Look across Loch Scavaig to the Cuillin from the shore at Elgol

Elgol sits on Loch Scavaig at the end of the Strathaird peninsula, looking straight across at the Cuillin ridge. Small boats run from the slip to Loch Coruisk, the freshwater loch held in the horseshoe of the mountains, and on to the Small Isles; south of the village is the cave where Charles Edward Stuart is said to have waited for a boat to the mainland.

Elgol and Loch Coruisk: The Boat Under the Cuillin

The Cuillin

From Loch Lomond to Inverness by Glen Coe and Skye: Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis, the Jacobite steam train over Glenfinnan, Eilean Donan, the Old Man of Storr and the Quiraing, and the boat from Elgol to Loch Coruisk.

Skye and the West Highlands

Walk up to the Fairy Pools and follow the chain of falls

Swim in one of the pools, or at least put your feet in

Walk the beach at the foot of Glen Brittle under the Cuillin

The Fairy Pools lie in Coire na Creiche on the Allt Coir' a' Mhadaidh, at the foot of the Cuillin: a chain of aqua-blue pools and waterfalls about twenty minutes' walk from the Glen Brittle car park, and a favourite of wild swimmers willing to take the cold. The glen runs down to a beach under the ridge, and over the hill at Carbost, Hugh and Kenneth MacAskill founded the Talisker distillery in 1830.

Glen Brittle: The Fairy Pools, the Cuillin and Talisker

Take the CalMac ferry from Mallaig to Rùm

Climb Askival, the highest mountain on Rùm, five kilometres south of Kinloch in the Rùm Cuillin

Listen after dark, between April and August, for the Manx shearwaters calling as they come in to their burrows in the Rùm Cuillin

Photograph the Milky Way over Kinloch Castle, the Bulloughs' Edwardian mansion of 1897–1900

Rùm is the largest of the Small Isles, and about 30 people live on it, all in the hamlet of Kinloch on the east coast. It holds some of the earliest evidence of people in Scotland, from the 8th millennium BC; it was cleared of its population between 1826 and 1828 and became a sporting estate, and George Bullough, whose father made his money in Lancashire textiles, built Kinloch Castle there between 1897 and 1900, an Edwardian mansion that NatureScot ran partly as a hostel until 2015. The Nature Conservancy Council bought the island in 1957, and it is now a study site for red deer and the place where the white-tailed sea eagle was reintroduced. Rùm is also one of three islands that hold three-quarters of the Manx shearwaters breeding in Britain and Ireland, and because artificial light harms their young the islanders keep it dark: in 2024 it became an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, the first in Scotland and the second in Europe.

Rùm: Scotland's First Dark Sky Sanctuary

Walk up the road to the second broch, Dun Troddan

Cross to Skye on the Glenelg–Kylerhea turntable ferry in summer

Watch for otters from the hide above the Kyle at Kylerhea

Dun Telve is one of the best preserved brochs in Scotland, standing in a quiet glen four kilometres from Kirkton, with its neighbour Dun Troddan 470m up the road and the semi-broch of Dun Grugaig further east; the two brochs are about two thousand years old. From Glenelg the ferry to Kylerhea on Skye has run for centuries — a car ferry has run since 1934, and since 1982 the MV Glenachulish of 1969, the last manually operated turntable ferry in the world, has worked the crossing in summer.

Glenelg: Two Iron Age Brochs and the Turntable Ferry

Walk the white sands between Arisaig and Morar

Watch the sun go down behind Eigg and Rum

Drive the old coast road rather than the new one

The old road between Arisaig and Morar runs along a coast of white sand and rock, with Eigg and Rum across the water and Skye to the north; Bonnie Prince Charlie left Scotland for France from near the village on 20 September 1746. Behind them lies Loch Morar, and the sunsets over the Small Isles are a big part of the draw.

Arisaig and the Silver Sands of Morar

Visit Eilean Donan Castle, on its tidal island where lochs Duich, Long and Alsh meet, founded in the 13th century, wrecked by Royal Navy frigates in 1719 and rebuilt between 1912 and 1932

Cross to Skye and back over the Skye Bridge from Kyle of Lochalsh

Walk the waterfront at Plockton, where cabbage palms line the shore of Loch Carron

Eilean Donan stands on a tidal island where lochs Duich, Long and Alsh meet. Founded in the 13th century, it was wrecked by Royal Navy frigates in 1719 during the Jacobite rising and rebuilt between 1912 and 1932. West of it the road runs out to Kyle of Lochalsh and the Skye Bridge, and north over the hill lies Plockton, sheltered enough on Loch Carron for cabbage palms to grow along its waterfront.

Eilean Donan, Kyle of Lochalsh and Plockton

Drive the hairpins of the Bealach na Bà from Tornapress to the summit

Stop at the top for the view west over Raasay and Skye

Drop down to Applecross village on the far side

Come back by the coast road towards Shieldaig, opened in 1975

The Bealach na Bà, the 'pass of the cattle', was begun in 1818 and finished in September 1822 by John Reid & Son of Edinburgh, and it is engineered like an Alpine pass, with tight hairpins and gradients approaching 20%. It has the greatest ascent of any road climb in the United Kingdom, rising from sea level at Applecross to 626m in about six kilometres, and is the third highest mountain pass in Scotland. Applecross itself — A' Chomraich, 'the sanctuary', where the Irish monk Maelrubha founded a monastery — was reachable only by boat until the 19th century, and the coast road round the peninsula to Shieldaig and Torridon was not built until 1975.

Bealach na Bà: The Biggest Road Climb in Britain

Walk the woodland trail through Coille na Glas Leitir

Follow the Mountain Trail up to the Conservation Cairn for the view over Loch Maree to Slioch

Look up at the Torridon hills from the glen road

Find mosses and liverworts on the pinewood floor

Beinn Eighe was declared a national nature reserve in 1951 by Dr John Berry of the Nature Conservancy — the first in Great Britain. Its summits are capped with pale Cambrian quartzite that can look like snow from the glen, and at Coille na Glas Leitir on the northern side stands the largest fragment of ancient Caledonian pinewood left in north-west Scotland; 680 plant species have been recorded here, including the richest oceanic moss and liverwort flora of any single site in Britain.