Destination: Skye

To reach the Isle of Skye is to wind through the Highlands and to skim the waves of the Minch, to sit aboard a train chugging north at precisely its own pace and to be whipped by a stiff breeze on the ferry deck. The method of reaching this misty island hasn't changed much through the centuries - it's still necessary to watch the country roll by you, becoming wilder and more desolate and rising upwards. It's essential to lay aside a day of your precious time to become immersed in the twists of roads or the wiles of the public transport system. It's important to do this, perhaps because it makes the destination all the more precious.

Arriving in Skye, you almost immediately roll by some reminder that this island has been here for much longer than you have – hills and mountains looming as they have since being scraped out of molten rock; the ruined castles and monuments of the clan chiefs in their glory days; mossy and crumbling foundations of countless houses that made up countless townships, cleared and deserted as modernity made the same trek north that you just did. 

But to think that the islands of Scotland are stuck in the past is to make a grave error. Homes cluster in small and determined piles that cling to the shore; hotels and old and new distilleries can be found on both sides of the single-lane roads. The local schools have two buildings: one large one for the Gaelic-speaking children, a smaller for those instructed in English. Secondary school students from all over the island board in Portree, the largest town on the island, with 2,000 inhabitants.

Farmers drive ATVs with dogs clinging to the seats over the rises of sheep pasture all over the island. Although the crofting community as it was in the nineteenth century has dispersed, ruined homes are still visible in haunting profusion, and the farms that have survived loom up in contrasting wholeness beside them. The sheep are simply too numerous to count.

In my biased opinion, the best way to visit Skye is with a backpack, and not much else. The hills and ridges over the entire island beg to be climbed, and the coastline with its jagged and sheer cliffs is traced over with pathways beaten by the endless amblings of people and sheep. To step out of a door with a peak looming above and a track in front of your feet and the day ahead of you is a fine thing, for there is no wrong way to walk on Skye. 

Experienced hillwalkers and tourists hoping to glimpse the Scotland of myth and legend come in equal droves to the island. Wherever your feet take you, there is history – glacial and geologic marvels; Viking walls and harbors; castles and cleared villages and the inn where Bonnie Prince Charlie spent a day as he fled in the chaos after Culloden.

Those hoping to experience Scotland will not be disappointed on Skye, and the postcards do not lie. To dip a little deeper and go off the beaten track of the well-known sights makes the experience of this remarkable island even richer. I left in awe, and with a deeply set intention to return.