beautiful places in scotland

north berwick is lovely and has seabirds.

nice time just going all the way up the west coast and camping

From Ullapool, keep going up the North-West coast up as far as Cape Wrath, which is the opposite corner of the North coast to John O'Groats. In fact, you'll need to go to Durness, pop in for a look at Smoo Cave, and book a boat-and-minibus trip to Cape Wrath as it's unaccessible otherwise. Puffins! Scary minibus going round hair-raising cliff-roads in lashing rain! Nah, it's lovely, trust me.

There are various routes back, and several detours worth taking up that way. Let me know if you're going that way and I'll tell you further.

Shieldaig
http://www.henniker.org.uk/images/places/scotland/high2003/Shieldaig01.jpg

Mountains around Loch Maree
http://www.hotelsandflights.com/slioch-and-loch-maree-scotland-photo.jpg

Corrieshalloch Gorge
http://mishuna.image.pbase.com/v3/65/568365/1/44961160.CorrieshallochGorge.jpg

Cape Wrath
http://www.marksaul.tv/UKTour18-21July/CapeWrathCliff.jpg

Smoo Cave
http://www.m-j-s.net/photo/cd01/b/cd01-bimg0039.jpg

That picture of Corrieshalloch Gorge doesn't do the scary bridge justice as you can't see how far the drop of the waterfall is. Try this one:

http://www.nafirchlis.co.uk/image/tour/corrie.jpg

But West coast generally fantastic.

http://monitoranimation.de/dltv/blog/pineapple_house.jpg

Keith, you are very funny. Really. Actually, I like several things on your list.

If it isn't the most obvious answer ever, the Forth Rail Bridge is one of my favourite things in the whole world.

Rannoch Moor
Glencoe
Road to the Isles

I'd also say Loch Awe, where I'm off to do my annual attempt to catch fish in 3 weeks time...

As an aside - I may be biased, being a Langtonian, but the coastal path between Dysart harbour and Ravenscraig Castle in Kirkcaldy is a lovely walk and very pretty. I won't comment on the rest of the shorefront...

There's a lovely view from inside it, though!

Provan gas works

Classic purely for its position in Scottish literature!

I'd recommend Lewis, because its landscape is beautiful, and almost entirely unlike anywhere else of that size in Britain. Miles of wasteland, dotted with innumerable lochs, all still with Norse names.

Think i'll be going up for 5-6 days, from Monday to Saturday.. probably going to spend the first two days in Edinburgh (seeing Radiohead on the Tuesday omg!), and see some festivally things no doubt.

i like the sound of going up to Ullapool and up, so that may be the wednesday, going to go all around there. Then coming back down along the west on the Thursday - God knows everywhere sounds good just around there, maybe to Ardnamurchan! And then dunno maybe ferry to Mull? Then Friday perhaps come back down to Glasgow - is there fun dancing happening on the 25th?

Are there any obvious flaws to this plan?

(Definitely no time though... Public transport is very slow compared to e.g. Glasgow, Edinburgh, London - xpost)

I want to go somewhere:
-bloody remote
-with no people
-super quiet
-cold and rains most of the time
-water, water and more water - give me COAST - not for swimming in, but dramatic cliffs and stuffs
-involving boats

Ronan, be more specific. How long for? What do you want to do? Stay in? Drink? Eat food? Go for walks? Look at scenery? Visit interesting things?

Seconding Loch Awe, fabulous. I obviously wouldn't condone climbing over the gate and crossing the railway track to see Castle Kilchurn but if you do you'll find one of the best ruined castles in Scotland.

Oh yeah, and when you're driving up the road from Oban to Fort William and Ullapool and beyond stop off and have a coffee at the fab Castle Stalker View Cafe esp. for the view of...er...Castle Stalker.

Indeed. It's a beautiful place through and through.

Ronan, I was on a very low-key hen weekend in Arran earlier this year. Very easy to get to by train and ferry, close to Glasgow, lovely walks once you're there, nice grub, local brewery, and so on. In september it should be calming down a bit after the summer.

Kate, also consider the Orkneys.

I have spare tickets if anyone's interested (bought them for a friend visiting from the US who could get time off until after the gig...)

I haven't been anywhere in scotland in ages

i'll try and get in touch when i'm in edinburgh keith! can you email me your number?

and thank you ailsa for the petrol tip! i actually thought about it the other day when i was looking at the map where there looked to be hardly even any roads, whether there'd be petrol! maybe i should fill up the 5L emergency can first as well just in case.

I'll be at B&S too having somehow never even heard their music.

