So I decided to see Scotland, for no very good reason except that I had three weeks to spend. That’s not entirely true; I’ve wanted to see the Hebrides since I heard an anecdote about it in college.¹ And then I realized there was a working airport on the beach, and then I found out your could rent a tiny house on the coast, and you could spend a weekend in Inverness touring Loch Ness, and soon I had planned out a whole string of stops along the way.

It’s that trade-off I keep having to make. Because of all the places I wanted to stop, I ended up staying three days or fewer at each one. So I’m feeling a bit jangly and on edge, a feeling compounded by the vague terror of public transit around the Hebrides. I could have booked in at fewer places for longer, which would have been far more relaxing. But what do you skip? Loch Ness? The Amhuinnsuidhe Castle? The Isle of Skye?

You can divide my trip between the rural and the urban portions. I started in Edinburgh, where I got to spend a day tromping around the castle and having a late tea at the Balmoral.² I had intended on getting more in — had I been to the castle before noon I could have wandered around the National Gallery before tea — but the place I was staying had one of those immensely comfortable beds and I just didn’t want to get up. I’ve encountered a wide variety of mattresses while traveling and to my shock I’m not all that particular. I sleep just fine on just about anything. But an occasional night in the occasional ridiculously soft bed is soul-affirming, especially if you’re not going to ruin your back in one by doing it in the long term. I had only booked in for two days, so I was on a bus for the Isle of Skye at 8:00 on the Monday.

I also spent a little time in Inverness,³ most notable for the day trip it let me take to Loch Ness.⁴ And I ended up in Glasgow (flying in from that tiny beach airport I mentioned), where I was able to meet up with friends and have them show me the city. I got to see the Necropolis and the Gallery of Modern Art,⁵ and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with them and playing board games. It was a lovely end to the trip.

In between Edinburgh and Glasgow I visited the Hebrides. I guess this is as rural as I’ve been so far on this trip, and it’s interesting to see what that means. And what that means is bus routes to at best a mile of where I’m trying to get and cell phone service with occasionally wonky reception issues. I don’t want to undersell how rural some of it was — I could (and did) stand on the coast for hours without seeing another living soul.⁶ But I was always no more than a 20 minute hike to somewhere with people and cars and telephones, even if I couldn’t get reception.

I’m sure I could have gotten farther away from things if I really wanted to,⁷ but my point is mostly about how hard it is to escape the modern world, now. I was talking with a cab driver on the islands⁸ who mentioned that as recently as five years ago some B&B’s were actively advertising they didn’t have WiFi, specifically to attract people trying to disconnect. Now they all do. The Hebrides used to represent, for a certain type of person,⁹ the ends of the world. But you just can’t get as lost as you used to.

But that’s all largely hidden. On the surface things are exactly as you might picture it — craggy, windblasted terrain; picturesque bluffs over rough seas; skies overcast with clouds and frequently spitting down rain; and mile upon mile of hundreds upon hundreds of sheep. It seemed like at least half the fields you saw were occupied with at least a couple dozen of them. Fences were often in somewhat loose repair, so it wasn’t uncommon to run into them in your path, and you’d have to gradually ease them out of the way with your car.¹⁰ I apparently timed my visit to coincide with the birthing season, so there were plenty of lambs adorably frolicking in the fields, blithely unaware of their likely fate as a Sunday roast.

I did stay in a couple B&B’s, one on the Isle of Skye and the other Amhuinnsuidhe Castle, the latter of which was pricy but outrageously opulent in a restrained Scottish hunting manor style. It was built in 1867 by the then owner of the island and is currently being run by a conservancy as an event space and B&B. They had a Renoir and a Chagall hanging in the parlor. There were a few authentic ancient Egyptian vases lying around, and a billiard room with a brace of what I assume were African spears on the wall. It served afternoon tea, a full breakfast, and a four-course dinner — all included in the price — and a ridiculously well-stocked honesty bar which I guess, depending on your level of larceny, was also included in the price.

The four-course dinner was especially interesting, since it was a fixed menu, shared between all the guests. We don’t often have that kind of experience any more. I can’t recall the last time I sat down to eat with a group of people I didn’t know, and had no immediate common ground with. It was a little aggressively social¹¹ — you’re spending what turns out to be two hours talking with your dining companions — but we eventually found some common topics to discuss. It was easy to imagine what socializing in that house would have looked like 150 years ago, and I suppose the thing I found most strange about the whole thing is that I wasn’t wearing a costume when I did it.

Most of my time on the Hebrides, though, I spent alone. The two nights I spent on the Isle of Lewis, for example: I had rented a pod¹² about a 40 minute bus ride from Stornaway, packed some takeaway sandwiches from Tesco, and caught the bus. I then discovered they didn’t have WiFi,¹³ and my phone reception only picked up about a five minute walk down the road. So that was a 36-hour stretch with no human contact at all, not even through a computer.

I tend to think of my travel as being binary — I spend time alone or I spend time with other people. But there’s all sorts of gradations. I can be wandering alone in the middle of London, still chatting here and there with cab drivers or waiters or museum staff. I can be in a crowded bar with friends, sitting in the corner, not saying anything. I can lock myself in my room and work for a week, constantly chatting online with people I haven’t seen in months.

