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Luskentyre, South Harris

Caribbean looking and beautiful in any weather, though don’t let the turquoise waters deceive you into thinking Barbadian temperatures await. Luskentyre was voted Britain's best beach and disappointing as this might seem, remember that Harris is not exactly the most frequented of islands so teeming with tourists it is not.

Nearest place to grab essentials is Leverburgh which has The Anchorage and the Butty Bus near the harbour. The Butty bus is a retired bus turned tea room.  

Nearest place: South Harris

Achnahaird Beach, Wester Ross

The bay at Achnahaird is a north westerly facing inlet of taupe-white sand and a gently ebbing tide. Easily reached from the road via Altandhu and Achiltibuie, it is typical of all the coastline in this north westerly realm, almost unvisited and perennially tranquil.

The former campsite is now closed so it’s wild camping only these days. The nearest campsite is just around the headlands at Altandhu courtesy of Bar Fuaran.

Nearby towns: Achiltibuie, Altandhu, and Ullapool.

Saligo Bay, Islay

The oft-roaring waters are perfect for those seeking a more enveloping experience and make for heart-rending viewing in any weather with each different light providing unique photographic opportunities for budding amateurs.

The bay is accessible through a gate halfway between Machir and Ballinaby farm, west of Loch Gorm. For access, cross the rabbit belittered dune and descend the sandy slopes to reach the beach.

Just north of Saligo Bay is a distinct rock formation known as the Sleeping Giant.

Nearest places: Port Charlotte and Rinns of Islay, Port Ellen 

Scarista Beach

Less frequented than its much-vaunted cousin (Luskentyre) further up the coast, but arguably as beautiful.

Be sure to check out the Harris Tweed Shop, a deserved ‘I saw you coming’er.

Scarista House offers a warm hearth to windswept itinerants… romantic weekend away, you’re welcome.  

Nearest place: South Harris

Sanna Beach, Ardnamurchan Peninsula

Stunning sandy beaches adorn the tip of the remote reaches of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. It's a trek, but a rewarding one and not one that many take on. If you can smell what you could only imagine to be a herd of stilton cheeses in rut, that’s just the pong of the long-horned feral goat (capra hircus), and given their indigeneity you’ll know you’re in the right place. People have said of these shaggy-haired wild billies, ‘the stench is so pungent it will stay with you for weeks’.

Nearest place: Ardnamurchan

Sandwood Bay Beach, Sutherland

Fine, so we’ve gone for 6. Sandwood Bay is possibly the best beach in all of these fair Isles and rarely more than deserted given trickiness of access.

For the storm watchers among us, the magnificent mile-long strip not infrequently absorbs a North Atlantic thumping. 

Thankfully, the beach is enshrined in trust, so future generations can continue to enjoy it utterly unspoiled.

Nearest place: Kinlochbervie

Fidir is delighted to have collaborated with Hermione Gibbs, an artist who draws great inspiration from the Scottish highlands for her work. The boldness of colour and clear sense of joy conveyed in her highland landscapes left a great impression on us. We thought Hermione’s work would be a perfect fit for FIDIR and so we’ve worked with her to produce some stunning linings for our bags and accessories. 

VIEW HERMIONE GIBBS COLLECTION

For performers, locals, and visitors alike, 'the festival’s ‘sessions’ are amongst the best in the world. Travelling troupes have said just how taken aback they’ve been by the local talent on show, and by local we mean of the remote isles themselves, and by talent we mean the musicians. No less taken aback are these foreign friends by the hospitality of their hosts. The out-of-islanders stay not in hotels, but in the homes of Folk Festival supporters.


Houses in Grödians, Lerwick

This year, not dissimilarly to years gone by, but amped up by the increasing popularity of the festival and its historically niche-regarded genre of music, bands from Canada, Italy,  Ireland, Belgium, Estonia, and the USA, Scotland notwithstanding, will plug their folkish wares at the four-day feast of music and sleepless nights. Among these will be Boston-based bluegrass act, The Lonely Heartstring Band, a group which has experienced a meteoric rise on the folk circuit, winning an IBMA Momentum Award in 2015 and recently signing to Rounder Records.


The Lonely Heartstring Band mellowing out on a leafy atoll

From Glasgow, The John Langan Band will lend a sizeable helping of balkanesque madness to proceedings along with Roma and flamenco elements fueled by a visceral punk spirit. Acoustic magazine said of their performance style, “it’s hard to resist leaping up and dancing”.


Images exist of The John Langan Band practically nude crowdsurfing… Have a little search, if you fancy

If you do make your way up this time round, you’ll be treated to an unofficial festival opening on the NorthLink ferry out in the middle of the North Sea…

Hamnavoe setting out from Stromness, Orkey to Scrabster, Caithness (on the mainland)


The Isles’ eponymous ponies at a verdent watering hole

Visitors to the isles who want a little fauna and flora to break up the folky furore will not be disappointed. The beaches on show are enough to make the tourist board of the Turks and Caicos weep into their PeppaJoy’d lionfish. We can’t forget the ponies, and we haven’t. If you’re as otterly (sorry, the author couldn’t help himself) obsessed with otters as we are, you stand a very good chance of glimpsing the adorably furry, rock-juggling, semi-aquatic pescatarians at full play in their natural habitat.


