Where Not To Go in Scotland
And the places to visit in 2026
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When Americans “do Scotland” they mostly take this one tour. Fly to Edinburg [sic] drive to Glen Coe and finally explore the remote Isle of Skye with thousands of their countrymen. That’s the basic skeleton with side-quests for tartan and shortbread. The benefit for the traveller is it does actually pack a serious punch and is a representational transect of the land and its history. The benefit for everyone else is the number of tourists falls off a crag when you go anywhere else because we have funnelled the hordes to a few tiny and chaotic trunk roads.
Friends often asked where to go so here is a start. I have led a few bespoke tours but also followed tours commissioned for articles in the likes of the New York Times, Geo France and Frommer’s guides. The best journey is always threaded together by an overarching story but there are certain locations that are rich, multi-story landscapes. The kind of places I return to again and again, that are amazing whatever the weather. The kinds of places I am weaving for my Fabricated Land series.
I don’t have enough influence to destroy them by telling you so please plan to go here before you die.
The Wild Northwest
Beyond the Moine Thrust, is a literal slab of North American rock that resembles the monoliths of Utah but with heathery plains rather than sand. The North Coast 500 does run through so it’s hardly secret but people often zoom by. This landscape is made for long trips and yields it glory over slow time.. There are hidden glens, patches of forests, beaches and the daily shift of weather and tide reveal it through incredible changing light. This is also where I went on the best wildlife cruise in the inner Minch I mentioned last week. There is also my favourite passing place in Scotland, these handy wide spots where you can pass campervans and calm the nerves on the rally bending single track roads.
Orkney
Not the Orkneys but the Orkney Islands or simply Orkney. Whereas most of Scotland’s land narratives pivot around the Clearances (200 years ago) or maybe to the wars of Independence (13/14th century), Orcadians like to refer back to the Neolithic or maybe more recently to the Vikings. Either way they go deep and are a people living at peace with their place nestled in deep time. Shetland feels more Norse and more harsh in terms of wind and weather scenery, whereas Orkney can feel more homely and pastoral with wild edges. The light is sublime and the archipelago of islands offer near infinite options to find wildlife or ruins.
Aberdeenshire
During four years at university up here I barely left the city until I got my first job as a photographer covering the North East. What had I missed? Aberdeenshire is vast with Royal Deeside, North Sea fishing ports and vast swathes of rich agricultural land. An East-West drive (yes you can still go to Skye) is a brilliant plan giving your the full transect of Scottish biomes from sandy estuaries and dunes to Caledonian forest and mountain plateaus to the midge (and tourist) infested wonder lands of Skye.
All images © Kieran Dodds 2026
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