Explore Scotland
Scottish Glens
Glen-by-glen guides: the road in, where to park, which hills are accessed from there, and what each valley is actually like. 30 glens covered.
Lochaber
Region guide →Glen Coe
Lochaber · 16km
Scotland's most dramatic glacial glen — dark history, serious ridges, and the constant weight of big mountains on every side.
Glen Nevis
Lochaber · 14km
The glen under Britain's highest mountain — a gorge walk, a wire bridge, a 120m waterfall, and a 7-hour slog to the top.
Glen Etive
Lochaber · 19km
Nineteen miles of single-track dead end — river pools, Skyfall scenery, and midges that will eat you alive if you stop moving.
Glen Roy
Lochaber
The Parallel Roads National Nature Reserve — three glacial lake shorelines etched into the hillsides like contour lines drawn by giants.
North-West Highlands
Region guide →Glen Affric
North-West Highlands · 20km
Ancient Caledonian pines, clear lochs and high Munros — the finest combination of forest and mountain in the Highlands.
Glen Shiel
North-West Highlands · 16km
The A87 to Skye cuts through a glen with five Munros on one side and a battlefield on the other — accessible, dramatic, and often overlooked.
Glen Cannich
North-West Highlands
A hydro-dammed glen west of Cannich — the reservoir drowned one of the northwest's finest wild glens, but the Munro ridge above the north shore remains remote and rarely crowded.
Glen Strathfarrar
North-West Highlands
Scotland's most restricted glen — a locked gate at Struy limits car access to specific hours, which has inadvertently preserved native pinewoods and four excellent Munros almost no one visits.
Glen Lichd
North-West Highlands
The foot-only approach to the south side of the Five Sisters — what the standard A87 viewpoint doesn't show you, and the classic through-route to Glen Affric via Camban bothy.
Glen Torridon
North-West Highlands
Torridonian sandstone and ancient quartzite — the oldest mountains in Britain and some of the finest walking in the northwest.
Glen Carron
North-West Highlands
The Lochcarron approach glen — a broad Highland valley with a railway, an A-road, and Munros on both sides.
Strath Glass
North-West Highlands
The Chisholm clan heartland, cleared of almost its entire population between 1801 and the 1830s — the broad strath you drive through to reach Glen Affric has a history worth knowing.
Cairngorms
Region guide →Glen Feshie
Cairngorms · 18km
Rewilding in action — reduced deer, returning pines, and a braided river through the southern Cairngorms that looks different every time you visit.
Glen Tilt
Cairngorms · 24km
A legal right-of-way forged in an 1847 court case — the historic through-route from Blair Atholl to Braemar through some of the most remote terrain in the southern Highlands.
Glen Clova
Cairngorms
The finest of the Angus Glens — quieter Munros, better skies, and a hotel at the end of the road that has been serving hillwalkers since the Victorian era.
Glen Doll
Cairngorms
A Forestry Scotland glen at the head of Glen Clova — the start of Jock's Road, the most contested right-of-way in Scottish history.
Glen Esk
Cairngorms
The most easterly and most agricultural of the Angus Glens — an approachable introduction to eastern Cairngorms walking with good Pictish history nearby.
Glen Lui
Cairngorms
The Caledonian pine approach to the Cairngorm plateau — ancient trees, Derry Lodge ruins, and the southern gateway to Ben Macdui.
Glen Quoich
Cairngorms
The hidden glen beside Glen Lui — the Punch Bowl gorge that most Linn of Dee visitors walk straight past, and a glen named, in Gaelic, after the very feature they miss.
Glen Tanar
Cairngorms
One of the better-managed Caledonian pinewoods on Deeside, an ancient trans-Cairngorm road still walkable today, and the most easterly Munro approached from the south.
Glen Banchor
Cairngorms
Three Monadhliath Munros starting 1km from Newtonmore train station — the most genuinely car-free Munro day in the Cairngorms National Park.
Skye & the Small Isles
Region guide →Glen Brittle
Skye & the Small Isles · 10km
The Cuillin's back door — fairy pools at the entrance, serious gabbro peaks at the head, and midges that will find you in both places.
Glen Sligachan
Skye & the Small Isles · 9km
The glen that divides the Red and Black Cuillin — the most photographed bridge in Scotland at its entrance and one of the great wilderness walks at its far end.
Perthshire
Region guide →Glen Lyon
Perthshire · 56km
Scotland's longest enclosed glen — 56 kilometres of single-track road, ancient trees, river pools, and the oldest yew tree in Europe at its entrance.
Glen Lochay
Perthshire
Three uncrowded Munros above a Perthshire glen shaped by drove roads, Campbell estates and a post-war hydroelectric scheme that runs through the mountain.
Loch Lomond & The Trossachs
Region guide →Glen Falloch
Loch Lomond & The Trossachs
The A82 corridor north of Loch Lomond — Rob Roy cattle country, one of Scotland's oldest inns, a waterfall on the West Highland Way, and two Munros that earn their solitude.
Strath Fillan
Loch Lomond & The Trossachs
The upper Tyndrum strath on the West Highland Way — a broad valley with a West Highland Line station and Munros on both sides.
Argyll
Region guide →Glen Rosa
Argyll
A sea crossing, a 3km walk, and then granite mountains above a glacial trough — the most complete mountain day reachable from Glasgow without a car.
Glen Croe
Argyll
The A83 summit pass where exhausted soldiers carved "Rest and be Thankful" in 1753 — one of Scotland's most evocative road names, and a hillside that has been sliding onto that road ever since.