There’s an incredible sense of space in the Scottish Highlands, whether you’re cruising across a misty loch, pausing for breath on a snowy Cairngorms hike, or stopped at a deserted railway platform in the middle of nowhere. Here are landscapes being gradually and ambitiously rewilded, ensuring predators such as pine martens maintain their vital place in the ecosystem. Here are dolphins and whales, eagles and wild cats, puffins and seals. Here are iconic rail journeys, mountain guides swapping stories and jokes around the table with their charges, and cruises taking you past crumbling castles.
Explore the Highlands by rail, by boat, on foot – but get even a short distance from the road and you can feel completely alone.
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If you take just one thing away from this travel guide, let it be this: leave the car at home. “I think if 2020 taught us anything, it’s the joy of being outside,” says Robert Kidd, from our Scotland rail vacations partner McKinlay Kidd. “Even if the weather is grey, getting out there is so positive for mental health. You come to the Scottish Highlands and once you get off the road, you’re in the middle of all this fantastic raw nature in no time.”
Read our Scottish Highlands travel guide for more.