Scottish Highlands: The Wild North of Britain

The Scottish Highlands cover roughly half of Scotland's land area and contain some of the most dramatic and most sparsely populated landscapes in Europe. The region was shaped by the last Ice Age — the glaciers that covered it carved the deep lochs, the U-shaped glens, and the rounded summits of the Cairngorms — and the landscape that resulted is one of extraordinary variety: from the birch forests of Speyside to the peat moorland of Caithness to the sea cliffs of the northwest coast.

The North Coast 500 — a 500-mile circular driving route around the northern Highlands — has become one of Scotland's most popular road trips since its launch in 2015. The route passes through some of the finest scenery in Britain: the Torridon mountains, the white sand beaches of Durness, the sea stacks of Duncansby Head, and the whisky distilleries of Speyside. The roads are narrow and the distances between fuel stops can be long, but the landscapes are extraordinary.

Loch Ness, in the Great Glen, is the most famous loch in Scotland — not for its scenery (though the combination of the dark water, the forested shores, and the ruins of Urquhart Castle is genuinely beautiful) but for the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, which has been attracting visitors since the first reported sighting in 565 CE. The Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit takes a pleasingly sceptical approach to the legend while acknowledging that the loch — 37 kilometres long, 230 metres deep, and containing more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined — is mysterious enough without a monster.

The Cairngorms National Park, the largest national park in the UK, is a high plateau of arctic-alpine tundra that is home to red squirrels, ospreys, red kites, and the only free-ranging reindeer herd in Britain. The Cairngorm mountain railway gives access to the plateau at 1,085 metres, and the walking on the high tops — particularly the Lairig Ghru pass through the heart of the massif — is some of the finest in Scotland.

Glencoe is the most dramatic glen in Scotland — a valley of volcanic rock and ancient lava flows, flanked by the Three Sisters (three ridges of the Bidean nam Bian massif) and the Aonach Eagach ridge, which is the most exposed ridge walk on the Scottish mainland. The glen was the site of the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692, when 38 members of the MacDonald clan were killed by government soldiers billeted in their homes, and the history gives the landscape an additional weight.

The Isle of Skye, connected to the mainland by a bridge since 1995, is the most visited island in Scotland — a landscape of dramatic basalt formations, medieval castles, and the Cuillin mountains, whose jagged gabbro ridges are the finest rock climbing in Britain. The Quiraing, a landslip on the Trotternish Ridge, and the Old Man of Storr, a pinnacle of rock that rises 50 metres from the hillside, are the most photographed landscapes on the island.

The best time to visit the Scottish Highlands is from May to September, when the days are long and the weather is most stable. The midges — tiny biting insects that are present in enormous numbers in the west Highlands from June to August — are the main practical challenge of a summer visit; insect repellent and a midge net are essential. The autumn months (September and October) offer the finest light, the fewest midges, and the purple heather that covers the moorland in a colour that makes the landscape look like a painting.