About
The Highlands, the islands, and the crossings between.
Our name is plain on purpose: it says where we go. This is how we plan.
Our story
Why the edges.
Machair is the Gaelic name for a strip of land found in very few places: the low, wind-flattened grassland behind the Atlantic beaches of the Hebrides. It is built from crushed shell blown inland over thousands of years, and crofters still keep it open by cutting and grazing it in turn. In June it goes yellow with bird’s-foot trefoil, then white with clover. Corncrakes rasp from the iris beds at midnight, when it never quite gets dark.
Our name is plain on purpose: the Highlands, the islands, and the crossings between them. The machair explains how we plan them. It’s the edge, where the road gives out and the ferry takes over. It looks empty and isn’t. And it rewards the traveller who arrives slowly and stays.
Highland & Isle plans private trips to the islands and the far west and north: the Long Island from Barra to the Butt of Lewis, Islay and Jura, Mull and Iona, the Small Isles, Orkney and Shetland. We add the Highland estates and pinewoods that belong alongside them. We book the summer car spaces on the CalMac crossings before they go, the sleeper north from Euston, the skipper who’ll run you to St Kilda when the swell drops, the weaver who’ll show you a Harris Tweed loom, and the ghillie on a beat of the Spey.
We don’t do coach tours, castle checklists or the North Coast 500 in five days. We plan one trip at a time, around tide tables, ferry timetables and the light.
Machair: MAKH-er, the “ch” as in loch. The flowering shell-sand grassland behind the Atlantic beaches of the Hebridesverify.
One word we use a lot
How we plan
How a trip comes together.
You tell us
A rough idea is enough: an island you’ve read about, a month, how long you have, who’s coming. Use the trip planner or write to us.
We talk
A specialist calls or writes back with questions: pace, driving, food, what you’ve already seen.
We propose
A written proposal: the route, the crossings, the houses, the days, and one price for the whole trip.
We book
When you say yes, we book everything: car spaces first, then the houses, boats and guides.
You travel
With a document that has every crossing and booking in it, and a person to reach if plans change.
What we hold to
Six principles.
One planner
The person who answers your first email plans the whole trip and is there while you travel.
Islands first
The Long Island, the Small Isles, Orkney and Shetland: the places most tours leave for the last day.
By sea and rail
Ferries, the sleeper and private boats, booked early. Summer car spaces go first.
Buffer nights
Ferries stop for the wind. We leave a night before every long crossing home.
No package prices
No two trips cost the same. The proposal gives one price for yours.
Stalking never assumed
On an estate we plan walks, rivers and boats. Shooting only if you ask.
Speak to a specialist
Start with a rough idea.
An island, a month, how long you have. That’s enough.
Where do you want to go?
The eleven regions