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Issue 13, the walk to the cabin

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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 Tweed and the Eildons Cloudy in the Borders, and the sun sets at 16:34.Watch Scotland live
  1. Edinburgh CastleEdinburgh Castle has opened for the day. About 5,600 people a day came through its gate last year, so it pays to be early.
  2. FoghornMull of Galloway LighthouseThe old foghorn at the Mull of Galloway is due to sound tomorrow.
  3. WildlifeShetlandAn otter was seen near Lerwick on Friday.
  4. Just openedCaithnessCastletown Mill in Caithness, built in 1818, is a whisky distillery now.
  5. On todaySutherlandFolktober Fest is happening now in Dornoch.

The Daily

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The Daily for 31 October, from Scotland with love. A ring of standing stones set among mist and autumn birch
Hidden Scotland

The places worth the journey, and the help to get there.

Twice a year, in printMagazine What to see, do and eatPlaces Cottages, bothies and hotelsAccommodation Ready-made daysDays out Region by regionDestinations From £30 a yearJoin
Did you know

On the island of Barra, in the Outer Hebrides, scheduled passenger planes land on a beach, and the flight times move with the tide.

Barra Airport's three runways are marked out on the sand of Tràigh Mhòr, the beach known in English as the Cockle Strand, with wooden poles at each end. At high tide all three are under the sea, so the times of the flights to Glasgow change with the tide. Because the runways point three different ways, the little Twin Otter planes can almost always land into the wind. The first official service touched down on the sands in August 1936, and Barra is still the only scheduled beach runway in the world.

See Barra Airport · Outer Hebrides
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In Glasgow

The paddle steamer Waverley had almost 160,000 passenger journeys this year, her second-busiest season in almost 30 years.

In her 80th year she sailed the whole six-month season without a cancellation caused by a technical fault. Her last call of the year was at Tighnabruaich in the Kyles of Bute on 18 October.

Read about it
NewNew yesterday

A welcome to Lauriston Castle

Lauriston Castle in Edinburgh opens for free relaxed and step-free tours on Sunday 29 November.

Find out more about A welcome to Lauriston Castle
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 10Issue 10Spring / Summer 2025

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.

Clare began in 2018 with a crowdfunding campaign for a pop-up mill in Easter Ross, sourcing looms from the 1920s from the Scottish Borders. When Covid struck, she chose to keep her workforce in jobs rather than pour money into a costly new building. The mill now designs tartans for whisky distilleries, Highland estates and even The Beano comic, home of Dennis the Menace. It also weaves its own Prickly Thistle tartans for a small clothing line cut from rectangles, squares and triangles, so nothing ends up on the cutting room floor. For Clare, it was never about a mill, but about bringing an industry back to the Highlands.

Read the full story in Issue 10
In Shetland Islands

Shetland's inshore crab and scallop fishery has won an Ocean Leadership award from the Marine Stewardship Council.

Around 100 small day boats land its brown crab and scallops, which are certified as sustainable with help from shellfish scientists at UHI Shetland. The award was presented in London on 28 October.

Read about it
Hidden Scotland, the magazineThe magazine

Issue 13

The autumn and winter issue is here.

Get Issue 13
Did you know

Skara Brae, a stone village on the Bay of Skaill in Orkney, was a thriving community before Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids were built.

People lived in the village from roughly 3180 BC to about 2500 BC. That is earlier than the Great Pyramid, built around 2560 BC, and earlier than the main building at Stonehenge, begun around 3000 BC. Once its people had gone, the village was lost from sight until a storm uncovered it in 1850. The houses still have their stone dressers and box-beds, and Historic Environment Scotland calls it the best-preserved Neolithic, or New Stone Age, settlement in Western Europe. Today you can walk among ten of its buildings and four of its passageways, five thousand years after they were built.

See Skara Brae · Orkney
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TodayFor today's weatherAngusArbroath CliffsWalkThe Black IsleLearnie Red Rock TrailsActivityThe Black IsleFalls of OrrinWalkIsle of SkyeWild WalksActivityStirlingshireWalks and Jogging TrailsActivityDumfries and GallowayRanger WalkActivity

Today calls for a walk.

9° and cloudy across Scotland. Dry enough for the boots.

See them all
In Dundee

This year's Scottish Album of the Year trophies have been made in Dundee from plastic collected around the city.

Camillo Atlas, a designer who studied at Duncan of Jordanstone art school in the city, made the twelve awards from bottle tops and shampoo bottles, with colours and shapes taken from Dundee's buildings. They are handed out at the Caird Hall on Thursday 5 November.

Read about it
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.

WildlifeThis weekSeen 5 timesDipperSeen 3 times · East LothianWhooper swanSeen 3 timesCommon sealSeen 3 timesGrey sealSeen 3 times · TayportRed squirrelSeen twice · DunbarPink-footed gooseSeen twice · BallachulishRed deerSeen twiceAdderSeen once · Cairn Gorm, MorayPtarmiganSeen onceWhite-tailed eagleSeen once · FifeOtterSeen once · Glenmore ForestBeaverSeen once · Cairn Gorm, HighlandMountain hare

The wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.

The dipper is a small brown river bird with a white bib that walks underwater along the beds of fast rivers, hunting for insects, and this week the dipper was the animal reported most often in Scotland: 5 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 Scotland
In Dumfries and Galloway

Five kinds of bat have been found hunting over the saltmarsh at WWT Caerlaverock, near Dumfries.

The reserve set out recorders that pick up bat calls at night, and heard Daubenton's, Leisler's, noctule, common pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle bats out over the marsh. Noctules and Leisler's, two of Britain's bigger bats, were the busiest.

Read about it
Did you knowLucy GillmoreWritten byLucy GillmoreMore from Lucy

House of Gods, a hotel just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh's Old Town, takes the look of its rooms from the Orient Express.

The beds are built in and the marble wet rooms are on the snug side, but the rooms are dressed in rich fabrics. Upgrade to the classic rooms and suites and you sleep in a four-poster.

Lucy GillmoreWritten byLucy GillmoreMore from LucyRead the full story