Ken, you will find petrol in most places you go - people do live all over the Highlands and need to get petrol and driving hundreds of miles just to get petrol is a silly option, but as Craig pointed out, it's often well over £1/litre. I got skinned for £1.05 a litre in Garve recently.

http://static.flickr.com/69/211195780_60c5923199_o.jpg

David Hume Tower
http://static.flickr.com/57/211619819_68e6a52e49_m.jpg

Main Library
http://static.flickr.com/10/13667667_82e68206fe_m.jpg

how far away is north berwick?

Or maybe she was just camping on Princes Street Gardens?

But wait...a plan is forming in my small brain. If your tent was big enough you could probably claim to be a venue - put a little sign up Venue 446 - The Tent - and tell everyone it's sold out.

Glenmore National Forest
Cairngorms
Findhorn Valley
Camp at Lock Morlich

Rule No. 1 - learn to spell Loch, even if you can't pronounce it. Gairloch has excellent beaches if the weather's nice. I'm also very fond of Inverewe Gardens, but I don't know if walking through gardens looking at plants is your thing. This is about 10 miles or so from Gairloch, and Poolewe is a nice wee place to stay (I used to work in one of the hotels there several million years ago when I was a young thing).

i'll keep looking for a proper camp area, i might just have to head up and hope for the best! worst comes to worst i can we can pitch up some countryside outside edinburgh and hope nobody steals our tent.

Haha, this has been the rumour for years. I think it's basically down to the doors being locked. You can go up the stairs, which I did once, for a look (largely at the view, but in part to see if there were any dead winged monkeys about). I didn't see anything of the sort, but the view's great.

Every year, a bunch of German punks used to turn up for a punk festival at the Tap on Lauriston Place (Actually, I should put 'German Punks Alight Here' on my underground map). They used to camp on the Meadows. Dunno if the Police moved them on, but the Tap's been demolished (bit of luck there), so no more punks.

It's probably the only road.

Don't take Keith as an authority on stuff, is my advice.

Ooh, Ayrshire places. Culzean Castle is nice. Electric Brae is crap. There's some Robert Burns stuff. And a lot of golf courses. Largs/Saltcoats/Ardrossan/Stevenston etc are all horrible faded seaside towns that used to be popular before they stuck package-holiday-central-airport right in the middle of them all - like a Scottish Scarborough with nicer roads getting there but less to do when you arrive. (xpost, yeah, like what Laurel thought Girvan would be like)

I've never been to Girvan.

the pics of durness are my fav..
http://static.flickr.com/57/227468577_ddd22d7a06.jpg?v=0
http://static.flickr.com/67/227468545_14cff14a97.jpg?v=0

i love seeing shadows of clouds esp on hills!
http://static.flickr.com/59/227468905_6d0c644837.jpg?v=0

I just went again last weekend! it was so good

wow i went to that exact place Elgol as treefell took a picture of upthread!!!! and glencoe too! yes this time was just two days staying in kinlochleven went to Eilean Donan and then to skye for the first day and then took the cablecar up to aonach mor and saw an unbelieveable amount of snow. it was so amazing.

i think i want to go up to beautiful places in scotland every year.

Damn, you can drive, can't you? I want to go!

yeah lots of driving was done!

next time i might go to mull + iona.

Iona is the most beautiful place on earth. Seriously. Or at least, it was when I was a child. Can I come with?

OMG I mistyped Loch.

Scotland is beautiful, just avoid the midges if you can.

Impossible

I believe a circular wall of fire is effective.

I am going a world tour of Scotland in September. Just going to take my bike and a tent and make off into the wilderness. Exciting.

Anything I should aim to see? I'm planning to start off from the Cowal Peninsula.

HEY GUYS

I'm going again. (2 days: weds 10th aug-11th aug, hiring a car from edinburgh) any good recommendations? maybe not drive so far if poss....

Fife is lovely- coastal walks, fish n chips, Forth Bridge, nice pubs.

... brooding ex-Prime Ministers

Yes avoid North Queensferry for that very reason, unless you want the big clunking fist treatment.

Off to Gardenstown, on the Banff coast, with the family tomorrow. We booked it because we saw it on a documentary about sea shanties and it looked the bleakest place on earth. Turns out it's a summer "resort", too, but I fear the kids might not view this as the holiday of their dreams.

previous trips:
1: fort william and drumnadrochit christmas 2002
2: edinburgh -> glencoe -> durness -> ullapool -> inverness -> glasgow -> edinburgh august 2006
3: kinlochleven, skye, aonach mor april 2008
4: ardrossan -> brodick march 2009

xposts Will research Fife!

