildlife: Reindeer, Ospreys and Capercaillie

Ski or snowboard at Cairngorm Mountain in the winter season

Join a guided hill trip from Glenmore to the free-ranging Cairngorm reindeer herd

Walk the shore of Loch Morlich below the mountain

Cairngorm Mountain has more than 30km of pistes on the northern slopes of Cairn Gorm, the sixth-highest mountain in the UK, open when there is snow, usually from December into April. Below it in Glenmore the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd runs guided hill trips on most days to its free-ranging reindeer, and Loch Morlich lies at the foot of the mountains with sandy beaches at 300 metres above sea level.

Cairngorm Mountain: Skiing, Reindeer and Loch Morlich

Climb Ben Macdui (1,309m), the second-highest mountain in Britain, in the Cairngorms

Climb Braeriach (1,296m) and Cairn Gorm (1,245m) to make three Munros in three days; a Munro is a Scottish mountain over 3,000ft, from Sir Hugh Munro's tables of 1891

A Munro is a Scottish mountain over 3,000 feet, from the tables Sir Hugh Munro published in 1891, and three of the highest are in the Cairngorms: Ben Macdui, at 1,309m the second-highest mountain in Britain, and Cairn Gorm, 1,245m, on the central plateau, with Braeriach, 1,296m, across the Lairig Ghru on the western one. Climbed over three days they are a proper introduction to the high Cairngorms.

Ben Macdui, Braeriach and Cairn Gorm: Three Cairngorm Munros

Take a boat trip on Loch Ness, 37km long and 229.8m deep, with more water than all the lakes of England and Wales combined

Visit the Loch Ness Experience in Drumnadrochit, formerly the Loch Ness Centre, on the story of the monster first brought to world attention in 1933

Explore Urquhart Castle, the medieval ruin on the loch's western shore

Look down the loch from the ruins of Urquhart Castle, where several of the best-known monster photographs were taken

Loch Ness is 37km long and 229.8m deep and holds more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined. Drumnadrochit on the western shore has the Loch Ness Experience, which sets out the evidence and the explanations, and Urquhart Castle stands on Strone Point, where some of the best-known monster photographs were taken.

Loch Ness Monster Hunt

Look at the stacks from the Duncansby Head lighthouse near John o' Groats

Stand at the John o' Groats signpost, the far end of the Land's End run

Visit the Castle of Mey and its garden, the Queen Mother's home in Caithness

Look for puffins, guillemots and kittiwakes on the Duncansby cliffs in spring and summer

This is the north-east corner of the mainland, where the North Coast 500 turns. Duncansby Head is the most north-easterly point of the Scottish mainland, with sea stacks, geos and blowholes cut into the cliffs and thousands of puffins, guillemots, razorbills and kittiwakes nesting in spring and summer. John o' Groats takes its name from Jan de Groot, the 15th-century Dutchman who ran the ferry to Orkney; a ferry still crosses to Burwick in summer. Ten kilometres west, the Castle of Mey was bought in 1952 by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and given to a trust in 1996.