Take The High Road

The North Coast 500 is an epic route that takes you past some of the country’s most spellbinding scenery

- Helen Ochyra

Few places can rival northern Scotland for dramatic coastal scenery. Here powdery white sands run for miles between crashing ocean and windswept dune, and towering cliffs of ancient, darkest stone surround inlets so sheltered their waters appear as unrumpled as a sheet of glass. In wee stone harbours up and down the coast, seals gather and otters hide, while offshore amid the waves you’ll find playful pods of bottlenose dolphins and large colonies of puffins and gannets.

With such abundance, though, comes the greatest indecision. Unfurl a map of Scotland on your kitchen table and the challenge begins – how can you sort the unmissable from the leave-until-next-time? How much is realistic in a one-week break? And how will you navigate your way from loch to loch, up mountain, and down glen?

In 2015, the North Highland Initiative stepped forward with the answer – the North Coast 500. This is Scotland’s Route 66, an epic yet easily digestible road trip of some 500 miles around the far north coast of Britain. It runs in a loop from Inverness – the city that has long been the gateway to the Highlands – and can be completed in a week or so.

The route is best done anti-clockwise, whizzing up the less dramatic east coast before slowing down to linger amid the sea lochs and mountains of Scotland’s far northwest.