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.

John o' Groats, Duncansby Head and the Castle of Mey

John o' Groats and Dunnet Head

The North Coast 500 as a loop from Inverness: dolphins off Chanonry Point, the cliffs of Duncansby and Dunnet Head, Smoo Cave and Sandwood Bay, Handa's seabirds and Suilven, then the Bealach na Bà and Culloden.

The North Coast 500

Drive the B855, the most northerly road on mainland Britain

Stand at the northernmost point of Great Britain

Watch the seabirds from the viewing platform by the lighthouse

Look across the Pentland Firth to Hoy and the Orkney Mainland

Find the wartime defences that guarded Scapa Flow

Easter Head on the Dunnet peninsula is the northernmost point of the island of Great Britain, and the single-track B855 out to it is the most northerly road on the mainland. From the cliffs by the lighthouse you look across the Pentland Firth to Stroma, and to Hoy and the Orkney Mainland 15 kilometres away. The cliffs hold fulmars, guillemots, kittiwakes, razorbills, skuas and puffins in season, and there is a viewing platform. Near the lighthouse are the remains of wartime defences built to protect the naval base at Scapa Flow.

Dunnet Head: The Top of Great Britain

Walk Pulteneytown, the fishing town built by the British Fisheries Society

Find out how many herring boats worked out of Wick in the 1840s

Walk out to the Castle of Old Wick, the Old Man of Wick

Walk down the Whaligoe Steps and count them yourself

In the 19th century Wick was one of the great herring ports: by the 1840s more than 1,000 herring boats used the harbour. Pulteneytown, on the south side of the river, was founded in 1808 by the British Fisheries Society to take people cleared from the Highlands who came to the coast for work. South of the town the Castle of Old Wick, the Old Man of Wick, stands on the coast; tradition credits it to Harald Maddadson, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, in the 1100s, but the tower that survives probably dates from the 14th century. Further south are the Whaligoe Steps, a stairway down a cliff to a natural harbour where fisherwomen carried the herring up in creels — 365 steps by the usual count, 330 by another.

Wick and the Whaligoe Steps: The Herring Coast

Watch the right-hander peeling off the flagstone reef

Surf Thurso East if you have the experience for a reef break

See the Caithness flagstone the reef is made of in the town

Check the forecast and come on a big north swell

Thurso East is a fast right-hand reef break on Scotland's north coast, over layered Caithness flagstone, the stone that was split into paving for the Strand in London and much of Paris. The reef holds swell from about two feet to fifteen, and depending on the tide and the swell direction it throws a long, walling wave with hollow barrel sections. In 2006 it hosted the first O'Neill Highland Open, won by the British surfer Russell Winter.

Thurso East: The Right-Hander at the Top of Scotland

Hike to the Old Man of Hoy, the 137m sea stack, from Rackwick Bay

Visit the Scapa Flow Museum at Lyness, in the old naval base on the shore of Scapa Flow, where the German High Seas Fleet was scuttled in June 1919

Explore the Dwarfie Stane, the Neolithic rock-cut tomb on the Hoy hillside

Hoy is Orkney's second-largest island. From Rackwick Bay a path leads to the Old Man of Hoy, a sea stack 137m tall. The Dwarfie Stane on the hillside is a Neolithic tomb cut out of a single block of rock, and at Lyness the Scapa Flow Museum stands in the old naval base, close to where the German High Seas Fleet was scuttled in June 1919.

Hoy: The Old Man, the Dwarfie Stane and Scapa Flow

Walk through Skara Brae, Northern Europe's best-preserved Neolithic village, occupied between about 3180 and 2500 BC and older than Stonehenge or the pyramids

Walk the Ring of Brodgar, the stone circle 104m across and originally made up of 60 stones

Stand inside Maeshowe chambered cairn, whose chamber aligns with the winter solstice and holds one of the largest collections of Viking runic inscriptions in the world

See the Stones of Stenness, where the tallest of the four remaining megaliths stands 6m high

The Heart of Neolithic Orkney has been a World Heritage Site since 1999. Skara Brae, occupied from about 3180 to 2500 BC, is the best-preserved Neolithic village in northern Europe, older than Stonehenge. The Ring of Brodgar is 104m across and was made of 60 stones; at the Stones of Stenness the tallest of the four left standing is 6m high. Maeshowe's passage is aligned so that for about three weeks either side of the winter solstice the setting sun reaches the back of the chamber, and its walls carry one of the largest collections of Viking runes in the world.

Orkney: Skara Brae, Brodgar and Maeshowe

Walk the Dubh Lochan Trail out across the bog at Forsinard

Climb the Flows Lookout tower for the view over the peatland

Look for greenshank, golden plover and dunlin on the flows in spring and early summer

Take the train to Forsinard on the Far North Line

The Flow Country covers about 4,000km² of Caithness and Sutherland in deep peat and bog pools — the largest blanket bog in Europe and a huge store of carbon locked in its peat. In 2024 UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site for its blanket bog. The RSPB reserve at Forsinard has the Dubh Lochan Trail out over the bog pools and the Flows Lookout tower, and greenshank, golden plover and dunlin nest on the flows from April to July.

The Flow Country: The Largest Blanket Bog in Europe

Watch boats climb Neptune's Staircase at Banavie, eight locks that lift the canal 64ft in 500 yards

See the Commando Memorial above Spean Bridge, unveiled by the Queen Mother in 1952 with views of Ben Nevis and Aonach Mòr

Cycle or walk the canal towpath between Banavie and Gairlochy

Thomas Telford's Caledonian Canal runs 60 miles from Inverness to Fort William with 29 locks, four aqueducts and 10 bridges, opened in 1822. Eight of those locks are at Banavie, where Neptune's Staircase lifts boats 64ft in 500 yards, and the towpath carries the Great Glen Way north-east from Banavie, with Ben Nevis across the valley.

The Great Glen: Neptune's Staircase and the Caledonian Canal

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.