Four days on the Isle of Skye: the best scenery in Britain, and it will rain on you
Over the bridge and north to Portree, the Trotternish landslip in a day, the western peninsulas and the lighthouse, and the Cuillin waterfalls on the way out.
- Length
- 4 days, 3 nights
- Where you stay
- Portree
- Places
- 9 across 4 days
Skye is a landscape that has not finished happening. The whole eastern side of the northern peninsula is a landslip, the biggest in Britain, where a cap of lava slid off softer rock underneath and left a wall of cliffs with towers and pinnacles stranded below it. The black mountains in the south are the eroded roots of a volcano. Nothing on the island looks settled, and most of it looks like the last day of the world.
It is also busy. Skye takes more visitors in a summer than it can comfortably hold, the car parks at the famous walks fill by nine in the morning, and the roads to them are single track with passing places. None of that is a reason not to come. It is a reason to start early, and to give the island four days rather than fitting it into two on the way somewhere else.
Portree is the obvious base: 2,300 people, a harbour of painted houses, the island's shops, and no more than an hour from anywhere you want to be. Three nights there covers the north, the west and the mountains in the middle with a different peninsula each day.
Highlights
- A fifty metre rock pinnacle left standing when the hillside slid out from under it
- A waterfall that drops straight off a cliff into the sea, beside rock pleated like cloth
- A clan seat lived in for eight centuries, keeping a scrap of old silk it calls a fairy flag
- A lighthouse at the westernmost point of the island, down a path with the Outer Hebrides in front of it
- Cold clear pools stepping down a burn under the black mountains
Where to stay
Portree, three nights
The island is shaped like a hand with the fingers spread, and Portree sits in the palm on the east coast. That is what makes it the base: the northern peninsula is a loop of an hour and a half from the town, Dunvegan and the west are fifty minutes out, the mountains and the distillery are forty, and you come back to the same bed each night.
The town is small enough to cross in ten minutes. A square with the bus stand, a steep street down to a harbour ringed with painted houses, a couple of good pubs and the only real shops on the island. Beds cost more here than anywhere else on Skye and are worth it for the driving you save.
Day by day
Day 1 in Portree
Over the bridge, the castle at Kyleakin and north to Portree
The bridge lands you at Kyleakin, a village that was the ferry slip until 1995 and lost its whole reason for existing overnight. It has kept a ruin on a rock at the harbour mouth: a MacKinnon stronghold, roofless and half fallen, where a Norse princess is supposed to have strung a chain across the strait and charged passing ships for the privilege of not being stopped by it.
Then drive north. The main road runs up the east coast through Broadford, and at Sligachan the whole Cuillin ridge appears on your left at once, black and serrated and usually with its top in cloud. Stop at the old bridge there; it is the best free view on the island and takes five minutes.
Portree is another twenty minutes on. Get the car parked, walk down to the harbour, and eat early, because kitchens here fill up.
- 14:00
Skye Bridge
ArchitectureA single concrete arch to the mainland, opened in 1995 and toll free since 2004. Park in Kyleakin and walk out on it if you want the view up the strait.
- 14:45
Castle Moil
ArchitectureThe ruined MacKinnon keep on the point at Kyleakin, ten minutes up a short path from the village. Free, always open, and worth it for the outlook rather than the walls.
- 19:00
Dinner on Portree harbour
EatThe row of painted houses along the water holds most of the town's restaurants. Seafood landed here, and a table booked in advance in summer.
With more time: Coming by ferry from Mallaig instead? Armadale is the landing, and the Clan Donald estate beside the pier has a ruined mansion of 1790 in forty acres of woodland garden, which is a gentler first hour on the island than a castle on a rock.
Day 2 in Portree
The Old Man of Storr, Kilt Rock and the Quiraing
The whole day is one loop around the northern peninsula, and it holds the landscape everybody comes for. Start at the Storr, ten minutes north of Portree, and start early: the car park charges, fills by mid morning in summer and has a queue on the road by eleven. The path up is an hour of steady climbing on a rebuilt track, and the reward is a fifty metre finger of rock standing clear of the cliff behind it, with the sound of Raasay below.
