Isle of Skye guest house and activity centre, Scotland

The Isle of Skye is a place of exceptional beauty. We love where we live and we care for our surroundings to the best of our ability. We ask that you also care for it when you visit. At our property we are pro-active in limiting our own and our guests’ impact on the environment.

There is a lot to do on Skye and we are happy to provide our guests with information on the local attractions from wildlife trips to castle visits. While a guest at our property you can take many walks or bike rides from our front door. Enjoy the short walk to the waterfall or the walk along the cliffs with the stunning views across to the Outer Hebrides. A great way to explore Skye is by bike and we encourage this by offering mountain bike hire. We also provide boat trips for sightseeing, wildlife spotting, fishing and diving, of which we offset the carbon emissions. Our holidays encourage people to participate in outdoor sports and hence encourage interest in our environment. All our activities are being made in complete understanding with our cultural, social and ecological surroundings.

We provide our guests information about the conservation of the natural environment of the Isle of Skye including the Scottish outdoor access codes. From our garden, which has fantastic views across Uig bay, we encourage wildlife with bird boxes and by growing plants and shrubs which attract bird and insect life. We also have areas with beautiful wild flowers. We regularly see buzzards in the woods behind our house.

The property is easily reached by public transport (there is a direct bus from Glasgow and Inverness to our village) and we have bus and ferry schedules available for our guests.

We compost our food and garden waste and use our homemade compost to cultivate our garden and vegetable patch. We feed our leftover toast to our chickens, which produce fantastic fresh eggs for our breakfasts. We use our homegrown fruit and vegetables to produce fresh meals, supplemented with locally produced goods. We use local suppliers with sound environmental policies that benefit the local economy and reduce food miles, including George the fisherman who provides us with the catch of the day!

Our aim is to minimise waste by firstly reducing what we use, then reusing what we can, and finally recycling. We reduce our waste production by careful stock control and choose products with minimal packaging. We maximise our use of the electronic office hence reducing paper use. We don’t have a large glossy brochure and all our information is on our website. Our small flyer is printed on paper from sustainable forests. We reuse carrier bags, plastic containers and food waste. We recycle glass, plastic and paper which we take to the village recycling point and have facilities for our guests to recycle their waste too.

Our electricity is from a green energy scheme using hydro electric sources and we use energy efficient light bulbs. We offset our carbon emissions from our LPG heating. We use eco cleaning products in all our cleaning and laundry (mainly Ecover and Ecosmart). We have showers to reduce water waste and have a laundry scheme, providing fresh towels when requested by guests.

Your hosts, Vicki & Andi Dunkel aim to provide the best from both of their cultures – Scottish hospitality and Swiss quality. Our aim is to continually improve our environmental performance until we are fully carbon neutral. As we are open all year guests can experience the Highland culture and stunning scenery in all seasons.