The pleasures of summer are fading into memory – but the travel spirit shouldn’t! I actually like the off-season: the crowds have gone home, lodgings have better availability, entry lines are short or gone, and rates are lower. It’s nice and quiet. Awesomeness in any season Traveling outside of peak season does come with other challenges of course. Gone are the long sunny days. Forget about hiking around in shorts and T-shirt. And it’s no fun shivering over a cold one in a pub beer garden! Instead, you can warm up with a wee dram in front of a roaring fire… Mucking about the Minch ..read more

Are you waiting for “Shetland” Season 5? Will it ever come to Netflix? Need a Shetland fix in the mean time? Here it is, the next installment in my own Shetland saga! This one covers the island of Unst, and the adventure of getting there from Lerwick. Northern exposure Unst is the UK’s northernmost inhabited island. How far north is that, you ask? Well, Unst lies at the same latitude as Bergen, Norway, or for my American friends: Anchorage, Alaska. They do get snow here but not much, as the climate is North Atlantic maritime, meaning lots of rain and very fierce winds. Very! The Unst adventure ..read more

A practically perfect place to pop in for a pastry, pie or a peek at proper pre- or post-prandials production! The small town of Pitlochry is exactly halfway between Edinburgh and Inverness at a mere hour and a half from either. Sitting pretty along the River Tummel, Pitlochry makes for a lovely stop on this much-traveled route, or even a stay for a night or two. Tea crossing Just south of the spectacular Cairngorms, Pitlochry boasts a lovely and walkable although busy centre. The main road A924 runs right through town, with the name changing from Perth Road to Atholl Road coming in from the s ..read more