3 Best Sights in The Northern Highlands and the Western Isles, Scotland

Owing its dwindling fame to Ring of Bright Water, Gavin Maxwell's much-loved 1960 account of his work with semi-wild otters on the island (also a lighthearted 1969 rom-com starring Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna), Eilean Ban is a six-acre nature reserve, home to otters, seals, and seabirds. Once very scenic, it is now sadly literally overshadowed by the Skye Bridge. The Eilean Ban Trust operates twice-daily guided visits to Eilean Ban and its historic lighthouse from Kyleakin, 6 miles east of Broadford.

Learn more about life in the Western Isles and trace your Hebridean ancestry at this informative visitor center. Photographs and interpretive signs reveal the long and turbulent history of Harris and its residents, with the owners organizing guided walks and cultural evenings every week between May and September.

This rich museum (formerly known as Caithness Horizons) is set within the beautiful Old Town Hall and displays multiple facets of the region's past from the dawn of time to the present day; that's everything from Picts and Vikings to the highly controversial Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment, dating from the 1950s and now gradually being decommissioned. There is also a pleasant café and shop.