Planning for our Outer Hebrides & Isle of Skye trip
Readers of the Rough Guide recently voted Scotland: ‘the most beautiful country in the world’, beating Canada to the number one slot. Well that is some accolade! We have visited Scotland a few times and have always enjoyed our visits. This year we thought we’d plan a special trip to the beautiful and remote islands of the Outer Hebrides. These islands are located on the north west of the Scottish mainland. We’ve been on many trips and holidays over the years, but none that have needed as much planning as this one!
Scotland has had a massive increase in tourists in recent years. One of the reasons for the increase in numbers is the phenomenal success of the romantic time-travel TV series, “Outlander”. The show is based on the adventures of an English nurse who travels back in time to the Highlands of the 1740’s and the Jacobite rebellion. The show has a huge following all over the world. Needless to say, many of the show’s devoted fans want to visit “Outlander” Scotland. Hence, the rise in tourism. Strangely though the show has a large global audience, it is less well known in the UK. Outlander is filmed in Scotland (even when they say they are in France or North Carolina!). We will not be visiting the film locations on this occasion – we’ll leave that for another trip!
Planes, trains and automobiles (and ferries!)
Although we live in the UK and could, in theory, drive all the way to Scotland, we prefer to fly there. It is more expensive but it does mean we do not have to endure a 8-10 hour car journey. Birmingham airport is close to us and flight costs are reasonable.
At first, we wanted to see if we could do the trip without any driving at all, so we started planning for that. Our initial idea was that we would fly to Glasgow and from there, take a flight to one of the islands of the Outer Hebrides. There are airports in Stornoway and Benbecula and the Isle of Barra. Barra has the most unique airport. Fancy landing here!
We then realised that if we did this we couldn’t visit Oban which is on the Scottish mainland. Martin had wanted to visit Oban so he could take part in its Saturday parkrun as it is quite famous in the running community. So, first change of plan. We now decided to go Oban before visiting the islands themselves. So what to do now? Fly to Glasgow and then we could either hire a car, or get a bus, or take the train to Oban. After some research and discovering that the train journey was really beautiful, we decided on that option. The train journey is advertised as one of the world’s best train journeys for stunning views.
Tip – if you plan on getting the train look for the much cheaper advance fares that are available 12 weeks before the journey begins. I set a reminder in my calendar to do this. Our train journeys have now been booked!
We’ve discovered that the buses are pretty good and link with the ferry timetimetables. Sadly, the buses don’t go to all the places we want to visit and they also don’t operate on Sundays. This means we will have to hire a car some of the time as there are no other options for travel. We could walk or hire bicycles but it would be very difficult carrying our suitcases!
A Hebridian local! 
Beach in the islands
Calmac ferries is the local ferry operator and it has lots of travel options. After much deliberation we have decided to go on the Hopscotch 23 route. This entails leaving from Oban on the ferry which takes 5 hours to the island of Barra. What a start! We then travel up through the Outer Hebrides. We will visit the following islands on our journey: Barra, Eriskay, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Harris, Lewis. It’s then on to the Isle of Skye before going on another scenic train journey to Inverness. We will fly home from there. Phew – we’re going to be travelling a lot!
Resources used for planning:
- Calmac ferries website – https://www.calmac.co.uk/
- City Link bus timetables – https://www.citylink.co.uk/timetables.php
- Historic Environment Scotland – https://www.historicenvironment.scot/
- Scotrail – https://www.scotrail.co.uk/
- Skyscanner – https://www.skyscanner.net/
- Visit Outer Hebrides website – https://www.visitouterhebrides.co.uk/
A spreadsheet with dates, times, costs, timetables, hotels booked and deposits paid has been very useful. Some places we will be staying in wanted a deposit, some wanted full payment and some wanted nothing in advance. We will also need our cheque book as not everywhere accepts card payments. I’ve typed up our itinerary and saved it as a pdf document so that it’s easily at hand on my phone.
Weather
The weather can be unpredictable in Scotland, even in the summer. We will have to bring a mixture of summer clothing and clothes suitable for wet weather. I’ve bought a strong, wind-proof umbrella to take as well. Let’s hope it can do its job, if needed. You may also have heard about the midges in Scotland? They are tiny flies that bite, a bit like mosquitoes. In order to help with these we have got a supply of the Avon spray: Skin So Soft. Everybody swears by it its success against the little flying nasties. We’ll let you know after our trip if its worked. Just in case, we’ve also bought two midge nets. We really don’t want to have to use them, but it can’t hurt taking them along.
Our planes, trains and automobiles are now booked and we can’t wait to explore the beautiful islands. Look out for our future blogs to learn all about the places we visited.
Godiva Travellers 