Trip to Scotland 1983: Four and half months in the Highlands and Islands

[DCampbell16B]

Roughly clockwise from the left:
Theatre tickets from concerts in Aberdeen
Currency exchange ticket
Currency exchange ticket from the Clydesdale Bank
Shipping tag to ship suitcase ahead (all it took for an address)
Some fare tickets from the post bus (the postman would print them to cover the fare, for instance a 45p fare was two 20p tickets and a 5p)
Bus tickets if I remember correctly
CalMac overnight berth
Currency exchange Bank of Scotland
Center:
Bus tickets(?)
Couple of meal receipts

[DCampbell16B]

Post bus to Dalmaly and bus Tyndrum. Loch Awe as blue as I've ever seen. Sky semi-cloudy. Pictures in Daily Record and Oban Times. Incredibly clear around Tyndrum. Sun shining. Heather beginning to bloom. Incredibly clear today. Glen Coe beautiful. Folk Museum so-so. Left suitcase in bushes by bus stop. Glencoe not the friendliest town I've seen. Moved suitcase to police station. 2 days ago a man fell from Aonach Dubh and died.

£1.15 bus
95p bus
45p papers
34p lunch
£2.45 bus
30p Folk Museum
£1.43½ food

[DCampbell16B]

Staying tonight Glencoe. Morning walked to NTS Glencoe. Scared up 2 deer but saw only 1. An Torr, Signal Rock
Looks hazy up the glen, clear down it. Visitors Center good. Interviewed afterwards.
Missed Coire Gabhail by one so had to cross half to one mile of moor like Rannoch but flatter and dry. Ate half way up to Coire Gabhail in notch by stream with the clearest water ever seen. No peat. Almost like air. Took a drink and dipped [unclear]. Hard to tell where the water is.
Made it over falls/ravine but not to top. Left shirts and camera in valley anyway. Over one hour up ~20minutes down. Back in valley, colors so sharp and vivid, each rock clear and distinct and grass green and sky deep blue.
Get to Kingussie, train tracks to Inverness! Also Inverness and Perth goes through Kingussie regularly. Back to Hostel. Ride to village, bought food, walked to hostel. Showered. Tea. Sat on steps in evening and played whistle. Met guy from Germany and girl from Australia. Hostel warden says several Gaelic speakers in Glencoe.

25p Visitors Centre/Center
69p food
2.30 hostel
13p pen
10p shower


Aonach Eagach, on the right is The Chancellor


Coire Gabhail (note the snow in late July)

[OC Richard]

Thanks so much for posting this fascinating account!

So much resonates with our honeymoon trip in 1986.

I kept a simple diary and the huge paper map we used, with our itinerary marked in red. (Sadly I have no idea where these thing are.)

As best I can recall, the trip was:

-fly into Manchester
-York
-Edinburgh
-Blairgowrie
-Pitlochry
-Inverness
-Isle of Skye
-Fort William
-Oban
-Isle of Arran
-Glasgow
-Edinburgh (again!)
-Chester
-North Wales
-fly out Manchester

We mostly stayed at farms. There was a farm-stay B&B program; they sent us a booklet with the locations and phone numbers of all the participating farms, and each day we called the nearest one to see if they had room for us.

They always had room. Though our trip was in late July Britain was devoid of tourists. We were the only visitors at the B&Bs. We visited empty castles and museums. Edinburgh, only a couple weeks before Festival, was quiet.

Why? A few months prior to our trip terrorists had carried out attacks at airports in Rome and Vienna, and most people were afraid to travel.

[Jock Scot]

.................. Glencoe not the friendliest town I've seen.........

An interesting observation there and one that I am familiar with from comments other visitors to that particular area, not locals, have mentioned from time to time.

As a near almost local I probably don’t notice that atmosphere myself and of course would prefer that it would not happen. I have, on occasion, wondered if it is to do with tourist overload?