Spiggie Beach in glorious sunshine


Shetland otter family out hunting (John Moncrieff photography)

How to get there:

NorthLink operates daily, overnight sailings from Aberdeen to Lerwick. http://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/timetables/

Flights are available from Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Inverness, but for the truly scenic (not to mention less expensive) route, it’s got to be the ferry (the Viking below agrees).



Where to stay:

Shetland's hotels, guest houses, B&Bs, self catering properties, hostels, camping böds, and camp sites allow you to get back to basics or luxuriate in comfort. Air BnB is also definitely worth a gander.

Many are familiar with the wondrous Isle of Skye, and for good reason. It boasts some of the most dramatic scenery in the British Isles. The ever-blackened, multi-humped peaks of the Cuillin Ridgeline accompanied by the giant spidery fingers of The Storr which pokes out of Skye’s Trotternish peninsula and wouldn't look out of place in a Lord of the Rings film, lubricated with a dram or three of world-renowned Talisker, puts the capitisle of the Inner Hebrides most deservedly on the map of notoriety. Danny Macaskill rode his mountain bike along the very same gnarly-as-hell Cuillin Ridgeline to the tune of a Red Bull-backed video that garnered no fewer than 50 million YouTube views. Fair to say a few folk know of Skye. 


Danny Macaskill atop Sgùrr Alasdair in the Black Cuillin


The Storr, Skye

Its easterly neighbour on the other hand, despite its visibility from Skye’s mighty peaks, is a nicely kept secret. With a population of 192 people occupying a landmass of 14 miles by 3, Raasay, which means “Isle of the Roe Deer”, lies a very manageable boat crossing from big sister. In some places the more amphibious among us, and those less fazed by rip tides, can enjoy a deceptively arduous kilometre-long flap across the Sound of Raasay and wash up relatively painlessly on the opposing shore's barnacle-bespattered rocks.


Raasay in mid-winter, Skye’s snowy peaks in the distance

Raasay’s population was not always so measly. In its industrial heyday over the first years of the 19^th Century, the island was replete with hardy souls (roughly one thousand of them) lugging iron ore from hillside to shore. This industry sustained a thriving community and its relics come no more pronounced than the miners' railway which carves its own ridge from the edge of Raasay Forest right down to the Skye-facing pier.


Early morning view from our nesting place on South Fearns Road. January, 2017

Iron ore may not have been the only metallic substance to spring from the Raasay ground.  However many millennia ago, torrents of the molten equivalent may have flown down the sides of the long-extinct Dùn Caan, Raasay’s highest peak, volcanic in origin. The ascent is far from grizzly on a fair day, though if blowing a hoolie, an on-all-fours experience it readily becomes.   

Dùn Caan on a very fair day

There is a chance, a small one admittedly, that you’ll have heard of Calum MacLeod. A descendant of the MacLeod clan which ruled Raasay from the 15^th to 19^th Century, Calum was a crofter, lighthouse keeper, and part-time postman who himself famously built the ‘Calum’s Road’ after decades of unsuccessful campaigning by the inhabitants of the north end of the island. Purchasing Thomas Aitken's manual Road Making & Maintenance: A Practical Treatise for Engineers, Surveyors and Others, for half a crown, he started work, replacing the old narrow footpath between Brochel Castle and Arnish, using little more than a shovel, a pick and a wheelbarrow. Several years after its completion, the road was finally adopted and surfaced by the local council. By then, Calum and his wife, Lexie, were the last inhabitants of Arnish. Calum himself was voiced by the great Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars) for the BBC Radio 4 drama Calum's Road.

Calum MacLeod himself, shovel, pick, and wheelbarrow in tow, by the now-famous road. Credit: Simon Murphy, ALLSCOTMEDIA.

How to get there:

Ultimately, you’ll be taking the ferry from the far from foreboding Sconser ferry port (on Skye), so a car is pretty essential. If you’re a way-down Southerner not fancying a 10-12 hour drive, take a train to Fort William or Inverness and rent a car. Inverness has a small, beautifully-set airport, but if you want the added bonus of taking in another beautiful corner of this part of the world, train/fly to Glasgow, rent a car, and drive up via Loch Lomond, the Trossachs, Glencoe, the Nevis Range, Lochs Lochy, Garry, Loyne, and Cluanie, Kyle of Lochalsh, and the south-eastern quarter of Skye (all in about 4.5 hours).

Be sure to check ferry times… I’ve slept in my car at Sconser, actually a lovely way to wake up if you’ve brought a duvet, and in a B&B in Portree on Skye.

When to visit:

All year round… it’s as simple as that. West Coast weather is like a Frenchman’s temper, a schizophrenic split between the divine and the downright dreadful. All the seasons have their wonders, but should you arrive in the middle of a low-hanging cloud wondering why on earth you’d come and how on earth you’d forgotten your raincoat, patience will be your ally and its rewards magnificent.

Where to stay:

Air BnB has some interesting picks and the hotel is Raasay House, former seat of the ruling MacLeod clan. If no room at any lodge/inn, enjoy what Skye has to offer and daytrip over on the ferry.