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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 ScotlandDunnottar Castle Cloudy in Aberdeenshire, and the sun sets at 16:30.Watch Scotland live
  1. The Caledonian SleeperCaledonian SleeperThe Caledonian Sleeper from London is due across Rannoch Moor about now.
  2. Golden hourGreenknowe TowerThe sun sets at Greenknowe Tower at 4.36pm this evening, and the sky is forecast to be clear.
  3. WildlifeShetlandAn otter was seen near Lerwick on Friday.
  4. On todayOrkneyRadiocarbon seminar with Professor Seren Griffiths is on in Kirkwall today.
  5. Just openedCaithnessCastletown Mill in Caithness, built in 1818, is a whisky distillery now.

The Daily

Arrives at 5am every day.

A free morning email to see what’s on this week, catch up on what’s happening in Scotland and find somewhere new to go.

The Daily for 30 October, from Scotland with love. Aerial view of a teal-coloured lochan cupped in a forested hollow, a scree slope rising on one side and autumn-tinged pines ringing the shore.
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
109 views
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 today

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
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
74 views
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.

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From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 13Issue 13Autumn / Winter 2026-27

Scotland's 26 mountain rescue teams are all volunteers, and between them they answered over 1,200 callouts in 2025.

Alice Varley has been a member of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team for over six years, and like everyone in Scottish Mountain Rescue she gives her time for free. The teams are made up of teachers, health workers, engineers, outdoor guides, friends and parents, who leave offices, sports practices and family dinners within minutes when a call comes in, day or night. 'We are all volunteers, and we're all there because we love going out in the hills… we understand that no one sets out in the morning hoping to get rescued,' she says. Rescuers work without judgement, and the goal is always to get the casualty fit and eventually back out in the hills.

Read the full story in Issue 13
TodayFor today's weatherLothianYoga classes at PenicuikActivityLoch LomondSauna and Swim ExperienceActivityGlencoeWilderness SaunaActivityPerthshireBirch Tree YogaActivityStirlingshireSpa salts and tea blends workshopActivityArgyll and ButeThe SaunaActivity

Today calls for a sauna.

8° and cloudy across Scotland. Cold enough to want the heat of a sauna, and the swim after.

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 4 times · BallachulishRed deerSeen 3 timesGrey sealSeen 3 times · TayportRed squirrelSeen twiceCommon sealSeen twice · FifeOtterSeen once · Cairn Gorm, MorayPtarmiganSeen onceWhite-tailed eagleSeen once · Hogganfield LochWhooper swanSeen once · East LothianPink-footed gooseSeen 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 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