Being alone, like really alone, was pretty intense. Not bad, mind you. But it struck me that I don’t often really have time to think. I mean, I’m reading a lot, I have a lot of downtime waiting for flights or traveling on trains. I spent a lot of evenings reading in restaurants. But I’m usually in the middle of things; surrounded by crowds, or worried I’ll miss an announcement in the airport. I’m distracted.

What I got from the Hebrides was, for the first time in I don’t know how long, silence. Human silence. There was the wind, and the sea. Smatterings of rain. I bought a small bottle of whisky¹⁴ in Inverness, and sat out on the coast for a very long time, drinking it, watching the water, and thinking about the world, and myself, and everything in between. I don’t think I figured anything out — it’s a lot to ask of a long afternoon, even one where the sun starts to set at 10pm, and you probably shouldn’t come to any conclusions after finishing a bottle of Scotch, no matter how good the bottle.¹⁵ But at least I know where to go when I need to keep thinking. I’ll gladly trade a year’s travel, just to have learned that.

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Footnotes

¹ The anecdote concerns Thomas Boswell and Samuel Johnson. Johnson, famously, saw very little point in leaving London. Apparently one year, Boswell finally convinced Johnson they should go on vacation to the Hebrides. So they took the long trip up, and found themselves trapped in the middle of an island far to the northwest in the midst of what my professor described as Real Scottish Weather, storm blown in from the Atlantic, wind screaming, torrential rain finding every possible crack in the walls, when Johnson turns to Boswell and, indignant, demands “What are we doing here?”

² The Balmoral tea turned out to be Alice-in-Wonderland themed, and this one featured a parade of Alice-in-Wonderland inspired costumes from the local fashion university as a special treat. I’ve no idea how thrilling it is to be paraded around every couple of hours in front of well-to-do patrons, but I guess if you’re in fashion you’re used to that. The Queen of Hearts seemed like she was having none of it, but it’s impossible to know if that was just the character. The March Hare looked positively delighted.

They did give me a delightful wee tin of tea to take home, which was absolutely lovely, but I don’t drink much tea. I handed it off to my friend, who I hope enjoyed it far more than I would have.

³ The less said about the better

⁴ I sprung for the 7-hour bus tour that picked you up, took you around the area a bit, dropped you at the Loch Ness Visitor’s Center, then over to Urquhart Castle, then put you on a ferry for the ride back to Inverness. I was worried I’d be bored, but the Visitor’s Center is entertainingly cheesy, the bus driver has an engaging patter, and it all went by far too quickly.

⁵ Including, yes, Conehead Wellington.

⁶ Okay, not counting the sheep

⁷ Although probably not realistically without a car

⁸ Somebody alert Thomas Friedman.

Actually, the taxis were one of the interesting features of the travel around there. They were absolutely essential for some parts of my travel, without a car. But when you called a cab, you literally called a cab. Singular. The phone number was to a single person, often their mobile, and you asked them if they were available at such-and-such a time. So finding a cab involves calling a sequence of services until you find someone who’s around and not busy.

The place I was staying on South Uist was a 30 minute walk from the bus stop and a 40 minute walk to the closest restaurant. I called a few drivers and eventually found someone who was free. I made arrangements for him to drive me back and forth for dinner, as well as over to the ferry the next morning, and he refused payment until the last trip, when I payed for everything with a £20 note.

⁹ Boswell and Johnson, for example

¹⁰ Not so while walking. While I was staying on the Isle of Skye it was a mile walk down to the village, and I’d be stared at the entire way. It was straight-up profiling. I’d clomp into view and lambs would rush over to their mothers. The mothers would slowly and deliberately shepherd them over to the other side of the road, keeping an eye on me the whole time.

Every place I visited I found the inhabitants friendly, gregarious, and welcoming. But all the stereotypes of a stranger finding a hostile reception wandering into a small, rural British town can be found with the sheep.

¹¹ I suppose you could have asked the kitchen to put together a plate and send it up to your room, if you wanted to spend the evening in seclusion.

¹² This is now a thing, so pay attention. There are these adorable pre-fab “pods” which you can kind of think of as stationary campers, albeit more sturdily constructed. They’re these triangular things, barely big enough to stand up in. They’ve got a minifridge and a microwave, built-in climate control with floor heaters, LED mood lighting, a nice big porthole on one side with a door on the other, and a pair of cushioned seats that converts to a passible (if not great) bed. Also what would be a reasonably-sized shower if they didn’t stick a toilet in the middle of it to save space.

Not a place I’d want to stay long-term, but I did find myself desperately wishing for a real, solid thunderstorm while I was snugly curled up inside. Alas.

¹³ My fault, I should have checked the fine print more closely.

¹⁴ The Wee Witchie, Mortlach Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky “combining both ex-bourbon and ex-sherry matured whisky to balance the distillery’s traditionally weighty, dried fruit character against fresh fruit and vanilla notes”

¹⁵ No offense to the grand tradition of Scottish philosophy