Our favourite Scottish travel moments of 2024

Permafrost on the pavements, blizzards due at Christmas — the reasons for Scots to be cheerful this December are not extensive. Time to look back, then, and remember golden times from the year. From a brush with puffins on the Isle of May to the moment of arrival on Iona, here are our writers’ favourite travel moments from 2024.

A sauna on Loch Venachar by Carla Jenkins

I am wearing a hat and shoes, but no trousers. I inch into the water — first my toes, then ankles, then knees, then hips . . . then suddenly I am swimming. The cold burrows into my bones. Tiptoeing out of the water, I cannot feel my feet — maybe I left them in the loch — then scurry breathlessly into the Venachar Cabins sauna by the shore. My breathing slows, my bones defrost, I have never felt more alive (lochvenacharcabins.co.uk).

Uisge bothy, one of three remote off-grid hideaways at Inverlonan Bothies near Oban

Sealing the deal in an off-grid bothy by Natasha Radmehr

We exchanged vows on the Sunday. But it wasn’t until the Wednesday at Inverlonan Bothies near Oban that it started to sink in. No mains water, no telly, no toddler. Just us, cooking over an open fire and revelling in the stillness. In the morning, after it took 45 minutes to fry an egg, he turned to me and said, “Shall we get a takeaway tonight?” That’s why I married him (inverlonan.com).

• Inverlonan: a Highland retreat offering chic touches and seclusion

The coastal path between Kippford and Rockcliffe

STEPHEN JARDINE

Bunking off on the Solway Coast by Stephen Jardine

There is something illicit about a sunny Monday morning. It can’t be enjoyed by everyone: only those with time on their hands. I was due to drive back to Edinburgh but instead walked from Rockcliffe to Kippford with only butterflies for company. The tearoom had freshly baked scones and a seat by the estuary, which glinted in the sunlight. Further along the coastal path I sat on the bench we dedicated to my parents when they died. And in the sun I felt the reassurance and comfort of that special place.

Paul English returns to Loch Morlich in the Cairngorms with his mother

PAUL ENGLISH

Remembering the past in Aviemore by Paul English

At my father’s funeral my sister spoke of the “Freedom Inn feeling”. It was how she summed up the happiness of our childhood breaks in the Cairngorms. In September I took my 80-year-old mother back for the first time since we lost Dad. We peeked along its corridors, remembering this time and that time; the recollections behind every other door, fittings and fixtures — the very buttons in the lift— comfortingly unchanged. In two sunny autumn days we gathered up a million memories of steam trains and ice rinks, reindeer and Santa Claus Land, chairlifts in blizzards, cousins, go-karts and grandparents — grateful now for all we had then, and to find another place to go to remember.

Inside cosy Cherrybank Cottage on Mull’s magical Ardtun peninsula

Cottage bliss on Mull by Jeremy Lazell

“It’s not as posh as some places you’ll have stayed,” the owner warned. And in one or two tiny ways — no TV, smallish upstairs bedrooms — she was right. But still Cherrybank Cottage stole our hearts. Huge modern windows looking over an ever-shifting bay, underfloor heating to warm our bones after days on the beach, well-loved crockery and art making it more like a holiday home than rental — we devoured it all. For days we did nothing but play Scrabble, drink tea, collect shells and reconnect as a family as the tides came and went (isleofmullcottages.com).

Marooning himself on Iona’s seafront is Kenny Farquharson’s idea of bliss

GETTY

The ferry to Iona by Kenny Farquharson

MV Loch Buie is one of the smallest in the CalMac fleet — but it’s the one I love most. Why? Because it takes me from Fionnphort on Mull to the harbour jetty on Iona. The moment you feel the keel scrape on the concrete ramp and the hydraulic doors begin to lower, you know you have seven days of bliss ahead — in a tin hut with no wi-fi, in the back garden of one of the old houses on the seafront. You have arrived and everything is going to be OK.

Heaven for Ashley Davies is a Firth of Forth island teeming with puffins

ASHLEY DAVIES/ALAMY

Puffin heaven on the Isle of May by Ashley Davies

A couple of hours after negotiating with terrorists (ie doing the school run), I was suddenly inside a cartoon. There were puffins blinking on the rocks, puffins coming in and out of the sea, puffins shuffling into the same soft burrows they’d started families in last year, puffins flying in every direction overhead. Puffins, puffins, puffins. And they didn’t care how close I was: they were too busy preparing for breeding season on May. I smiled for hours, and that simple, intense joy kept me going for days (isleofmayferry.com).

• An unforgettable day trip to the Isle of May

Alyth was the starting point of a forest walk that left one of our writers rooted to the spot in wonder

ALAMY

A surprise find near a town called Alyth by Jeremy Watson

I’ve always expected the unexpected but sometimes you stumble across something so breathtaking you surprise yourself. There are parts of Scotland less trodden by tourists — the Den of Alyth is one, its deep, wooded gorge hidden at the fringe of Alyth, a pretty Perthshire market town. The presence of a dog-walker aside, I had it to myself on a September afternoon when, on a high bank above the Alyth Burn, I rounded a corner on the muddy path to a scene from Lord of the Rings: a joyous parade of yellowy-white honey fungi on a carpet of bright green moss along a fallen log. Minutes later I was still rooted to the spot.