Scotland

Every new Nomadic Spirit reader gets one question in the welcome letter: what's a place that's stayed with you? Scotland is by far the most named.

We were surprised that almost nobody names the same place. One reader says the Isle of Harris. Another says Arbroath. Cari, who has been twice, didn't pick a place at all. She wrote that her "imagination is always present there."

For anyone who hasn't been, Scotland is the northern third of Great Britain, home to about 5.5 million people. Most of them live in the Central Belt, the strip of lowland between Edinburgh and Glasgow. North and west of it are the Highlands, and off the west coast lie hundreds of islands. Scotland has its own parliament and legal system, and three Scottish banks issue their own banknotes.

Most trips begin in one of the two cities, which are less than an hour apart by train. Edinburgh Castle stands on what's left of an ancient volcano, and you can climb another part of it, Arthur's Seat, without leaving the city. The Old Town and New Town together form a World Heritage Site.

Glasgow is the bigger city. It made its fortune on shipbuilding and trade along the River Clyde, and for a long time it had a rougher reputation than Edinburgh, so many visitors skipped it. UNESCO named it a City of Music in 2008, and its main civic museums, including Kelvingrove, charge no admission. Give it at least two nights.

Lorrie's first answer was "Scotland, but hard to choose." Asked for one place, she remembered arriving in Pitlochry, a Perthshire town about two hours north of Edinburgh by train, on the day of its Highland Games. "What a treat! I'll never forget it!"

The games have run since 1852, on the second Saturday in September, and local volunteers organize them. The day opens with pipe bands parading down Atholl Road, the town's main street, to the recreation ground. After that come the caber toss, where competitors flip a tree trunk end over end, and a tug-of-war championship nobody treats as a joke. The games need more than 5,000 paying spectators a year to keep going.

Richard's whole answer was four words: "Isle of Harris, Scotland."

Harris is in the Outer Hebrides, off Scotland's northwest coast. The ferry from Uig on the Isle of Skye takes about an hour and 40 minutes. The island is known for its long white-sand beaches, Luskentyre the best known of them, and for its tweed. Harris Tweed has its own Act of Parliament, passed in 1993, which says the cloth must be handwoven by islanders in their own homes. Many weavers work in sheds beside their houses, and some will show visitors the loom.

One reader listed Arbroath alongside Rome, Venice and Tuscany as her best memories. Few lists put an Angus fishing town in that company.

Arbroath is about an hour and a half up the east coast from Edinburgh by direct train. Its claim is a fish. An Arbroath smokie is a haddock, salted, tied in pairs by the tail and smoked over a hardwood fire. Under protected status, it can only be made within eight kilometers (five miles) of the town. In the old harbor quarter, known as the Fit o' the Toon, some families still smoke them in their backyards. Walk out along the red sandstone cliffs, then buy a pair from a smokehouse on the way back.

Ancestry is one reason. Scotland's tourism agency estimates that at least 40 million people worldwide can claim Scottish ancestry. In its 2023 visitor survey, 41 percent of visitors from the United States, Canada and Australia named that ancestry as a major reason for coming, and the pull was strongest among Canadians.

On the longest day of the year, Edinburgh gets more than 17 and a half hours of daylight, and Shetland, in the far north, close to 19. The weather can change the view several times before dinner.

Then there is the right to roam. Under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003, everyone has the right to cross most land and inland water, provided they do it responsibly.

The same survey found that 80 percent of visitors were likely to return within five years.

Late spring through September is the most comfortable stretch, and September brings the last of the Highland Games. Edinburgh and Glasgow both have international airports, and trains link the main towns. The islands take more planning, particularly around ferry schedules. A week covers two places comfortably. Pick one city and one coast or island, and keep a spare day for the weather.