Dear Scotland,
A shepherd's path across the Lammermuir Hills, worn smooth by centuries of boots and hooves, is a map written in footprints and habit. Follow it and you are walking in the footsteps of people whose names are forgotten but whose routes remain, still the best way across this particular piece of Scotland. The land remembers them. So does the path.
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Stirling, the gateway to Highland Games country
Planning your trip: Scotland's great summer of festivals and gatherings
Castles and Heritage: Clan Cumming and the gatherings that became the Games
Around the Web: Learn to Bake Scones the Traditional Way in Inverness + Sir Billy Connolly Narrates Kelvingrove plus Orkney’s Ancient Stones, Wild Coastlines and Island Life in Five Days and more…
Experiences Likely To Sell Out
In Case You Missed It: How to really drink Scotch whisky + Clan Erskine's story
The Love of Whisky: We raise a glass to Cardhu Distillery
Scottish Food You Will Love: What is Cock-a-leekie soup?
💙Send a piece of Scotland to someone you love 💙
Your daily dose of #CooWisdom + Why Glen Nevis Hides One of Scotland’s Greatest Walks Behind a Wire Bridge
From May to September, Scotland spends its summer showing off — and nowhere sits closer to the heart of that season than Stirling. This is the hinge of the country, the place where the Lowlands give way to the glens, and within an easy drive lie the Highland Games at Bridge of Allan, Crieff, Lochearnhead and beyond, where cabers are tossed for the accuracy of the twelve o’clock turn and pipers march across the arena.
Stirling holds its own long before you reach the field: a mighty castle crowning a volcanic crag, the Wallace Monument rising over the carse, a knot of cobbled streets steeped in the story of Scotland’s making. Come for a gathering, stay for the city that guards the road north — it is one of the finest bases you can choose for a Highland summer.
Would you begin a Highland trip in Stirling, or push straight on to the glens? Hit reply and tell us.
The Highland Games are only one thread in Scotland’s summer tapestry. While the caber-tossers and dancers take to village greens across the country, Edinburgh throws open its doors for the world’s largest arts festival — and the two traditions share a spirit: Scotland at its most exuberant, proud and welcoming. If you are timing a trip around the Games this year, it is worth knowing how the Fringe works, when to book, and how to move around a city that swells with performers and crowds every August. Our complete first-timer’s guide walks you through the practicalities so you can pair a Highland gathering with a night at the Fringe without the stress.
Would you build your Scotland trip around a festival — or stumble into one? Let us know.
Long before Queen Victoria made the Braemar Gathering fashionable and turned up faithfully every year, the Highland Games were something older and rawer: clan gatherings, where families summoned by their chief would test their strongest men, dance for their pipers and settle in for feasting and news.
To understand the Games is to understand the clans — and few tell a more turbulent tale than the Cummings (Comyns), once among the most powerful families in medieval Scotland, rivals to the Bruce and lords of vast Highland territory. Their surnames, tartans and shifting fortunes are a window into the world that first raised the caber and set the pipes playing.
Do you know which clan your family belonged to? Reply and tell us your name.
Orkney sits off the north coast of mainland Scotland, a group of around 70 islands where the North Sea meets the Atlantic. It is closer to Norway in feel than to the Highlands, and its history runs deeper than almost anywhere else in Britain. People have farmed this land, buried their dead, and raised great stones here for more than 5,000 years. When you stand in the middle of Orkney, you are standing among some of the oldest surviving human settlements in Europe.
What makes Orkney different is how much of that history is still visible and how close it all sits together. On a single afternoon you can walk through a Stone Age house, trace runes carved by Viking raiders, and look out over the same water where the British fleet once anchored. The islands are green and low, shaped by wind rather than mountains, and the light shifts constantly. Many visitors say the sky feels bigger here than anywhere else they have been.
VOTE for your Top Places to Visit in Scotland here!
A few drops of water can open up a dram far more than ice ever will — here’s how the Scots themselves take their whisky. Read more: Neat, Water, or Rocks: How to Really Drink Scotch Whisky
The Erskines guarded the infant James VI at Stirling Castle — a family woven right through the story of Scotland’s kings. Read more: Scottish Surnames of Clan Erskine: Origins, Tartans and Clan History
Today we raise a glass to Cardhu, the Speyside distillery with one of the most remarkable founding stories in whisky. In the early 1800s, Helen Cumming ran an illicit still on the family farm while her husband kept watch for excise officers. When the coast was clear, she would hang a red flag from the window. In 1824, her husband took out one of the first legal licences. Today, Cardhu’s smooth, honeyed malt is the heart of Johnnie Walker. Visit Cardhu Distillery here!
Scottish Food you will love
👉 Vote for your favourite food here!
If the Highland Games have an unofficial cure for a long day in the wind and rain, it is a bowl of something hot — and few things are more comforting than cock-a-leekie, often called the national soup of Scotland. Its roots reach back to medieval kitchens, where chicken was simmered slowly with leeks until the broth turned golden and deeply savoury.
What makes it distinctly Scottish is that beloved, slightly eccentric touch of prunes, which lend a whisper of sweetness against the salt of the fowl — a combination that sounds odd and tastes wonderful. It is nourishing rather than heavy, the sort of soup that warms you from the inside out. Traditionally it appears on the table at Burns suppers, Hogmanay and cold-weather gatherings, but it belongs to any grey Scottish day. Make a pot and you’ll understand why generations have kept the recipe close.
Get the recipes here: Cock-a-Leekie Soup: The National Soup of Scotland
You’ll often spot a Highland coo grazing near the glens where the Games are held, entirely unbothered by the pipes and cheering — and that famous shaggy fringe (a “dossan”) is more than good looks. It shields their eyes from driving rain, biting wind and summer midges alike, which is exactly why these gentle, ancient beasts thrive in the wild country where so many gatherings take place. Give them space and they’ll give you the most patient stare in Scotland.
Read more here: Why Glen Nevis Hides One of Scotland’s Greatest Walks Behind a Wire Bridge
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Beautiful Scottish-themed digital cards for every occasion. Birthdays, blessings, thank-yous, and more — sent with warmth from the Highlands.
Browse the cards here!
This newsletter grows because of you — every time you share it with a friend, a colleague, or that person who keeps saying “I really must go to Scotland one day,” you help build something special: a community of people who genuinely love this wee country. Every subscriber has a unique referral link at the bottom of this email. Share it with your friends.
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