The Scottish Highlands (2026)

Over the late May bank holiday, my boyfriend and I decided to rent a campervan and explore the highlands. We’d each been wanting to try a campervan holiday for years now, and decided that a four day trip was the perfect introduction. We decided on a converted van, which according to the description online had everything we needed, including a shower, a toilet, and cooking utensils, in order for us to be eased into the experience. We also had both visited Scotland many a time, but hadn’t visited various parts of the Highlands, so were very excited to explore it together and then get the famous Caledonian Sleeper train back down to London.

Day 1 - Friday

After work on the Friday, we headed to Heathrow Terminal 5 to catch a flight to Inverness Airport. The flight was very quick and before we knew it, we’d landed. There weren’t any Ubers so we got a taxi down the road to pick up the campervan. The owner was actually on holiday himself, but had left the key on the driver’s seat so after checking everything was in order, we set off, aiming to drive an hour or so to the Cairngorms. We had three main focuses for the trip: the Cairngorms, the Isle of Skye, and Loch Ness. We knew we wanted to visit Loch Ness on our final day, and since the Cairngorms was significantly closer than Skye, we settled on the former. The drive was much more manageable and despite it being 22:30 when we set off, it wasn’t yet dark.

My boyfriend kindly offered to do the first shift, and very quickly we noticed that other cars kept flashing their lights at us to indicate that our lights weren’t turned on. We then came across a police car and within two minutes of driving, had gotten pulled over by the cops. We’d both panicked the minute we saw the police and couldn’t figure out how to turn on the lights. They did the whole “good cop, bad cop” thing, and the nice one showed us how to turn on the lights; since it was a Friday night, their main concern was whether we were drunk, but as it turns out, we were simply incompetent. Nonetheless, they let us go on our way and we headed towards Feshiebridge, where we’d be able to park up.

Forestry and Land Scotland run a “Stay the Night” scheme, whereby you can park a campervan overnight in one of their car parks for £10, although it’s on a first come first serve basis and you can’t return to that car park within 48 hours. Knowing that there was an official place we could park gave us peace of mind, as it was one less thing to think about.

Throughout the drive, both my boyfriend and I were very alert. Despite being a competent driver, due to lack of experience my boyfriend lacks confidence driving, and at the very beginning of the drive asked a series of worrying questions, such as “what gear am I in?” and “what speed should I be doing?”. We also went around a roundabout in fourth gear so I was slightly on edge as I knew he was panicking. He had adrenaline running through his veins after being pulled over by the cops, but luckily we both settled into it and despite the car park being busy, we managed to find a spot and park up.

There was a water tap in the van, allowing us to brush our teeth and do our skincare, however we still hadn’t figured out the toilet situation. Since it was so late, I headed into the woods for ease. This ended up being a recurring theme, as although the camper van website description stated there was a toilet in the van, the “toilet” was actually a bit of plastic over a bin bag, which you could sit on and relieve yourself into the bag. Given the size of the camper van, this wasn’t too appealing. We made the bed and got ready for the night, and within minutes were fast asleep.

Day 2 - Saturday

Unexpectedly, we slept really well! I wasn’t expecting the bed to be very comfortable but actually it was delightful and I only woke up early due to the daylight coming in through the van's skylight. Due to the Highlands’ northern latitude, the days are very long in the summer; sunrise was at 04:30 and sunset at 21:50! This meant that I naturally awoke around 6am, and since I knew that I’d be driving, I was anxious to leave before the traffic built up, especially as the road leading to the car park was narrow.

We left the car park at 7am, headed to Loch Uaine, a gorgeous emerald lake. We parked in Allt Mor car park, which annoyingly isn’t saved as a spot on Google Maps, and then walked about 45 minutes to reach the loch. Despite being a popular walk, it was very quiet and we only encountered a handful of other couples, which was lovely. We enjoyed our breakfast with a lake view and my boyfriend even hand-fed a nearby duck!

We then made a quick stop at Loch Morlich, a lake featuring snowy mountains in the backdrop, which was beautiful in the sun. Despite there being a heatwave in London over the bank holiday weekend, it was actually quite chilly in the Highlands, with highs of 18°C and lows of 12°C, so we were lucky to get any sun at all!

