The Scottish Highlands is a place of epic landscapes, where legends and stories permeate the heather-coated hills and glassy lochs – some of them true and some of them perhaps not.
It’s renowned for its haunting beauty, from its ruined castles that speak of tragic love stories, families split by allegiances, and merciless power battles to vast areas of natural beauty with empty white sandy beaches at their fringes and small communities hidden within, as mighty Munros all around guard their secrets.
Unless you have several weeks or more to explore the Highlands, you won’t see it all – not even close – but luckily many of the Highland’s most iconic places are within easy travelling distance of each other, making an itinerary that reads like a bucket list of Scotland’s most memorable experiences highly achievable: Loch Ness, Ben Nevis, Glen Coe, and Glenfinnan.
There are two main ways to reach this Highlands heartland. You can travel from Glasgow by road or train, up through Loch Lomond and The Trossachs, skirting along Rannoch Moor before crossing through Glen Coe to reach Fort William and the great hulk that is Ben Nevis.
From here, you can board the Jacobite Steam Train to cross the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct, or follow the route of the Great Glen up from where it spills into the sea at Loch Linnhe all the way to Loch Ness.
For this piece, we’re taking the other route, from Inverness, which plunges you into Highland scenery within minutes of leaving the city.
For very soon you will reach the shores of Loch Ness, the largest of