[DCampbell16B]

I think you are right about tourist overload. I'm sure since Queen Victoria made the Highlands a destination people have come to Glen Coe due to its grisly past. While the hill walkers and technical climbers go and do their thing, the bus loads of tourists must be a constant intrusion into daily life. The locals must get tired of questions about whether their ancestors were among the murdered, where was their home, poor you, isn't the gloomy atmosphere so intense, can't you feel the spirits here, and so on. There is a segment of my fellow countrymen that seems to excel at that kind of over-intimate curiosity.

And all locals that live in tourist places can get a bit jaded after a while. A good many of my relatives grew up and live in a summer tourist destination on Lake Ontario. The place is over run in the summer, and they all look forward to the off season. One had a t-shirt that read "I'm not a tourist. I live here."

[Jock Scot]

I think you are right about tourist overload. I'm sure since Queen Victoria made the Highlands a destination people have come to Glen Coe due to its grisly past. While the hill walkers and technical climbers go and do their thing, the bus loads of tourists must be a constant intrusion into daily life. The locals must get tired of questions about whether their ancestors were among the murdered, where was their home, poor you, isn't the gloomy atmosphere so intense, can't you feel the spirits here, and so on. There is a segment of my fellow countrymen that seems to excel at that kind of over-intimate curiosity.

And all locals that live in tourist places can get a bit jaded after a while. A good many of my relatives grew up and live in a summer tourist destination on Lake Ontario. The place is over run in the summer, and they all look forward to the off season. One had a t-shirt that read "I'm not a tourist. I live here."

Thank you for your understanding and well written reply.

Tourism , wherever it takes place is a two edged sword. Those involved directly with the industry, reap the benefits in one form or other as of course they should.

However, those not reaping any direct benefit at all from tourism will inevitably become rather "Jaded", over time. Nevertheless, all of us in Scotland and no doubt, worldwide too, during the recent dreadful Covid plague had it plainly demonstrated to all, the awkward effect of little or no tourist income has on business as a whole and not least the little or no tax revenue to be able filtered down to the population at large. We all lost out.

So perhaps a tad more care and understanding from all sides on this thorny situation?

[DCampbell16B]

Thank you for your understanding and well written reply.



So perhaps a tad more care and understanding from all sides on this thorny situation?

Absolutely. And bear in mind, these are notes to my young self that I made 40 years ago. I cannot speak to anything present day, and I expect my outlook now would be quite different from myself then.

[Jock Scot]

Absolutely. And bear in mind, these are notes to my young self that I made 40 years ago. I cannot speak to anything present day, and I expect my outlook now would be quite different from myself then.

Quite so, sadly courtesy, patience and respect these days, generally speaking, is in rather more short supply than in your day.

[OC Richard]

I'm following your discussion about tourism impact with interest.

I work at Disneyland, about as tourist-y as any place could be.

What just struck me is how little the locals and tourists interact. The tourists come to Anaheim in big coaches, stay at hotels adjacent to the "Disneyland resort", spend their whole time there, and leave. A couple blocks from Disneyland you wouldn't know Disneyland existed, wouldn't know that millions of tourists come and go.

I suppose Edinburgh area consisting of The Royal Mile and Princes Street must be like that: millions of tourists coming and going, locals avoiding it, and if you walk a few blocks in any direction few tourists are to be seen.

It would be in the smaller communities where the locals would feel the full brunt of tourism, with the sidewalks and roads impassable, making it nearly impossible for the locals to go about their daily lives.

Southern California places like that are Laguna and Newport Beach, lovely seaside towns with small local populations, narrow streets, and an infrastructure not designed for hordes of tourists. Many locals depend on the money coming in, but all dread the challenge of things as simple as going to the market.

(Actually Edinburgh and Laguna have been experiencing a similar thing: over the decades a local festival growing, then becoming two festivals, then three, then more, till the place is bulging with tourists in August.)