My boyfriend then drove the next stint, which was to Balmoral Castle, famed for being Queen Elizabeth II’s favourite residence. As we drove, we spotted an abundance of animals, including sheep and lambs (I’ve never seen so many sheep in my life; I can’t believe Wales is more well-known for its sheep), rabbits, hares, pheasants, red squirrels (unfortunately, we spotted more on the road than alive), horses, donkeys and, of course, cows!). We also drove past various cable cars as it’s possible to ski in the area in the winter! Balmoral Castle was gorgeous and I especially enjoyed the exhibition in the ballroom, featuring photographs of the queen over the years, and the gardens.

By this point, it was lunchtime, and we’d decided to visit The Fife Arms on recommendation from my brother. However, there was no availability for a couple of hours and since it was in the opposite direction to the Isle of Skye, we decided to instead have lunch at a nearby café: The Highlanders Bakehouse. Despite not being featured in the Michelin Guide, the hospitality was wonderful and the meal was very filling.

We then decided to start heading towards the Isle of Skye in order to get the bulk of the driving out of the way and be able to explore the Fairy Pools the following morning before it got busy. Furthermore, driving the van took much longer than driving a car would, so we wanted to account for that, as well as coffee stops. We stopped at two different cafés for tea and coffee - the first was Goodbrand and Ross, where we bought some cute souvenirs, and the second was North Gateway Cafe, where we enjoyed our drinks al fresco. It was also here that I learnt that there had been a rare sighting of a humpback whale a few hours earlier in Beauly Firth, only 15 minutes away! Therefore, we made a slight detour to Beauly Firth in order to see if we could spot the whale. Granted, we had spotted a whale just last month in Madeira.

We didn't spot anything and, after a while, we decided the whale wasn’t going to show itself to us, so kept going towards the Isle of Skye. I had been driving since Balmoral at this point and was absolutely loving the driving; I was now in my element and really enjoying it. We spotted some Highland cows on the side of the road and stopped to take some pictures of them, and then made a quick stop for some vino, which my boyfriend kindly treated me to. We were aiming to stop near Eilean Donan Castle for the night as it was close to the Isle of Skye and we wanted to enjoy some dinner before finding a spot to park up for the night. We'd aimed to eat at The Clachan Pub, and had called several times in advance to no avail, however on arriving to the pub we were directed instead to the Dornie Hotel. Here, the staff found us a table but told us that since we weren’t guests and it was busy, we’d have to wait a while before we could order. We didn’t have a better alternative, so sat ourselves down with a local ale, and eventually we managed to order some dinner. We both had salmon, which was delicious, and a sticky toffee pudding, which had nowhere near enough toffee sauce but was fine.

After dinner, we headed to the Eilean Donan viewpoint, where we parked up for the night. Although the “Stay the Night” scheme is a great idea, we found that there were actually plenty of free, conveniently-located lay-bys we could park up in, often sharing with just one or two other camper vans. Therefore, we aimed to find nice spots with gorgeous views for the remainder of the nights instead of using the forest car parks (which were often much further out from the areas we wanted to visit). I was also shocked by how empty the roads were; given it was the late May bank holiday, I was expecting the roads to be packed with cars, however often we had the road all to ourselves and only ran into other cars at the tourist hotspots! That said, it was common to see tents, camper vans, and caravans parked up, although given how many lochs Scotland has to offer, lay-by parking was never crowded as there are enough gorgeous lochs for everyone.

Day 3 - Sunday

After another night of glorious sleep, we got ready and headed to the Isle of Skye straight away. One thing to mention about this camper van is that there were several warning lights on the dashboard, which wasn’t an issue when we were getting to know the vehicle, but quickly became an issue when we were zooming down A-roads in it. Nonetheless, the owner had said that the van had passed its MOT the previous week, so that provided a lot of reassurance.

The Isle of Skye itself is beautiful, with an abundance of streams, waterfalls and mountains. The landscapes are dramatic and well worth the detour. As we arrived to the Fairy Pools on the Isle of Skye, it was drizzling, foggy and cloudy, so we were slightly apprehensive about getting out of the van. Nonetheless, we’d driven many hours to get here and it was the main thing that we wanted to see on the isle. Furthermore, we knew beforehand that the weather was meant to be bad so had packed our waterproofs in advance. Therefore, we put on our raincoats and braved the elements.

The Fairy Pools weren’t at all what I expected; from pictures, I’d assumed it’d be one or two small waterfalls with pools below, however I was shocked to discover a series of large and small waterfalls, pools and streams! It was so much greater than I’d anticipated and was breath-taking. It was well worth being soaked and cold for. The benefit of having the camper van meant that we could change out of our wet clothes and into fresh, dry clothes immediately, which was very appreciated (although the wet clothes didn’t end up drying so stayed wet for the remainder of the trip).

