Hiii, your advice was incredibly helpful when I first planed this tour and posted it a few months ago that I chose to make another post. I already adjusted the route to your tips (mainly adding the west coast and tweaking the cairgons). We are starting on Tuesday and I am really excited :). We have 10 days time for this, which I hope will allow us the odd rest day.
Does anyone have experience with wild camping in Scotland? I imagine the further North the easier? Is it possible to find places around Perth (our first night) or is it all farmland?
And am I wrong in the assumption that we can restock our food daily?
Any tips for wild camping or general advice would be highly appreciated.
I'll be sure to post an update next week from the road. Thx for all your help and happy touring!
by MaxHasSpoken
4 Comments
I only did Edinburgh to Oban this summer. In the Trossachs and lake Lochmond national park are few villages, but they have small shops. So shopping was no problem.
Midgets are awful everywhere they appear.
Scotland is beautiful, I wish you a lot of fun and a save journey.
Prepare for midges.
Wild camping in Scotland is easy.
The trick is to plan roughly where you want to be by the end of the day (to the nearest 10 miles). Then in the last 10 miles (or last hour) of your cycle keep your eyes open for a great spot.
Avoid camping in a peat bog, there will only be your skeleton left after the midgies have their fill.
Always respect the place you camp. Leave with everything you take in, be respectful to the locals.
Hi, wife and I did a 3.5 week tour in Scotland in June/July.
Here are my tips and notes:
1) Prepare for midges. However in my experience they were mainly an issue on the evenings to early morning.
2) prepare for rain. Lots of rain.
3) I found wild camping to be hit or miss. Between Edinburgh and Inverness there were many places but honestly between Inverness and John O Groats we had a hard time finding wild camping spots (many places with ‘no camping’ signs). Having said that, we mainly followed the NCN routes so we were ways on busier paved roads. Can’t speak for those who do more off road tracks. I also heard you can ask farmers to set up a pitch but we never tried this.
4) Food sources aren’t that scarce. At least we never had an issue with it. We always managed to find at least one shop a day.
5) If you can make it to Orkney Islands, it is heaven for wild camping and nice cycling.