The roads less travelled that take you to places that matter. The adventures that gather you up and sweep you away. The blend of the wild and the artistic that makes Scotland what it is. We'd love for you to join us.
Live from ScotlandThe Old Town, Edinburgh Cloudy in Edinburgh, and the sun sets at 16:12.Watch Scotland live→
StarsDunnottar CastleA clear, dark night is forecast over Dunnottar Castle.
SnowWatch Scotland liveSnow is forecast on the summit of Ben Macdui, Britain's second highest mountain, today.
On todayShetlandTomorrow, Spitfire Girls is on in Lerwick.
On todayOrkneyStromness Glimmers: A Festival of Light opens tomorrow.
WildlifeCaithnessAn orca was seen in Wick on Saturday.
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Hidden Scotland
The places worth the journey, and the help to get there.
Did you know
Scotland's national animal is the unicorn, and on the old Scottish royal arms two crowned unicorns hold up the shield, bound in golden chains.
The oldest surviving version of the arms with unicorns is a weather-worn carving above the gateway of Rothesay Castle, on the Isle of Bute, made no later than the reign of Robert III, which ended in 1406. In about 1484 James III went further and issued gold coins called the unicorn and the half-unicorn. The chain is usually read as a sign of royal strength: the unicorn was thought too wild for anyone to tame, and only a Scottish king was strong enough to hold it. You can still spot unicorns across the country, from the top of the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh to the gate of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
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WildlifeThis week
Seen 8 timesOtter
Seen 6 times · StrathmorePink-footed goose
Seen 5 timesDipper
Seen 5 timesRed squirrel
Seen 4 times · East LothianGannet
Seen 4 times · RenfrewshireBarnacle goose
Seen 4 timesCommon seal
Seen 3 times · DumfriesRed kite
Seen 3 times · AppinPine marten
Seen twice · Isle Of North UistWhite-tailed eagle
Seen twice · Argyll and Bute CouncilWhooper swan
Seen twice · StornowayGrey seal
Seen twice · HighlandBadger
Seen twice · EdinburghRed grouse
Seen oncePtarmigan
Seen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagle
Seen once · HighlandOrca
Seen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whale
Seen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmon
Seen onceMountain hare
Seen onceRed deer
Seen 8 timesOtterSeen 6 times · StrathmorePink-footed gooseSeen 5 timesDipperSeen 5 timesRed squirrelSeen 4 times · East LothianGannetSeen 4 times · RenfrewshireBarnacle gooseSeen 4 timesCommon sealSeen 3 times · DumfriesRed kiteSeen 3 times · AppinPine martenSeen twice · Isle Of North UistWhite-tailed eagleSeen twice · Argyll and Bute CouncilWhooper swanSeen twice · StornowayGrey sealSeen twice · HighlandBadgerSeen twice · EdinburghRed grouseSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagleSeen once · HighlandOrcaSeen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whaleSeen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmonSeen onceMountain hareSeen onceRed deerThe wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.
Scotland's otters live along the sea coast as well as the rivers, and on the west coast and the islands they are often seen in the kelp at low tide, and this week the otter was the animal reported most often in Scotland: 8 sightings. These are the animals people have reported most in the last seven days, the most seen first. Every sighting is logged with a photograph or a recording on iNaturalist, the wildlife recording site, and each card opens them on its map.
Where to see wildlife in ScotlandWee AdventuresA large decorated pot about 5,000 years old is being pieced together from sherds found at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney.Seumas Mackinnon has been sailing visitors from Elgol on Skye to Loch Coruisk since 1969, and three generations of his family now crew the boats.The New Shetlander, the magazine of Shetland prose and poetry first printed in 1947, is back after three years away.The flight between Westray and Papa Westray, two of the Orkney islands, is the world's shortest scheduled flight, timed at two minutes including taxiing.A clear, dark night is forecast over Dunnottar Castle.Snow is forecast on the summit of Ben Macdui, Britain's second highest mountain, today.Susie Walker Munro, who grows tea on her family's farm in Angus, helped bring in a scientific test that can show whether tea sold as Scottish really was grown in Scotland.Perthshire WildlifeThe sheep of North Ronaldsay, in Orkney, live almost entirely on seaweed, kept on the shore by a stone wall that runs right round the island.This is Carrbridge in autumn.Orkney and Shetland belonged to Norway until 1468 and 1469, when they were pledged to Scotland for a royal wedding dowry that was never paid.The whisky bar at Dornoch Castle in Sutherland has been named Whisky Bar of the Year at the 2026 Scottish Licensed Trade News Awards.Home from the crusades in disguise, Colin Campbell asked his wife to pour his drink at her own wedding feast in Kilchurn Castle, on Loch Awe.The month Mary Queen of Scots spent in Jedburgh in 1566 was a turning point in her life.Wojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.J.M. Barrie, from