Vacation Scotland

With the exception of around 60,000 native Gaelic speakers, most Scots are English monoglots: that is they can only speak, read and understand English. All languages impart a ‘view’ of the world, and as a result we see our land and our culture through the medium of the English tongue. Gaels, people who speak Gaelic, [...]

The Glenfinnan Viaduct in the west Highlands is an iconic image: a long, curving bridge spanning a deep valley amid a stunning backdrop of mountain and lake. You’ll find it on postcards, calendars, tourist board advertising and in several movies. Perhaps the most famous is in the Harry Potter films, when the train is crossing [...]

A great thing about a Vacation Scotland tour is that it takes you to corners of the country that perhaps you would never venture to otherwise. As well as scenery and history, what I love as much as anything are the local tales and folklore – and no tale is more bizarre, indeed more gruesome [...]

The Kingdom of Scotland is really a patchwork of territories: of counties and regions, of Earldoms and Lordships, of Clan lands and great provinces. Each in its own way reflects the diversity of our small country; from the old Scandinavian world of the Northern Isles, to the Gaelic communities of the Hebrides and all the [...]

The Island of Islay is famed for its whisky; but it is also a very beautiful place with a complicated landscape of rolling, heather-clad hills, broad coastal grasslands and soft sandy beaches. As a result of Islay’s unusually fertile land, the population was always higher and history has often been played out here; indeed, the island [...]

The Trotternish Peninsula in the north of the Isle of Skye is a Tolkienesque world of ridges, pinnacles and plateaux; a staccato terrain that forms a stunningly beautiful landscape. At the north end of the peninsula, as it juts out into the sea facing the broad horizons of the Western Isles beyond, is the Cuithraing, [...]

Running a travel company, I’m often asked – when is the best time to travel to Scotland; when will I see Scotland at its very best; and there is no right answer to that. Yes, the summer is warmer, but then the roads are busy, and it’s harder to find places to stay. May or [...]