Carry on north to the viewpoint above Kilt Rock, where a cliff of vertical basalt columns over horizontal beds does look uncannily like pleated cloth, and a burn goes straight over the edge into the sea beside it. Five minutes at the railing, no walking.
Then the Quiraing, up a single track road that climbs in hairpins to a pass. This is the live part of the landslip: it is still moving, the road below it needs repairing most years, and the path out along the face into the hidden green plateau is one of the great walks in Scotland. Go as far as the light and your boots allow and turn back.
- 08:30
Old Man of Storr
OtherThe pinnacle everyone photographs, an hour up and forty minutes down on a good path. Paid car park, no cash, and it is full by ten from May to September.
- 12:00
Kilt Rock
NatureA ninety metre sea cliff of basalt columns with a waterfall dropping off the top. Roadside car park, a railing, five minutes, and worth stopping for.
- 12:45
Lunch at Staffin
EatThe village on the coast below the Quiraing road has a cafe and a shop. It is the only food between Portree and the north end, so use it.
- 14:00
Quiraing
NatureThe still moving section of the landslip, reached by a hairpin road from Staffin. An hour out and back gets you into it; the full circuit is about three hours and has an exposed section.
With more time: Complete the loop back down the west side rather than returning the way you came. Near the northern tip a row of thatched black houses has been kept as a museum of croft life, with the grave of Flora MacDonald in the burial ground above it, and the fourteenth century Macdonald stronghold on the headland beyond is a spectacular ruin you can walk to in ten minutes.
Day 3 in Portree
Dunvegan, lunch at Colbost and the lighthouse at Neist Point
West today, into the two peninsulas that most visitors skip. The castle at Dunvegan has been held by the same family for eight hundred years, which makes it the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland, and inside are the things a clan keeps: a fifteenth century cup, Rory Mor's drinking horn, and a fragment of ancient silk called the fairy flag that was carried into battle twice and is probably Syrian, from the Crusades or before. The gardens run down to the loch and the boats out to the seal colony leave from the jetty.
Lunch fifteen minutes west at Colbost, where a crofthouse restaurant has been feeding people who drove a long way to get there since 1985. Book it well ahead or eat at the several good alternatives along the same road.
Then out to the end. The road runs to a car park above the cliffs and a concrete path drops steeply to the lighthouse on the westernmost point of Skye, with the Outer Hebrides on the horizon and whales and basking sharks in the water below in late summer. It is twenty minutes down and thirty back up, and it is the best place on the island to be at sunset.
- 10:00
Dunvegan Castle & Gardens
HistoricEight hundred years of Clan MacLeod on a rock above the loch, Victorianised outside and full of relics inside. Allow ninety minutes with the gardens, more with the seal boat.
- 13:00
The Three Chimneys
OtherThe crofthouse restaurant at Colbost, famous since the 1980s and still the meal people remember. Book weeks ahead in summer; the set lunch is the affordable way in.
- 15:30
Neist Point Lighthouse
ArchitectureThe westernmost point of Skye, down a steep concrete path with a chain handrail. Twenty minutes down, thirty back, and no barriers at the edge in a wind that can knock you over.
With more time: The other western peninsula, Waternish, is quieter still and takes an extra hour: a ruined medieval church at its far end was the site of a clan massacre in 1578, and the road passes a bridge where MacLeod tradition says a fairy wife said goodbye to her husband. There are oysters and a sixteenth century inn on the way back.
Day 4 in Portree
The Fairy Pools, Talisker and the road out
The last morning belongs to the mountains. A track goes up Glen Brittle beside a burn that steps down through a series of clear pools and small falls, with the Cuillin ridge standing over it. Forty minutes up, forty back, on a path that is stony and frequently a stream. People swim, and the water is about ten degrees in August.
Ten minutes back down the glen and round the loch is the distillery at Carbost, working since 1830 and rebuilt after a fire in 1960, which makes a heavy peated malt of the sort Islay is better known for. Tours book up in summer and the drivers among you get a sample to take away.
From there it is an hour and a half to the bridge and the mainland, or three and a half to Inverness.
- 09:00
Fairy Pools
NatureA chain of clear pools and falls under the Cuillin, forty minutes up the glen from a paid car park. Boots, and expect to cross water on stepping stones.