In order to warm up further, we headed to Café Cùil for a hot chocolate. Despite only arriving five minutes before it opened, there were already several people queuing ahead of us, which says everything you need to know about this place. The original café was actually in London, but the owner moved back up to Scotland, which I found sweet. Here we also spotted a Smokehouse tour, where you could explore a smokehouse and then experience a smoked fish tasting, which is right up our street, however the tour guide was smoking the fish that day so wasn’t able to give us a tour. If we ever go back however, I’d definitely visit and book in advance! Instead, we decided to visit Portree for lunch.

Given the bad luck we’d experienced thus far with restaurants, we decided to turn up to our chosen restaurant, Sea Breezes, five minutes before it opened to ensure a table. This foresight was great, as by the time the restaurant opened its doors, the queue already exceeded the tables available. Unfortunately, the service was pretty poor. Despite being fourth in the queue, our order was only taken half an hour after we’d sat, and in the meantime no water or bread was offered. The staff basically served one table at a time, and only moved onto the next table once the previous table was completely sorted. After the first table, there was no acknowledgement of who’d been waiting the longest, and one table complained there and then as they’d been waiting an hour before their starters even arrived (whilst another table had already been turned over). Although I probably wouldn’t return due to the slow service, the waiters were very friendly, and the food was delicious; we ordered Cullen skirk, scallops, and fish and chips, all of which was very tasty (although the fish was breaded, rather than battered, which was unusual).

In the afternoon, we headed towards Loch Ness, as it wasn’t too far from where we needed to drop the campervan off the following morning, and we felt happy with our time spent on Skye. Therefore, we made our way back towards Inverness, stopping at Landour Bakehouse for a quick coffee break. Despite me loving the driving and my boyfriend finding it stressful, we both thought it was good to keep taking turns driving and get more practice in with a manual, so my boyfriend drove us to Fort Augustus, a small village south of Loch Ness. We stopped here in order to fill up the tank before returning the car in the morning, although there was a sharp turn on an incline that caught my boyfriend off guard and we spent a few minutes there before eventually reaching the petrol station, which we found funny in hindsight. We managed to fill up the tank and as we headed towards Suidhe viewpoint on the east of Loch Ness, the sun started to make an appearance and we caught sight of a gorgeous rainbow gracing the view. It was absolutely stunning, only marred by the presence of tourists from a tour bus behind us posing in the middle of the country roads for pictures (and rightfully getting beeped at by drivers on said roads).

Our reasoning for visiting the east of Loch Ness, as opposed to the more popular west was primarily because the pub we wanted to have dinner at was on this side and the pictures at the viewpoint looked gorgeous. We had our dinner at Whitebridge Bar & Restaurant, where I ordered a salmon roast (it was unexpectedly divine) and a sticky toffee pudding, which was much nicer than the previous night’s. The pub had a lovely atmosphere, the food was wonderful, and it was cheap and cheerful.

We then parked up right by Loch Tarff, which was beautiful, and pulled up some camping chairs right by the lakefront. We had a proper catchup over some wine and despite having heard that Loch Ness is very underwhelming and not worth visiting, I actually found our personal experience by Loch Ness to be my favourite of the three areas we visited. It was the only place where we had no issues getting a meal, the views were glorious, the sun was out, and the loch itself is huge and beautiful. I’d definitely say that the landscapes in the Cairngorms and the Isle of Skye are prettier, but our experience at Loch Ness was the best. This was my favourite evening in Scotland and we really lucked out with our overnight spot.

Day 4 - Monday

I awoke at 3am needing the loo, and was shocked to find that not only was it not pitch black, but that I could see very clearly! Luckily, I managed to fall back asleep and we only woke up at 8am, which was considered a lie-in for us. We packed our bags as we had to drop the van off near Inverness by 10am. Before leaving, we enjoyed views of Loch Tarff one last time, and then headed north, taking the scenic route along Loch Ness. We stopped to enjoy views of Urquhart Castle on the loch, filled up the tank once again for good measure, and then dropped off the van.

It was a shame that we had to drop the van off so early, however it provided us the opportunity to explore Inverness, which neither of us had been to previously. We got a bus to the city and headed straight to The Good Craic café for a hot choccy and coffee. It was (surprisingly) so sunny that we were walking around in t-shirts, and I bought a candle from Isle of Skye Candle Co, as well as a book from Leakey’s Bookshop, which is Scotland’s second-largest second-hand bookshop!

