Hidden Scotland
Sign in
Inverness-shire.
The sleeper drawn up at the platform, lit from the canopy above.

Getting to Inverness-shire and around.

The trains, the roads and the sleeper

By train and air

Trains run to Inverness from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, and the Caledonian Sleeper comes up overnight from London.

Inverness Airport is just east of the city, with flights from across the UK.

By road

The A9 comes north through the Highlands from Perth, and the A82 runs the length of the Great Glen and Loch Ness from Fort William.

The Caledonian Canal and the Great Glen Way follow the same line, for anyone arriving by boat or on foot.

Getting around

Buses run from Inverness along Loch Ness to Drumnadrochit and Fort Augustus, and out to Culloden and Beauly.

A car is the easiest way into Strathglass and Glen Affric, where the last miles are on single-track roads.

Inverness is the obvious base, with the most places to stay and eat and buses in every direction. Drumnadrochit and Fort Augustus suit Loch Ness, and Beauly or Cannich are closer to Glen Affric.

Three days covers Inverness, Culloden and a day on Loch Ness. Add one or two more for Glen Affric and the quieter glens, or to walk part of the Great Glen Way.

Inverness is drier than the west coast, sheltered from the Atlantic weather by the hills. The glens are colder and wetter, and the tops can hold snow well into spring.

Yes. Cruises leave from Inverness, Dochgarroch, Drumnadrochit and Fort Augustus, many of them passing Urquhart Castle, and some stop to let you look round it.

Allow two to three hours for the visitor centre and a walk round the battlefield, where flags mark where the lines stood. Clava Cairns, the Bronze Age burial cairns nearby, are worth adding.

Yes. Inverness has the Ness Islands and the Botanic Gardens, both free, boats run on Loch Ness, and Chanonry Point, a short drive onto the Black Isle, is one of the best places in Britain to watch dolphins from the shore.

Photographs by castleartgallery; Wild Gorse Studio, Tomasz Francuz, The Old School Beauly, Shannon McCluskey and Monica Kyle via Google

More of Inverness-shire.

A large circular chambered cairn built from stacked stones sits among bare winter trees at dusk.See and doCastles, cairns and the field of CullodenA carved wooden picnic table and benches stand on a hilltop meadow overlooking a forested glen and hills under a clear sky.Eat, drink and shopRiverside kitchens, bakeries and a whisky barArdea through old birch trunks, its turf roof and railed deck mirrored in the pond below, ferns in front.Where to stayLog cabins in the glen and cottages on Loch NessA crenellated sandstone castle stands on a wooded hill above a river, bare trees lining the bank in the foreground.History and storiesClava's cairns, Culloden and Telford's canalLooking down the glen in spring from the hill above a turf-roofed cabin, the river winding through fields.ItinerariesDays we have driven, stop by stopThe Northern Lights green and pink over the dark glen, the cabins' lights among the trees below.What is on in Inverness-shireSomething new from the region every day