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Isle of Muck, Small IslesThe smallest of the four inhabited Small Isles, a farming island of white-sand bays, seals and views to Rum and Eigg.

Places to visit
in Scotland.

6° and clear at Isle of Muck just now.
Places to visit in Scotland

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Just addedAdded on Thursday

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
Just opened16 minutes ago

The Palm Houses at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh reopen after their restoration.

The ironwork has been repaired, thousands of panes of glass replaced and the sandstone conserved. Inside, under the glass domes, are rare tree ferns, and around 1,000 ladybirds have been let loose to keep pests off the plants.

Photograph: Nicole’s POV on Google MapsSee Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
From the magazineJust nowThe printed copy of Issue 02Issue 02Spring / Summer 2021

John Best came to Fair Isle, halfway between Orkney and Shetland, in 1973 for what was meant to be a single year, and never once thought of leaving.

His wife Betty had taken a post as the island nurse, agreed for just a year, and John was sceptical about living somewhere so secluded. But the community persuaded the couple and their two children to stay, at a time when only 42 people lived on the island and running it needed many hands. When the journalist Florian Sturm visited, John was 85, the oldest of the 55 islanders, and he had the writers round for a cup of tea several times. 'You don't come here if you want to make a load of money. But life here is very fulfilling and gives you this little something. Also, we consider each other as a big extended family'.

See Fair Isle · Shetland Islands
Just addedAdded on Thursday

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
TodayJust nowArgyll and ButeGlen Scotia DistilleryAttractionIsle of SkyeTalisker DistilleryAttractionPerthshireBlair Athol DistilleryTourArdnamurchanNc'nean DistilleryAttractionFort WilliamBen Nevis DistilleryTourCaithnessOld Pulteney DistilleryAttraction

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 knowJust now

Archaeologists spent twenty years uncovering 5,000-year-old buildings with painted walls at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, then covered them over again in 2024.

The Ness of Brodgar lies on a strip of land between two famous stone circles, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. Its great stone buildings date from about 3300 BC to 2900 BC, and some of their walls were painted yellow, red and orange. Thin slabs found on the site are understood as roof tiles, some of the earliest evidence of roofs ever found. Only a fraction of the site was dug, and after the last full season in 2024 it was backfilled to protect it for future archaeologists. The two stone circles beside it are still there to see.

See Ness of Brodgar · Orkney
Just addedAdded on Thursday

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
From Issue 10 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 10Just now

A Walking Guide to Aberdour

A walk round Aberdour in Fife, half an hour by train from Edinburgh, starting at the castle beside the station in the village the Victorians called the Jewel of the Fife Riviera.

Read the story
True or falseJust nowThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

True or false: the Picts, the people who carved Scotland's Pictish symbol stones, vanished overnight.

From the magazineJust nowThe printed copy of Issue 02Issue 02Spring / Summer 2021

Fiona, an islander on Fair Isle between Orkney and Shetland, ran the shop and post office, taught art and led the island's fire unit, all at once.

She first came to the island as a ten-year-old, and on an island of 55 people every adult holds several jobs, because some things simply need doing. Fiona ran the shop and post office with her husband Robert and taught art at the primary school, which had just four pupils. She was Watch Manager of Fair Isle's unit of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, a trained aircraft firefighter for the airstrip and a community councillor, and she knits too. 'For us, no day is the same and there's always something to do,' she said. The biggest misconception, she added, is that islanders must be bored in the evenings or in winter.

See Fair Isle · Shetland Islands
From our collectionsA collectionJust nowEdinburghCity ObservatoryEdinburghCamera ObscuraEdinburghWriters' MuseumEdinburghThe People’s StoryEdinburghHolyrood ParkEdinburghHolyrood Park and Arthur’s SeatEdinburghRoyal Botanic Garden EdinburghEdinburghMuseum of EdinburghEdinburghEdinburgh ZooEdinburghDynamic Earth

Great Things to Do with Kids in Edinburgh

Edinburgh is a brilliant city with children, with so much of it outdoors and free. From museums and gardens to a hillside you can climb in an hour, these are the things that keep everyone happy.

See the whole collection
Did you knowJust now

Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, named Talisker distillery's whisky one of his three 'king o' drinks'.

In a poem of 1880 written in Scots, Stevenson gave his verdict on Scotland's finest drink: the king o' drinks, he declared, was 'Talisker, Isla, or Glenlivet'. The distillery on the shore of Loch Harport on Skye has been quoting him ever since.

Read about it