Scottish Highlands Tourist Information

Inverness City

Inverness is the only city in the Highlands of Scotland and was only awarded official city status in 2000. As such it is something of a centre for the Scottish Highlands and Islands with people regularly flying in or travelling huge distances for a day trip of shopping, stocking up and meeting friends. Inverness is a compact city often visited for the Eastgate Shopping Centre with its chain stores, but there are a good variety of contemporary independent shops, cafes, restaurants and bars springing up all over the town. It is the main transport hub for the Highlands too with a main line rail station and airport at Dalcross east of the city centre.

The area around Inverness is steeped is some of the most significant events in Scottish and British history. The Battle of Culloden is the most memorable of these having effectively led to the demise of the Highland clan system and the dominance of the British Government over the Scots until recent years.

The coastline bordering the Moray Firth has a string of sandy beaches that have been popular seaside resorts for some time with plenty of B&B and hotel accommodation as well as caravan parks. The main towns along the Moray Firth coast are Forres, Lossiemouth, Buckie, Cullen as well as Nairn and Elgin slightly further inland. These are generally smaller towns but with services, tourist attractions and museums of their own that are well worth a visit. Accommodation in these towns give you a good base for exploring the distilleries, museums and historic sights of the region. These days the Moray Coast is most famous for its resident populations of bottle-nosed dolphins which you can see by taking a boat trip from one of the nearby towns.

The Black Isle is not actually an island but a peninsula between the Beauly Firth, Moray Firth and the Cromarty Firth north of Inverness. It is easy to reach on travel north from Inverness as it's just off the main A9 road as you head to the North East Highlands. It's also a quieter place to stay off the main tourist route.

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The Great Glen - Scottish Highlands

As you travel to Fort William up the Great Glen you really feel you've entered the Scottish Highlands. The roads are flanked by lochs and stunning mountains - just what you expect of the Highlands of Scotland.

Fort William and in the small settlements around the town are ram-jammed with a huge choice of holiday accommodation. Fort William itself has several attractions that can keep you busy for a few days sightseeing including the Hogwarts Express trips on the Fort William to Mallaig train. Lochaber is the area around Fort William that covers the Nevis Range. It's marketed as the outdoor capital of the UK due to the endless opportunities for walking, hiking, watersports on the lochs and rivers, skiing when weather permits and of course mountain biking on world class purpose-built tracks of the Nevis Range Mountain Experience.

Ben Nevis is known the world over as the highest mountain in Britain. For this reason alone it attracts thousands of walkers and climbers every year. The Nevis Range of mountains offer several Munros for hill walkers and several less arduous hikes in stunning Highland scenery. For the less adventurous Glen Nevis has some valley floor walks particularly around the Glen Nevis Visitor Centre where bridges lead you off for riverside walks or ascents up Ben Nevis.

Glencoe is one of the most beautiful glens in Scotland. It attracts sightseers keen to get those Highland pictures complete with Highland cattle in the valleys as well as serious hill walkers and Munro Baggers. The views are truly stunning and the National Trust Visitor Centre in the glen can help fill in all the details of its geological formation and wildlife. The Glencoe Mountain Resort has long been a centre for skiing in Scotland but it is now developing mountain bike and 4x4 tracks. Glencoe village has a monument to the Battle of Glen Coe and a range of accommodation options.

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Loch Ness Attractions

Loch Ness is as everyone knows famous for its fleeting sightings of the monster within, Nessie. It is also the second largest Scottish loch at twenty three miles long and it is by far the deepest - deeper that the height of London s BT Tower. The loch is within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty surrounded by moorland mountains and wooded shores. It is part of the Great Glen, a fault line that runs over 60 miles from Fort William to Inverness and where tectonic plates collided to form what is Scotland today. The earth is still moving around Loch Ness with the land around the loch rising 1mm every year.

The legend of the Loch Ness Monster actually originates from tales that St Columba saw a monstrous creature in the 6th century. Thousands of sightings have been recorded since then some of which have been disproved as hoaxes, wakes from boats or floating tree limbs, while others remain unexplained.

Drumnadrochit is also an excellent base for outdoor activities including walking The Great Glen Way, Munro-bagging in Glen Affric or watersports on Loch Ness.

Fort Augustus is an attractive village midway on the Great Glen between Fort William and Inverness. With its location at the mouth of Loch Ness it's a good stepping off point for boat cruises on either the Caledonian Canal or Loch Ness. It has a good choice of accommodation and watering holes so a good base if you're tackling The Great Glen Way.

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North West Highlands - Sutherland - Wester Ross

Ullapool in the Wester Ross area of Scotland is something of a main centre for the North West Highlands. Ullapool is a lively and popular place where there's always something going on. Live music is an important part of social life here and you can easily find local bands playing or music festivals throughout the year. Ferries run regularly from Ullapool to Stornoway, a handy connection for exploring the Outer Hebrides. Several boat trips also run from Ullapool to explore the Summer Isles just off the Ullapool coastline.

The North West Highlands is one of the remotest parts of Scotland. The Highland Clearances hit this area hard and since then much of the land area has been unpopulated. Much of the landscape in the north west Highlands is stunning. High rocky mountain peaks, peatlands and hundreds of lochs and sea lochs intersecting the land. There are several areas important for wildlife and fishing, hillwalking and climbing are popular activities.

The journey up Glen Shiel to the Kyle of Lochalsh feels like you're entering another of the remotest parts of the Scottish Highlands. For much of the way you pass mountains and lochs and few settlements. The traverse over the Five Sisters of Kintail is popular with serious hill walkers where they rise rise to 3,000 feet overlooking of Shiel Bridge.

From the Kyle of Lochalsh north along the Wester Ross coastline you'll pass some stunning scenery. Plockton, the Applecross Peninsula then up through the Torridon area to Gairloch, Poolewe and on to Gruinard Bay you'll pass mountain views, lochs with wooded islands and of course beautiful coastal views out to the Isle of Skye and The Minch.

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North East Highlands - Caithness

The North East Highlands are not as obviously spectacular as a lot of the high mountain areas of the rest of the Highlands of Scotland. The mountains jut out of a largely flat or low undulating countryside. It is nonetheless an awe inspiring part of the country with vast open landscapes covered in peat and bog. In fact the peatlands in this area are some of the best and most important in the world. So prevalent are the bogs up here that it is often called the Flow Country.

The far north eastern part of Scotland was formerly Caithness. Sutherland extends across to the east around the Dornoch area. There is some stunning coastline such as at Duncansby. All around the coast are a string of seaside towns such as Dornoch, Wick and Thurso.

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