Some places impress you. Some astound you with their grandeur. Others leave you in awe of their beauty. But occasionally, you come across somewhere that feels emotional. Somewhere that does not simply give you something beautiful to look at, but makes you feel something. For me, that place was the Scottish Highlands.
I was about 15 when I went, on a two-day road trip from London. Even now, I think the only proper way to experience the Highlands is by car. We drove north through England, crossed into Scotland and eventually made our way towards Inverness, with the landscape changing gradually around us. The cities became smaller, the roads quieter and the countryside increasingly wild and then, almost without warning, the Highlands appeared.
I remember looking out of the window and thinking that if I ever wanted to end up somewhere, this was it.
There was something almost unreal about the landscape. Mountains rose in the distance, valleys stretched endlessly ahead and the roads seemed to disappear into scenery that looked too perfectly composed to be real. It felt less like travelling through a country and more like travelling through art.
We stayed at the Heathmount Hotel in Inverness, close enough to the centre that we could explore the surrounding areas on foot. The streets around the hotel had a quiet, distinctly Scottish character, with traditional stone buildings, narrow roads and the feeling of a small community going about its life.
We walked around without much of a plan. At 15, I was not particularly interested in architectural history or the finer details of Inverness. I simply wanted to see what was around the corner. There was no itinerary to follow, no attraction we desperately needed to reach. We were simply going with the flow.
The next day, we drove towards the Loch Ness, following the A82 along the western shore. The road itself was part of the experience, winding through some of the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen. Our destination was Urquhart Castle, whose ruins sit dramatically on the edge of the Loch.
The castle was magnificent in the way ruins often are. There was something strangely moving about standing among the remains of something that had once been so important. Stone walls, towers and fragments of a fortress stood above the water, while the enormous loch stretched into the distance.
I should clarify that I was not there hoping to see the monster. Even at 15, I knew Nessie was more legend than zoological discovery. The real spectacle was the water, the mountains and the sheer scale of everything around it.
Loch Ness did not need a monster; it was beautiful simply because it existed.
Afterwards, we eventually made our way back towards Edinburgh. We spent time wandering around the city, seeing some of its sights, eating and soaking in as much of Scotland as we could before heading back.
The food deserves its own honourable mention. I tried haggis, the famously Scottish dish traditionally made from sheep’s offal mixed with oatmeal, onions and seasoning. It sounds considerably less appetising when you list the ingredients than it tastes when it arrives on a plate. I also had venison and Cullen skink, a thick, comforting Scottish soup made with smoked haddock, potatoes and milk.
But strangely, when I think back on that trip, food and castles are not what I remember most.
I remember looking through the window and watching the landscape unfold. I remember how enormous everything felt: The silence, the feeling that there was nowhere else I needed to be.
I have seen places since then that were grander, more famous and perhaps even more beautiful. But the Highlands occupy a different place in my memory.
Maybe it is because I was 15, when the world still had a way of appearing larger than life.
Or maybe it is because the Highlands possess something that photographs struggle to capture. A sense of scale, solitude and stillness that only really makes sense when you are standing there.
Two days were nowhere near enough. But perhaps that is what makes the memory so precious. We saw only a fraction of Scotland, yet somehow, I left with the feeling that I had witnessed something timeless.
It was as if someone had taken a blank canvas, dipped a brush into every shade of green, blue and magenta imaginable, added mountains, mist, water and ancient stone, and then decided to leave the whole thing untouched.
