Scotland’s Must-Visit Remote Islands and Attractions

Lying 41 miles west of Benbecula, St Kilda is often described as Scotland’s most remote island group, and for many of our guests a visit is the voyage of a lifetime.

People lived here for at least 4,000 years, until the last 36 islanders left Hirta, the main island, at their own request in 1930. Their village still curves around Village Bay, grazed by wild Soay sheep, while above it rise the highest sea cliffs in Britain and the great stacs of Stac Lee and Stac an Armin, white with gannets.

With the islands fully exposed to the Atlantic, every visit takes careful planning, and our itineraries draw on years of experience of when a landing is most likely, as seen in our St Kilda and the Outer Isles past cruise log. Our Surprise cruises can bring an unexpected chance too, as on one Autumn Surprise voyage that took Hebridean Princess to St Kilda in October, what we believe was her first visit at that time of year.

At the southern tip of the Outer Hebrides lie Berneray, Mingulay and Pabbay, known together as the Bishop’s Isles. All three are uninhabited, with white sand beaches, flower-strewn machair and cliffs alive with puffins and razorbills.

Mingulay was home to around 150 people in the late 19th century, but with no safe landing place life became too hard, and the last islanders left in 1912. Their roofless village still stands above the bay. Our captains rate its silver sand as one of the finest spots for a beach landing, often with a few dozen seals looking on, and depending on the itinerary it can follow a visit to St Kilda.

Out in the Minch, a few miles off the coast of Lewis and Harris, the Shiant Isles have been owned by the Nicolson family since 1937, and the writer Adam Nicolson wrote lovingly about them in his book Sea Room. Nobody lives here, and local legend says the surrounding waters are haunted by kelpies.

In early summer, the great basalt columns, reminiscent of Staffa, are crowded with thousands of puffins, guillemots and razorbills, while white-tailed sea eagles are often seen overhead. Depending on the sea, we either cruise the seabird cliffs by small boat or make a beach landing, as in our Western Isles Wildlife past cruise log.

Inverie sits on the Knoydart peninsula, sometimes called Britain’s last wilderness. Although it is on the mainland, no road reaches it, and its hundred or so residents rely on the ferry from Mallaig or a 17-mile walk over the mountains.

Knoydart has a turbulent past, from the clearances of 1853 when hundreds of tenants were shipped to Canada, to the famous land raid by the Seven Men of Knoydart in 1948. In 1999 the community finally bought the estate for itself.

Since 2022 the community has owned the Old Forge too, often called Scotland’s most remote pub. Inverie is a port of call on cruises aboard all three of our ships, Hebridean Princess, Lord of the Highlands and Lord of the Glens. Arriving by sea as evening falls over Loch Nevis, guests step ashore for a drink by the fire at the Old Forge, and on some itineraries a local ranger leads walks out across the peninsula.

Wild and mountainous, Jura is home to around 200 people and 6,500 red deer, with a single road running up its east coast. George Orwell came here to write Nineteen Eighty-Four, in a remote farmhouse near the island’s northern tip, and beyond it the Gulf of Corryvreckan swirls with one of the largest whirlpools in the world.

Hebridean Princess anchors off Craighouse, the island’s only village, for walks along Small Isles Bay past the Jura Distillery, as seen in our Lure of the Clyde past cruise log, one of many voyages through the Inner Hebrides.

Shetland holds some of Britain’s most remote inhabited islands.

Fair Isle, midway between Orkney and Shetland, has fewer than 50 residents and is famous for its knitting and its bird observatory. Landing here is notoriously tricky, but when the swell allows, guests go ashore to a warm island welcome and walks to the observatory. When it does not, Hebridean Princess circles the island so everyone can marvel at the puffins crowding its sea stacks.

Unst is the most northerly inhabited island in the UK, with more to discover than you might expect. Depending on the itinerary, guests might walk the almost alpine Keen of Hamar nature reserve, see a replica Viking longship or visit SaxaVord, the UK’s first spaceport licensed for vertical launches, as in our Summer in the Northern Isles past cruise log. Few leave without a photograph of Bobby’s Bus Shelter, which islanders redecorate with a new theme every year, and just offshore stands Muckle Flugga, Britain’s most northerly lighthouse.

Stroma lies just two miles off John o’ Groats, yet the fierce tides of the Pentland Firth often left its islanders cut off from the mainland. Around 375 people lived here in the early 1900s, but the last families left in 1962, and today the privately owned island belongs to sheep and seabirds.

Its deserted cottages and old kirk still stand among the bog cotton, and wandering between them, with only the wind and the curlews for company, is a strangely moving experience. Guests have explored the island on our Northern Isles voyages, as captured in our Hidden Outposts of the Northern Isles past cruise log.