Kirriemuir in Angus, gave Peter Pan to a London children's hospital, and a special law lets it earn from the story for ever.Barnacle geese were seen in Glasgow.Clare Coghill, who runs Café Cùil by Carbost on the Isle of Skye, sends her team out foraging every week, and her favourite autumn dish is chanterelles.Norsemen who broke into Maeshowe, a 5,000-year-old tomb in Orkney, covered its walls in graffiti, including 'Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women'.Ebenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.Stonechat Bothy: Ten Years on a Wildlife CroftThe first lasting colour photograph, made in 1861, was a picture of a tartan ribbon, and its method came from the Edinburgh-born physicist James Clerk Maxwell.The oldest Harrier jump jet in existence is being cleaned at the National Museum of Flight for the 60th anniversary of its first flight, on 9 November.Jura's rum distillery, in Craighouse, began when Michael Walton, who was born on the island, told his partner Charlotte Gillett he would love to make rum.Every Christmas Day and New Year's Day, hundreds of men in Kirkwall, on Orkney, push a ball through the town's streets in the Ba' game.What was the score when Arbroath beat Bon Accord in a Scottish Cup football match in 1885?More than 500 carved stone balls, some thought to be 5,000 years old, have been found, mostly in north-east Scotland, and nobody knows what they were for.The Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm, in Orkney, was made from two Nissen huts by Italian prisoners of war in 1943 and 1944.Lindores: The Farm Above the TayNick Gardner, who climbed all of Scotland's Munros in his 80s, asked to see a mountain as a small boy and was taken to Bradgate Park in Leicestershire.The only herd of reindeer in the British Isles roams free in the Cairngorm mountains, and it began with seven reindeer brought from Sweden in 1952.True or false: the shaggy Highland cow is a kind of yak.Every 18.6 years the moon skims low over the hills behind the Callanish Stones, on the Isle of Lewis, and some believe the circle was built to watch it.In 1788, at Siccar Point on the Berwickshire coast of the Scottish Borders, the geologist James Hutton saw that the Earth was far older than people then believed.Guardswell Farm, in the Sidlaw Hills of Perthshire, has no wifi or TVs, because Anna Lamotte, who runs it, finds escaping the screen so restorative.The One O'Clock Gun at Edinburgh Castle began in 1861 so that ships at Leith could set their clocks when fog hid the time signal on Calton Hill.Some of the stones of the Touchstone Maze, near Strathpeffer, are among the oldest rock on Earth.James Bond's father came from Glencoe, in the Highlands, a detail Ian Fleming added after Sean Connery played 007.Every issue we have printed.June Richard welcomed weightlifters from all over the world to her garden to lift the Inver stone, now at the Braemar Highland Games Centre.The Lewis Chessmen, found on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides in 1831, include rooks carved as wild-eyed warriors biting their shields.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Wanlockhead, in the Lowther Hills of Dumfries and Galloway, is Scotland's highest village, and it has Scotland's highest pub as well.Findlater Castle was strengthened against a Norwegian invasion, and the Norwegians took it anyway.Clare Campbell, founder of the Prickly Thistle tartan mill in Easter Ross, designed a tartan for Dennis the Menace's 70th birthday based on his striped jumper.The Fortingall Yew, in a Perthshire churchyard, is thought to be 2,000 to 3,000 years old, and may be the oldest tree in Britain.Gannets were seen in Edinburgh.Rory Dowling, who builds guitars by hand near Pittenweem in Fife, was first hooked on wood by a Swiss Army knife he was given at seven.The concrete pylons along the causeway to Cramond Island were a boom against boats in the Second World War.Recipe from Café CùilAlan Waldron, who makes bagpipes by hand on Broad Street below Stirling Castle, took his first piping lessons in Gibraltar in 1991.For Claire Mookerjee, owner of the Borradill cabins above Loch Sunart, the Ardnamurchan peninsula is the place where the Highlands turn into the Hebrides.True or false: John o' Groats is the most northerly point of mainland Britain.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.RRS Discovery, Captain Scott's ship at Dundee, was never meant to race for the South Pole.The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool is on the shortlist for Venue of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards.Johanna Basford, the Aberdeenshire illustrator behind the colouring book Secret Garden, records voice notes on her walks and later hears ideas like 'giant owl perched on a tiny house'.From Glenmore in the Cairngorms, the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd's hill trip ends with a short session of feeding the reindeer by hand.Half of One, Isle of Skye.Keny Drew, a glass artist in the East Neuk of Fife, trained as a photographer and now turns his photographs into ghostly stained glass.