The Rough Guide to the Scottish Highlands and Islands

Rugged and weather-beaten, the Scottish Highlands and Islands are far removed from either the rural charms or the cosmopolitanism of much of Britain. Stuck out on the northwest fringe of Europe, this is a land where the elements play an important part in everyday life, where the shipping forecast is more than simply a form of sleep therapy. The landscape is raw, shaped over thousands of years by geological shifts, scouring glaciers and the hostile weather systems of the North Atlantic, to create magnificent land- and seascapes. It’s a region with a wild, romantic glint in its eye, too, with a regular supply of glorious sunsets that turn the sea lochs gold, and with more deserted beaches than the entire Mediterranean. Sure, the roads can be tortuous, the weather sometimes grim and the midges a pain, but, when the mood is on, the Highlands and Islands rarely fail to seduce. Despite all its dramatic beauty, it’s impossible to travel in the Highlands and Islands without being touched by the fragility of life here. While the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746 was a blow to Scottish pride, it was an unmitigated disaster for the Highlands and Islands, signalling the destruction of the Highland clan system, and ultimately the entire Highland way of life. The Clearances that followed in the nineteenth century more than halved the population, and even today the Highland landscape is littered with the crumbling shells of pre-Clearance crofting communities. Depopulation remains a constant threat, particularly on the islands, and in many cases only the arrival of settlers from outside the region has stemmed the dwindling numbers. The economy, too, struggles, even with government and European Union subsidies. The traditional Highland industries of farming, crofting, fishing and whisky distilling are no longer enough to provide jobs for the younger generation, and have been supplemented by forestry, fish-farming and the oil industry. However, all three of these have a detrimental effect on the environment, whose health is of paramount importance to the region’s other important industry, tourism. In the end, it’s a tricky juggling act balancing the importance of seizing new opportunities with the will to maintain traditional values. Tradition and the sense of the past may be vital elements of the Highlands and Islands, but the region is by no means entombed by them. Today visitors come not just to clamber over castles and wrap themselves in tartan nostalgia but to hike up hills or photograph puffins, meditate by standing stones or scuba-dive among shipwrecks. Old assumptions are challenged – gourmets steer clear of tearooms serving shortbread to track down quality Highland venison and west-coast shellfish while even in the remotest corners there are crofters looking after websites as well as shaggy Highland cattle. There’s a glamorous edge to the region too: it’s the retreat of choice for many including monarchy and Formula One racing drivers while Madonna et al find something incurably romantic about a Highland wedding.