The Highlands at your pace: Edinburgh, Highland Perthshire, Loch Ness, Skye and Glencoe, with two nights at every stop.
The Highlands & Skye at your pace is a 10-day self-drive tour designed by Nicolas at The Kilted Unicorn, a local Scotland agency in Edinburgh. It covers what most people picture on a first trip, Highland Perthshire, Loch Ness, the Isle of Skye and Glencoe, and sleeps two nights in each of them, so you unpack four times rather than nine.
It is about 745 miles from Edinburgh and back, and no driving day takes more than three and a half hours at the wheel. We book every night, the car, the ferry to Mallaig and the entry fees, and you travel with a day-by-day travel book.
Arrive and settle in. There is no car yet: Edinburgh is best on foot, and you collect the car tomorrow morning on your way out of town. Walk up the Royal Mile to the castle, take in the view from Calton Hill, and eat in an Old Town pub from the list in your travel book.
Collect the car at Edinburgh Airport and head north. Stop at Dunkeld, its cathedral half in ruins on the bank of the Tay, and walk the hour-long loop at the Hermitage to the Black Linn Falls. In Pitlochry, the salmon ladder at the dam is a five-minute walk from the high street.
A day without packing. Blair Castle, the white-walled seat of the Dukes of Atholl, fills the morning. Then the Queen's View over Loch Tummel, the drive along Loch Tay to Kenmore, and the Birks of Aberfeldy, the wooded gorge Robert Burns wrote a song about. Back in Pitlochry for dinner.
North over the Drumochter Pass to Ruthven Barracks, the government fort the Jacobites burned in 1746. Through the Cairngorms by Aviemore, then Culloden, where that rising ended: give the battlefield and its visitor centre an hour and a half. Urquhart Castle on the shore of Loch Ness closes the day.
A slow day round the loch. Down the west shore to Fort Augustus, where a flight of five locks steps the Caledonian Canal into Loch Ness. Back up the quieter east side by the Falls of Foyers and Dores beach, the best place to look along the full length of the water. A boat trip on the loch fits in if you want one.
West through Glen Moriston and under the Five Sisters of Kintail to Eilean Donan, the castle where three sea lochs meet. Cross the Skye Bridge in the early afternoon and take the Cuillin road north to Portree, the island's harbour town, in time for a walk along the quay.
Start early. The Storr path climbs to the Old Man in about an hour, and the car park fills by mid-morning. Kilt Rock, the Quiraing's landslip and Uig follow round the Trotternish. In the afternoon, Dunvegan Castle, home of the MacLeod chiefs for some 800 years, and its gardens on the loch.
South through Sleat to Armadale for the CalMac ferry to Mallaig, booked for you. On the mainland, the Road to the Isles runs past the white beaches of Morar to Glenfinnan: walk up to the viewpoint over the viaduct and the monument on Loch Shiel. Then Fort William and the road into Glencoe.
The glen in full. The Three Sisters from the roadside, the visitor centre for the story of the 1692 massacre, and the Lost Valley walk if you have three hours. In the afternoon, drive the single-track road down Glen Etive to the head of the sea loch, and back the same way.
Across the open bog and lochans of Rannoch Moor, then south to Stirling Castle, the royal fortress above the field of Bannockburn. You return the car at Edinburgh Airport in the afternoon, in time for an evening flight, or add a last night in Edinburgh.
The route as driven, numbered by overnight stop. Coastline from Natural Earth, roads from OpenStreetMap. Hover a day to find it on the map.
Distances and times come from OpenStreetMap routing and leave out stops. Day 8 includes the ferry crossing. On single-track roads, allow a little more.
Accommodation is 4-star boutique as standard, with restored manors and castle hotels on the upper tiers. Every address is in your travel book rather than on this page: these are small places, and we book them for you. Skye fills first, so for July and August we book those nights as early as we can.
| Stop | Nights | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Edinburgh | 1 night | Boutique hotel or guest house in the centre |
| Pitlochry | 2 nights | Victorian country house or guest house |
| Loch Ness | 2 nights | Country inn or B&B near the loch |
| Portree, Skye | 2 nights | Harbour guest house or small hotel |
| Glencoe | 2 nights | Highland inn or lodge in the glen |
April to October, and May, June and September are our favourites: long days, open castles and roads that are not yet, or no longer, at their busiest. July and August work well too, but they cost more and Skye is at its fullest, so start the Storr and the Quiraing early.
The route runs in winter as well. The ferry to Mallaig keeps a reduced timetable, some castles close from November to March, and the light is gone by four in the afternoon, so we shorten the days and adjust the visits.
Ten days is enough for a first trip that takes in Edinburgh, the Highlands, Loch Ness, the Isle of Skye and Glencoe without rushing. This tour sleeps two nights at every stop and keeps every driving day under three and a half hours at the wheel. With fewer days, we would drop Skye rather than squeeze it in.
Two nights in Portree, which gives you one full day on the island for the Storr, the Quiraing and Dunvegan Castle, plus the drive in by Eilean Donan and the morning out through Sleat to the ferry. If Skye matters most to you, our Isle of Skye and the Road to the Isles tour spends three nights there.
Not difficult, but it asks for attention. Most of the route is two-lane road; Glen Etive and parts of Skye are single-track, with passing places. The longest day is three and a half hours at the wheel, including the ferry. We book an automatic unless you ask for a manual, and your travel book has the driving notes.
Yes. We book the CalMac crossing from Armadale to Mallaig for the car and its passengers, and the fare is in the price. If a sailing is cancelled for weather, the road back over the Skye Bridge adds about an hour, and your travel book gives that route too.
Yes. Glasgow is about an hour from Stirling, so the last day works as well into Glasgow Airport, and the hire car can be collected or returned there. Tell us your flights when you send your request and we will adapt the first and last days.
10 days
Self-drive
Islands
Road to the Isles · Skye · Applecross · Torridon
The Jacobite steam train, three nights on Skye, then Applecross.
From £2,600 per person
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Guided
Staff pick
Edinburgh · Doune · Glencoe · Loch Ness
Two nights in Edinburgh, then the Highlands with your driver-guide.
From £4,000 per person
14 days
Self-drive
Bucket-list
Wester Ross · Assynt · Sutherland · Caithness
The full 516-mile loop over 14 days, with two nights wherever it matters.
From £4,000 per person