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.The last islanders left the village on Hirta, St Kilda, far out in the Atlantic. In what year?The welcome sign at St Abbs, a fishing village on the Berwickshire coast, was changed to say 'Twinned with New Asgard' after the village appeared as New Asgard in Avengers: Endgame.The writer Rosie Steer, author of the book Gloaming, makes golden Yule decorations out of old tubes of tomato purée.Villages of ScotlandA red squirrel was seen in Oban.Robert Workman, a former PE teacher, sells reclaimed furniture and architectural salvage at Yard 97 near Perth, from a row of joined-up 1940s airfield buildings.Subscribe to Hidden Scotland.Sweetheart Abbey, at New Abbey near Dumfries, is named for a lady who kept her late husband's embalmed heart with her for the rest of her life.The Chapel Royal at Stirling was thrown up in a hurry for one christening.Tom Lewis, whose family owns Monachyle Mhor, the pink farmhouse hotel in Balquhidder, has a mantra: they don't own a table their guests can't dance on.Before the River Clyde was deepened in the 1700s, ships could not reach Glasgow. Where was their cargo unloaded instead?Places to Stay by the Water in Argyllthe Armistice ended the fighting of the First World War.Kate Duncan, who runs A Highland Life at Rannoch in Perthshire, is the first woman, and the youngest ever, to be Chieftain of the Rannoch Highland Gathering.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.At Skye Weavers in Glendale, every scarf and throw is made on a loom powered by bicycle pedals.Ceannabeinne Cottage: An Interview with Sonny and EmiliaOn the Isle of Muck, west of Mallaig, the photographer Jim Richardson climbed the highest hill three times to get his portrait of the island's laird.The Open is coming back to Carnoustie in Angus in 2029, for the first time since 2018.A dipper was seen in Aberdeen.Graeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for Hidden Scotland, spends a week of every spring helping out on a sheep farm in the Angus Glens.In 1911 Henry Alexander took something to the summit of Ben Nevis, above Fort William, and brought it back down again. What was it?A guest who planned a whole trip around Black h, a holiday house on Skye, turned out to be an old college friend of its owner, Sarah.Shetland, Scotland's northernmost islands, is known for its wild gales at the autumn equinox.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Monkstadt House, near Uig, was once the seat of the MacDonald chiefs, and Bonnie Prince Charlie came ashore on the shore below it.Before Kylesku Bridge opened in Sutherland in 1984, crossing the strait there meant catching a small ferry, and cattle herders are said to have swum their livestock across.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.A paper tree growing out of a book was left, unannounced, at the Scottish Poetry Library in 2011.Each August, the Fife fishing town of Pittenweem holds a week-long arts festival, with artists showing their work everywhere from front rooms to garden sheds.True or false: the village of Beauly, near Inverness, got its name when Mary, Queen of Scots, called it 'un beau lieu', a beautiful place.Elaine Campbell, who runs Camella Crafts in Craighouse on Jura, makes her gifts from what the island gives her, from deer antler to old whisky barrels.Issue 13 is out now.Di Gilpin arrived on the Isle of Skye in 1983 with a tent, wool and her knitting needles, and later designed knitwear for Paul Smith and Nike.A rock on the shore of Arran helped prove the Earth was far older than 6,000 years.Give a magazine subscription.Pink-footed geese were seen near Strathmore, Blairgowrie.When the pandemic closed Kj's Mountain Café in Aviemore, she started again as a baker in her home town of Grantown-on-Spey, fourteen miles away.There is a Gaelic blessing carved over the door at Carnasserie, and it names the ancestor of the Campbells.The royal family's nine-hole golf course on the Balmoral estate, on Deeside, opens with a hole flanked by statues of whom?Some good places to go, newly added to the site.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Stephanie and her husband Ryan took on a derelict farm on the edge of North Berwick, in East Lothian, and now run a holiday cottage there called The Barn.In 1892 Tommy Dewar set off round the world to sell his family's whisky, and threw bottles into the sea along the way.Burns set the witches' dance in Tam o' Shanter at Alloway Auld Kirk, where his own father lies buried.V&A Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show is on today.Discover Borradill with owner and interior designer Claire MookerjeeCastle Stalker, on Loch Linnhe in Argyll, was lost by the Stewarts of Appin to their rivals the Campbells in 1620, over a drunken wager.Guess where this is?Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Some good places to stay, newly added to the site.Friends of the lighthouse keeper John Boath and his wife Hazel phoned ahead whenever the couple moved on, so the next cottage down the road could come out and wave too.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Have you been to Isle of Mull?Mary, Queen of Scots is said to have shocked her courtiers by playing real tennis at Falkland Palace in Fife wearing trousers rather than a dress.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Sam Heughan, the Outlander actor who grew up in Galloway, says that on a sunny day you can look out across the Solway Firth to Ireland and the Isle of Man.