- 12:00
Talisker Distillery
OtherThe island's oldest distillery, at the head of a sea loch, making a heavy peated malt since 1830. Book the tour, and take the driver's dram in a bottle.
With more time: With an extra half day, take the road south to the village at the end of the Strathaird peninsula and get the boat across to the sea loch under the Cuillin, ringed by mountains on three sides and reachable no other easy way. Boats run from about April to October and the crossing takes half an hour.
Before you go
Getting in
Skye has been joined to the mainland since the bridge opened in 1995, and the tolls that everybody hated were bought out in 2004, so the crossing is free. From Inverness it is about two and a half hours of driving, from Glasgow five, from Edinburgh five and a half.
The prettier arrival is the ferry from Mallaig to Armadale in the south of the island, forty minutes across, which pairs with the train from Fort William along the West Highland line. Book the car space ahead in summer. There is also a tiny turntable ferry at Glenelg that carries six cars at a time and runs in the season only.
Do I need a car?
Effectively yes. Buses exist and are better than their reputation: a service circles the northern peninsula every two or three hours, another runs west to Dunvegan four times a day, and coaches come in from Glasgow and Inverness. But the walks start at car parks and the timetable will cost you half of each day.
Hire in Inverness or Glasgow rather than on the island, where the choice is small and the prices are not. Fill up in Portree or Broadford; fuel elsewhere is scarce and dearer.
Single track roads
Most of the island away from the main road is one lane with passing places, and the etiquette is simple and non negotiable. Pull into a passing place on your left, or stop opposite one on your right, for anything coming the other way. Let faster traffic behind you past at the first chance rather than the fifth, because most of it is somebody working. Never park in a passing place.
Sheep have the right of way and know it. Journey times are roughly double what a map suggests, so half an hour on paper is an hour in practice.
Weather, and midges
It rains here about two days in three and the wind comes with it. Four days is partly insurance: you are unlikely to lose all of them, and a cleared sky an hour after a downpour is normal. Waterproof boots and a proper jacket matter more than any other packing decision, because the paths are peat and become channels of water.
Midges are out from June to early September, worst at dawn and dusk in still damp weather and absent in any breeze. Repellent with DEET or the Avon oil the locals swear by, and a head net if you plan to stand still outdoors in July.
Booking, and eating
Book beds for the summer months by about March. Skye runs out of accommodation, and people end up commuting from Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland. Book the good restaurants at the same time as the beds, and the distillery tour a few weeks ahead.
The eating is better than an island of ten thousand people has any right to expect: langoustines and scallops landed locally, oysters from the loch at Dunvegan, and a couple of restaurants that people drive from the mainland for. Outside Portree and Broadford, kitchens stop early.
Skye rewards patience more than planning. The cloud that is sitting on the ridge at nine will very often have lifted by two, and the pinnacle you could not see on the way north is the thing you cannot stop looking at on the way back.
Set off early, keep the boots on, and let the weather decide the order.
Or make it a longer trip
These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is four days enough for Skye?
- It is the right length for the island itself: one day north, one west, one for the mountains and a light arrival. Two days means the Storr and the Quiraing and nothing else. A week lets you add the small islands, the Sleat peninsula and a long walk into the Cuillin.
- When is the best time to go?
- May and September. Long light, fewer cars, and the midges are either not out yet or going. June and July are beautiful and crowded, and everything must be booked. Winter has about six hours of usable daylight and half the restaurants shut, but the light on a clear day is extraordinary.
- Can I do Skye without a car?
- You can see a good deal of it. Coaches come from Glasgow and Inverness, a bus circles the northern peninsula, and there are guided day tours from Portree. But the walks start where the buses do not, so expect to see less and wait more.
- How hard are the walks?
- The three main ones are an hour or two on maintained paths with real climbing and no scrambling. The Cuillin ridge behind them is a different sport altogether: it is the hardest mountaineering in Britain and needs a guide and a rope.
- Where should I stay?
- Portree, unless you have booked late and it is full, in which case Broadford in the south or Dunvegan in the west. Book by spring for summer. Staying on the mainland at Kyle of Lochalsh works and costs you an hour of driving a day.
- Can I change it?
- Yes. Open it in your account and it becomes an ordinary trip: swap a peninsula, add a night, move the walks to the day the forecast is kinder, delete whatever does not appeal.