We then headed to MacGregor’s pub for lunch as they had a beer garden and many Scottish options on their menu, including a variety of Scottish tapas, however after ordering a pint, we learnt that they wouldn’t be able to serve any of the Scottish options and pretty much only had the fish and chips in stock. Since we’d eaten fish and chips the previous day, we finished the pint and headed to The Mustard Seed instead. The building was formerly a church, which I found interesting, and the staff managed to find a little table for us, which was very appreciated. We ordered from the set lunch menu, which was very reasonably priced, although once I ate the food, I understood the price point more. That isn’t to say that the food was bad, it was just very meh. The wine was delicious though!

Inverness is a very cute city, with a beautiful castle and many nice shops and pubs, however we were lugging around our backpacks and suitcase so mainly wanted to chill. We meandered down the river to the Ness Islands, which were idyllic and it was so peaceful that it felt like we weren’t even in a city! We spotted a proposal on these islands too, which was cute. By the time we left the islands, it was late in the afternoon and the lounge for the Caledonian Sleeper train only opened at 18:30, so we headed to the M&S café for cake and coffee in the hope that we’d kill enough time until then.

One thing we’d learnt about Scotland is that it pays off to arrive anywhere five minutes before opening, and that was very much the case for the lounge too. The lounge opened at 18:30 and by 18:34 people were getting turned away due to it being full. Luckily, we were the first in (and the lady actually let us in slightly earlier, which was very sweet of her), so we managed to nab a comfy sofa and have a shower before anyone else. We’d been advised to shower in the lounges instead of in the en suites as the experience would be more pleasurable, so we took this advice. The snacks on offer were local, including Taylors crisps (which my boyfriend adored), shortbread, Irn-Bru, and Scottish breakfast tea.

Boarding started at 20:00 and departure was at 20:45, so we left the lounge around 19:45 and headed to the train station, where a queue had already formed. We wanted to have dinner on the train in the restaurant (what they call the “Club Car”), but knew that availability was very limited, so as soon as the barriers opened and we got our key card, I headed to the room to dump our bags while my boyfriend headed to the restaurant to grab us a table. This was well worth it as the tables filled up almost immediately, although there is also the option to order food directly to your room. Nonetheless, we wanted to have a proper sit down and enjoy the landscapes over a nice glass of vino.

We ordered our food soon after boarding, which was a mistake as our food came out before we’d even departed from the station, however we managed to nurse it long enough to enjoy half the meal with a scenic backdrop. We’d also ordered wine and olives which lasted a while and for dessert, we got a cheeseboard. The portions were small but delicious and our dinner on the train was a real highlight of the trip (although the waitress was in a bit of a mood). We also filled out a breakfast form, stating which food and drink options we’d like for our complimentary breakfast the next morning. We filled in our preferences, including whether we wanted to eat in the restaurant or in our room, and which time suited us the most.

We then retired to our room, where there was Scottish fudge laid out, as well as water bottles, an eye mask and ear buds. The rooms are very small but well-designed, so there’s space to store luggage under the bed and hang up clothing, and there’s a sink and ensuite bathroom. The ensuite was a lovely treat after having spent three days in a camper van with no shower (thank goodness for wet wipes honestly!).

Day 5 - Tuesday

Despite being a tight squeeze and the train stopping fairly frequently, I slept well and found the bed to be very comfortable. I'd been on a sleeper train from St Petersburg to Moscow before, so knew I'd sleep well, but this sleeper train was on a whole other level. After quickly getting ready, we headed to the restaurant for breakfast at 7am, where my boyfriend enjoyed a Scottish breakfast and I a sausage roll with apple juice and coffee. It was delicious and we even saw a hot air balloon pass closely by, which was cool! Oddly, the couple opposite had toast with their Scottish breakfast, whereas my boyfriend didn’t, however they also found mould in their jam so it was maybe for the best.

We arrived ahead of schedule, pulling into Euston around 7:45am, and although we had access to the lounge in Euston too, we had work so headed back home to set up for a day of work.

Final Thoughts

This was one of the trips I was most looking forward to in 2026 as I’d wanted to rent a campervan for years and was very excited to experience the Caledonian sleeper train, which did not disappoint. Throughout the trip the scenery was gorgeous, the food delicious, and the people welcoming. We spotted an abundance of wildlife and managed to fully unwind in just a long weekend.