Highlands & Islands trip planning

[Dunbar]

Clan Dunbar tours Scotland about every 5 years. I'm going for the first time and taking my family. After the tour we are going on a driving tour of the Highlands and Islands to see areas where the Clan rarely if ever goes. We were a lowland noble family with the Earldoms of Dunbar, March and Moray. Moray borders the Highlands and that is where my ancestor came from landing in the Colonies in 1650.


This is a rough map of our travel plans. The hotel cost is something like $400/night and we need 2 rooms. Looking at about $4000 for rooms alone. So instead of renting a car I thought we might rent a Expedition vehicle and camp. Doe anyone have suggestions of what we might miss of importance on the above route? This would be in the first week of August and we know we will see rain but we are camping veterans. We can rent one from Scotland Overland. Are there parks or campgrounds where we can shower rather than boondocking it the entire time?

We would love to meet for pints with any X-Marks members who we might find on our route.
Slainte!

David Dunbar
Chieftain Clan Dunbar

[Karl R]

I've only done one trip into the highlands, and it was a one-day bus tour, so please take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Our trip from Inverness back to Edinburgh followed (mostly) your eastern leg of the trip (minus the trip out to Elgin). I found the trip through the Cairngorms to be a lot less visually interesting than our outbound trip, which passed through Glencoe, and then up along Loch Lochy and Loch Ness.

If there are specific points of interest along the Cairngorm route, that's definitely an overriding factor. But if you're largely just traveling through the area, the route along the lochs seemed much more ... scenic ... in a differentiated sort of way. The Cairngorms seemed like a lot of the same thing repeated mile after mile. (But that may be because we didn't stop for anything along that route.)

[cessna152towser]

Looks like a good itinerary, and you should see some good scenic parts of Scotland.
There are some good roads there where you will be able to travel at up to 60mph but there are many other sections where you will need to ca' canny (go easy). The one which immediately springs to mind is after you leave Uig to head round the north tip of Skye the road climbs quite steeply, with some tight hairpin bends. Allow plenty of time once you leave the class A roads on the mainland. Also bear in mind that many of the roads are single track, which means that you will often need to give way at passing points to oncoming vehicles. Coming off a single track road, as a visitor from across the pond, it would be too easy to forget to once again take to the left hand side of the road. I have had a few near misses over the years with cars and even coaches driven by tourists, coming at me on the right hand side instead of the left.

[Jock Scot]

Your route is as good as any other, there are other choices of course.

Things to remember!
Drive on the LEFT.
When your fuel tank reads half full/empty STOP at the FIRST fuel station you see. Do not expect them to be open in isolated parts after 1700Hrs!
Drive on the LEFT.
Watch out for ticks.
Bring plenty of anti midge cream.
Drive on the LEFT.
Be very careful of fire, open moorland and forestry can burn easily, even though it rains a lot!
On single track roads DONT park in the passing places.
On single track roads, if someone behind you toots their horn and/or flashes their lights, they are usually a local Doctor/nurse needing to be somewhere urgently, they are NOT being aggressive idiots, please let them pass as soon as it is safe to do so.
Drive on the LEFT.
Bring binoculars.
Drive on the LEFT.

The vehicle you have illustrated will be OK for this bit of road, but its not for the feint of heart! Click to enlarge.

[Highland Logan]

I've done two driving trips in Scotland; 2003 and 2007. It looks like you have a good one planed. Best of luck.

Frank

[Nomad]

I did a very similar trip 2 years ago, but based myself in Inverness, Skye, Fort William and loch lomand, using each of those as bases for day trips. I did B&Bs for all of them but loch lomand (hotel) cost was generally under £100 per night in June, so it may be worth considering this. The great thing about staying a couple of nights in a B&B is that you get to chat to the owners and they are great at providing local information on local attractions. Whilst this may not be practical for your trip it may be worth looking as you are garaunteed a shower, somewhere warm and no midges.

[Baeau]

I can't resist a comment, here. My wife & daughter make a similar run, twice a day (Santa Cruz Mountains). A good day, about 1600ft climb, in 9-10 minutes. Behind a motorhome, bus, fuel tanker, Prius (quite often passing, inverted ones), or the usual Costco truck, 40+ minutes. When the fools are let out, they run the Old Highway. Longer, windier, slower, with many of the fools about them.

To get back to the subject.......Jock, what would be considered a better time of year for such a trip? Or, for a general trip to the Highlands?

[Jock Scot]

I can't resist a comment, here. My wife & daughter make a similar run, twice a day (Santa Cruz Mountains). A good day, about 1600ft climb, in 9-10 minutes. Behind a motorhome, bus, fuel tanker, Prius (quite often passing, inverted ones), or the usual Costco truck, 40+ minutes. When the fools are let out, they run the Old Highway. Longer, windier, slower, with many of the fools about them.

To get back to the subject.......Jock, what would be considered a better time of year for such a trip? Or, for a general trip to the Highlands?

Good question! Firstly avoid all UK/Scottish public holidays, after that I think my choices would be, mid April to the first week of June and mid September to the end of October. There is absolutely no guarantee at any time of the year with the weather but the spring and autumn colours do make Scotland an even more beautiful place and as an added bonus, it is less crowded..... for now.

[Nomad]

What would be considered a better time of year for such a trip? Or, for a general trip to the Highlands?

Personally May and June can provide great weather, of course it is a little cooler, but there are less midgies and these months tend to be drier, on average than July and August which can be very wet if you are unlucky.

I took the wife on a highlands and Skye trip in June 2 years ago, roughly every third day had some light rain, the roads were pretty clear. Popular attractions had some queues, but they were small and the temperature was cool but not cold, which means you can see much further as there is no heat haze, midgies a few but only in very sheltered and boggy areas like Glenfinnan viaduct visitors centre. Oh and before I forget days are long at this time of year, watching the sun set a 1 am on the Cullin mountains is fantastic.

An alternative to me, would go in late September or early October for the same reasons above.

Pretty much echoes the good advice from Jock, just garnished with a bit more useful/useless blurb.