Railway walking tours of the Scottish Highlands
| country: | Scotland |
| location: | Scottish Highlands |
| departures: | 2010: 6 Jun, 11 Jul, 8 Aug, 15 Aug |
| price: | From £695 (8 days) excluding flights. 5 full days guided walks and 6 nights full board quality guest house, based on a twin share basis, includes packed lunches on each day and 6 evening meals |
| vouchers: | Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday |
read 1 travellers review
the amazing things you'll be doing
An 8 day walking holiday featuring great hiking throughout the Highlands and Skye, based around the best of Scottish railway journeys.
The travel involved is almost entirely by rail, which allows excellent access to some world famous scenery, hidden glens, lochs, beaches and mountains. Our knowledgeable transport historian acts as your guide, providing an interesting commentary during your journey.
Our tour takes in much of Scotland, using a mixture of scheduled service trains, steam railways, ferries – and feet! Scotland’s railways offer access to incredible scenery, and trains provide views so much better than you will ever see from a car. The itinerary below is designed to be flexible to allow for any level of fitness – on a tour in 2008 our oldest group member was 80 and the youngest 18!
Although you will a small rucksack to carry additional clothing and food during the day, your bags will be transferred between accommodation venues by our support team leaving you free to enjoy the walking and views.
The travel involved is almost entirely by rail, which allows excellent access to some world famous scenery, hidden glens, lochs, beaches and mountains. Our knowledgeable transport historian acts as your guide, providing an interesting commentary during your journey.
Our tour takes in much of Scotland, using a mixture of scheduled service trains, steam railways, ferries – and feet! Scotland’s railways offer access to incredible scenery, and trains provide views so much better than you will ever see from a car. The itinerary below is designed to be flexible to allow for any level of fitness – on a tour in 2008 our oldest group member was 80 and the youngest 18!
Although you will a small rucksack to carry additional clothing and food during the day, your bags will be transferred between accommodation venues by our support team leaving you free to enjoy the walking and views.
day-by-day itinerary
| Day 1: | Saturday: Leaving Edinburgh Waverley on a mid-morning train, we head (via the famous Forth and Tay Bridges) for Keith on the North East Coast of Scotland. From here, we change onto a heritage train for the twelve mile journey to Dufftown – Scotland’s whisky capital. A bus transfers us to overnight accommodation at the Richmond Hotel in Tomintoul – Scotland’s highest village. |
| Day 2: | Sunday: A day’s walking on the most spectacular section of the Speyside Way, a long-distance footpath. From Tomintoul we head over the hills to Glenlivet, where we will take a tour of the famous whisky distillery. Transport is provided to Aviemore, where we spend the night at the well-appointed Cairngorm Hotel. |
| Day 3: | Monday: A journey on the Strathspey steam railway – whose station is opposite our hotel! – takes us to Broomhill. A spectacular walk follows, through the ancient Rothiemurchas Forest and into the Cairngorm Mountains. The walk ends at Glenmore on the shores of Loch Morlich, from where a bus takes us back to the Cairngorm Hotel. |
| Day 4: | Tuesday: A Scotrail train from Aviemore takes us to Inverness, where we transfer onto train for Kyle of Lochalsh. The Kyle line is one of the most spectacular rail journeys in the world, and is known as the “Skye train”. At Kyle, we transfer to a bus fort the short hop to Broadford on the Isle of Skye, where a quality bed and breakfast forms our base for the next few days. Time permitting, we will have an afternoon coastal walk from Broadford and admire views of the surrounding Cullin mountain range. |
| Day 5: | Wednesday: A full day of walking on Skye. We’ll go up into the hills if the weather is kind, and if not an equally spectacular coastal walk is planned. |
| Day 6: | Thursday: A bus takes us from Broadford to the ferry terminal at Armadale, on the Southern end of Skye. From here we cross the Sound of Sleat by ferry, and arrive back on the mainland at Mallaig. The next section of train travel is a real treat, the “Jacobite” main-line steam excursion along the utterly spectacular West Highland line to the busy town of Fort William. We spend the night here at the Nevis Bank Hotel. |
| Day 7: | Friday: A late departure from Fort William means keener walkers can join us for a morning excursion up beautiful Glen Nevis. However, we need to be back at the station for 1130 when we rejoin the West Highland line for a service to Corrrour – Britain’s most remote station. From here we make an ascent of Ben Na Lap, which provides astonishing views without being too steep a climb! We overnight at Corrour Station House – literally miles from anywhere. |
| Day 8: | Saturday: Our last day, and we take the train from Corrour southwards towards Edinburgh, skirting the banks of Loch Lomond. Arrival in Edinburgh should be around 12.30, giving additional time to explore the Scottish capital before setting out for home if you wish. |
travellers' tales
We saw so much of Scotland both on trains and on foot. The scenery is spectacular and the walking is demanding enough to be satisfactory but not too exhausting. (more)
how this holiday makes a difference
|
All our guides have a minimum of the Summer Mountain Leader Award and have an extensive knowledge of the history, culture and wildlife of the Scottish Highlands. The guides are paid a professional wage and in addition, have their accommodation, food and travel expenses covered.
Your guide Simon Hickman is a long standing volunteer on Scottish preserved railways. Simon has also worked with NELPG, the owners of loco powering the "Jacobite", and is currently employed as Senior Heritage Advisor to British Waterways, custodians of the Caledonian Canal. This trip mostly uses scheduled public transport (train, buses and ferries) on your week's adventure around the Scottish Highlands with 2 short taxi rides where these are unavailable. Accommodation is supplied by family run guest houses and small hotels with evening meals at locally owned restaurants and pubs. By using public transport as much as possible we are minimising our transport impact throughout the Highlands which doesn't have a road infrastructure in places to cope with the summer influx of tour buses, minibuses and cars. We can also feature walks such as Ben na Lap which can only be accessed by train. We have a no litter on hill policy and have impromtu beach and mountain path clean ups where possible. We encourage guests to recycle their waste. We buy new bottles at the start of each trip and then refill them in the week. Old bottles are turned into whitewater rafts for another long term project. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |