Outer Hebrides

Vatersay’s beaches are among the finest introductions to the Outer Hebrides, all but empty and with sand of a whiteness that still surprises guests who consider themselves well-travelled. Guests often pair a morning ashore here with nearby Castlebay on Barra, its bustling harbour village beneath Heaval, before Hebridean Princess continues north.

A small island with an outsized story. Bonnie Prince Charlie landed here in 1745 to begin the Jacobite rising, and in 1941 the wreck of the SS Politician, and her 260,000 bottles of whisky, gave Compton Mackenzie the plot for Whisky Galore. The island is also home to the last native Eriskay ponies. Guests can walk Prince’s Bay beach and raise a glass in the pub named after the ship.

The Uists reward a slower pace. On North Uist, ancient monuments such as the neolithic cairn of Barpa Langass and the stone circle of Pobull Fhinn sit quietly in the machair, while RSPB Balranald shelters one of Britain’s last strongholds of the corncrake. South Uist answers with wide sandy strands and its own Gaelic songs and stories, still very much alive. Ashore, previous guests have sat down to a Hebridean picnic in a village hall, with linen tablecloths, local produce and the kind of setting no hotel could replicate.

Uninhabited and mythically haunted by kelpies, the Shiant Isles are one of the richest wildlife havens in the Minch. Privately owned by the Nicolson family since 1937, these basalt sea stacks rise from the Minch much as Staffa and the Giant’s Causeway do further south. When sea conditions allow, Hebridean Princess anchors off the Shiant Isles and guests go ashore by tender to walk among nesting puffins, razorbills and guillemots, with grey seals and, occasionally, a basking shark for company offshore.

St Kilda is the highlight of several Hebridean Island Cruises itineraries, and reaching it is never guaranteed. The next stop west is Greenland, so the crossing needs settled Atlantic weather; which is why our sailings are timed for the season when it is most likely. The reward? Extraordinary cliff scenery and Hirta’s deserted village, which the last 36 Gaelic-speaking islanders left at their own request in 1930, ending 5,000 years of continuous settlement. On the return passage, circling Boreray and the stacks with the colony wheeling overhead is a spectacle that stays with guests long after the ship has returned to calmer waters.

Lewis and Harris are one island with two personalities. On Lewis, our guides often lead guests to Callanish’s standing stones before the morning coaches arrive, an entirely different experience. The Iron Age broch at Dun Carloway and Stornoway’s Lews Castle with its Lewis Chessmen are close by. On wilder and more mountainous Harris, guests have walked the Postman’s Path above spectacular coastal scenery or made their own way down to the white sands of Luskentyre.