Hidden Scotland
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Issue 13, the walk to the cabin

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through Scotland.

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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 Old Town, Edinburgh Cloudy in Edinburgh, and the sun sets at 18:10.Watch Scotland live
  1. WildlifeShetlandA grey seal was seen in the Shetland Islands on Friday.
  2. WildlifeCaithnessA common seal was seen in Caithness yesterday.
  3. Just openedOrkneyScapa Flow Museum on Hoy launches Voices from Scapa Flow, a collection of wartime stories from Orkney, on 14 October.
  4. Just openedCaithnessCastletown Mill in Caithness, built in 1818, is a whisky distillery now.
  5. NewsSutherlandLinks House in Dornoch is starting night-time wildlife safaris with thermal cameras.
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
Just addedAdded yesterday

We've just added Eaglesham to the website.

A planned village begun in 1769, its two rows of houses facing each other across the Orry, a long common green with a burn running down it.

Find out more about Eaglesham
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
TodayFor today's weatherGlasgowGlengoyne DistilleryAttractionArgyll and ButeOban DistilleryAttractionEaster RossGlenmorangie DistilleryAttractionOrkneyHighland Park DistilleryTourIsle of SkyeTorabhaig DistilleryAttractionIsle of SkyeIsle of Raasay DistillerySleeps 2

Today calls for a dram.

5° and clear with periodic clouds across Scotland. Cold enough for the tour that ends by the stills.

See them all
Did you knowGraeme JohncockWritten byGraeme JohncockMore from Graeme

Graeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for our series, spends a week of every spring helping out on a sheep farm in the Angus Glens.

‘Every April I get dragged up to a sheep farm in the Angus Glens to help with lambing for at least a week. It’s incredibly tough work, with a typical day starting at 6am and ending after 11pm, but it’s very rewarding. Sheep farming is so culturally important to Scotland and it’s great to see it first hand, although I’m glad I never have to do it for the whole month.’

Graeme JohncockWritten byGraeme JohncockMore from GraemeRead the full story
This weekendThis weekendThis weekend · GlasgowThe Royal National Mòd 2026This weekend · Dumfries and GallowaySouth of Scotland Dark Sky FestivalThis weekend · Isle of SkyeLiz Myhill at Gallery An Talla DeargThis weekend · AberdeenshireHalloween Trail of TreatsThis weekend · AberdeenshireRoyal Deeside RailwayThis weekend · GlasgowBarbie: The Exhibition

On this weekend.

Things on around Scotland on Saturday and Sunday.

See everything that is on
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.

Just addedAdded yesterday

We've just added Greenbank Garden to the website.

A National Trust for Scotland garden in Clarkston, around a Georgian house of the 1760s, with a walled garden of more than 3,600 named plants and woodland walks.

Find out more about Greenbank Garden
Did you know

Loch Ness, in the Highlands near Inverness, holds more water than all the lakes of England and Wales put together.

Loch Ness isn't the biggest loch in Scotland by area: that is Loch Lomond, at 71 square kilometres. What Loch Ness has is depth. It runs for about 37 kilometres and reaches around 230 metres at its deepest, so it holds 7,452 million cubic metres of water, more than any other loch in Scotland. The water is murky too, because of the peat in the soil around it. And for all that depth, it is not the deepest loch in the country: that is Loch Morar, further west, at 310 metres.

See Loch Ness · Inverness-shire
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From the magazine

Donald Dinnie, a Highland Games champion from Aberdeenshire, toured the world winning more than 10,000 competitions and became known as the greatest athlete of the 19th century.

He made his name at home first. Between 1856 and 1876 he won 21 Highland Games titles in a row, at a time when the modern Games, with roots that go back much further, had been resurrected across Scotland. Then he went on to tour the world. What set him apart was not just his immense strength but his speed and agility too. The Games still test that mix today, and even their simplest event, throwing a stone often taken from a local river, was later adopted into the Olympics as the shot put.

Read the full story in Issue 7
Just addedAdded yesterday

We've just added Rouken Glen Park to the website.

A park of 143 acres on the edge of Giffnock, south of Glasgow, with a waterfall in a wooded glen, a boating pond and a walled garden, voted the UK's Best Park in 2016.

Find out more about Rouken Glen Park