I'm a Fifer, from Kirkcaldy.
Fife is a place of contrasts. There are some absolutely stunning bits of countryside and some of the worst social deprivation in Scotland is found in the small central Fife ex mining towns.
The coastal walks are lovely, some beautiful beaches (Aberdour, Burntisland) and the small fishing villages of the East Neuk are a definite must-see; also, yes, great fish and chips to be had there.
I'm not a huge fan of St. Andrews personally but there is a shedload of history in the town and lots of stuff laid on for tourists - particularly those keen on golf.
I would recommend spending some time on the north coast of Fife - it's pretty underappreciated.
As for the big towns:
Glenrothes is a new town built to accomodate the car. It's a pleasant place to live mostly - but rubbish for visitors.
Dunfermline has some interesting stuff to see in the centre - the abbey and the ruins of the old abbey are worth seeing. Pittencrieff Park is quite nice and has decent views of the Forth. The Carnegie library is one of my favourite libraries in Scotland (I'm a librarian - these are things I notice).
Kirkcaldy is the biggest town in Fife and like much of the Kingdom has never really recovered from the loss of mining and manufacturing in the 80's. My favourite bit of Kirkcaldy is the coastal walk from Dysart Harbour to Ravenscraig Castle.
I also very much like Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery and the big library next door. They occupy a handsome building donated to the town in the memory of the soldiers lost in the first world war.

Another place that I'd say that is well worth a visit is the far north and Orkney.

Dunfermline is also good if you have any interest in Andrew Carnegie, who was undoubtedly A Very Bad Man but gave away loads of his money, not least to the people of Fife and Dunfermline.

I'm staying a couple of nights at my friend's who lives in dunfermline! will mostly be going into edinburgh though (whisky fringe on the saturday)

you will have the pleasure of taking the train across the amazing Forth Rail Bridge, which can be seen from various points in Dunfermline.

Yes look forward to that!

I think Aberdour/Burntisland and East Neuk will appeal to my friend (particularly the great fish and chips! any particular recommendations?)

Orkney may be a bit too much of a drive for this trip. Will be good to see some good hills/mountains too if there are good ones around!

There's a couple of places in Anstruther that have great reputations for their fish'n'chips. Neither is cheap and both suffer from long queues but all reports are that it's well worth the wait.

There's not much in the way of high hills in Fife - Largo Law is probably the biggest and I'd say it's worth the drive through Upper Largo towards St. Andrews for the view across the Forth.

A fairly picturesque place with hills near Dunfermline is Loch Leven which is just off the M90 on the border between Fife and Perth & Kinross.
Perth itself is a pretty nice place in a market town kind of way and depending on the route you take there's some nice scenery.

previous trips:
1: fort william and drumnadrochit christmas 2002
2: edinburgh -> glencoe -> durness -> ullapool -> inverness -> glasgow -> edinburgh august 2006
3: kinlochleven, skye, aonach mor april 2008
4: ardrossan -> brodick march 2009
5: edinburgh -> pittenweem/Anstruther aug 2011

can't believe it's been almost 3 years already!

Will be up again for 5 days in April - any good suggestions? I am thinking of currently getting a short-let house as a base and take day trips (will hire a car). I guess around that ballachulish/glencoe area might be convenient, but not sure appreciate any tips!

maybe it's time for mull?

been living away from scotland for 3 years now, going back for a couple weeks in september. going to skye for the first time for a long weekend. really looking forward to it.

not jingoistic enough to contend that the highlands and western islands are the most beautiful place on earth - in fact i absolutely adore the pacific northwest and am amazed by the grandeur and sheer scale of some of the landscape here - but there's just something about them that i can't get enough of.

I had a cracking weekend in Skye earlier this year at friends' wedding in Isleornsay. Lots of lovely driving about looking at hills and that (also llamas! though they were on the mainland somewhere near the Kintail end of Loch Duich). It's great.

previous trips:
1: fort william and drumnadrochit christmas 2002
2: edinburgh -> glencoe -> durness -> ullapool -> inverness -> glasgow -> edinburgh august 2006
3: kinlochleven, skye, aonach mor april 2008
4: ardrossan -> brodick march 2009
5: edinburgh -> pittenweem/Anstruther aug 2011
6: edinburgh -> ballachulish -> kinloch forest (skye) -> ullapool -> drumnadochit -> pitlochry apr 2014

back again in August! Probably should visit new bits. Likely Kinghorn will feature. Suggestions welcome!

I've done more than a few bothy supported walks, two of the more memorable ones were glenfinnan to knoydart, and one to peanmeanach beach - not a long walk but we did it at one am on a moonless night with no torches!

Kinghorm, well the east neuk of fife - pittenweem, anstruther, isle of may nature reserve, st andrews. note: despite spending four years in st andrews i've never been to any of those others!