Planning a Trip to the Isle of Skye The Questions People Ask, Answered
Midges, single-track roads, the ferry, phone signal, whether every restaurant is full. Here is what we tell guests who ring the front desk before they book.
Check availabilityA Base in Portree for Every Season
Rooms on Somerled Square, breakfast included, the restaurant and the bar open every day. Winter rooms from £75 a night.
Planning a Skye Trip Without the Worry
Skye is not somewhere to be nervous about. It has a bridge, a hospital, a supermarket, a road to everything and a town in the middle with dinner options on foot.
Driving Single-Track Roads on Skye
The A87 from the bridge to Portree has two lanes the whole way, and so does the road to Dunvegan and the road down to Armadale in the south. Portree, for many, is the best place to stay if you want the easiest driving to the most places.
Single-track driving starts on the way to the sights: the Quiraing pass, Glen Brittle, Elgol, Neist. This is part of the fun though. If Skye were filled with huge roads, you can imagine the effect it would have on the experience. A single-track road in the off season with no one else on it, leading to a place of pristine wilderness and incomparable views, is part of the Skye experience.
Don’t be nervous, just take your time. If someone is behind you, let them pass.
Pull into a passing place on your left. If the passing place is on your right, stop opposite it and let the other car use it.
The car nearest a passing place reverses; if that is you, take it slowly and use the mirrors, nobody is timing you.
A hand raised off the wheel is the thank-you. You will get one back.
Passing places are not parking places, and if you stop in one for a photograph the road behind you stops too. Pull over at the marked lay-bys, which are frequent on the tourist routes. Local drivers behind you want to get home; wave them past at the next space and any tailgating ends. Sheep have priority and know it; you may follow a family of sheep along the road for a mile before they work out how to get off it.
Hiring a Car for Skye: Automatic, Size and Where From
If you want an automatic car you must book one. Most cars are manual as standard, and if you book without checking you may end up with a manual.
Book at Inverness, Glasgow or Edinburgh airport as soon as the flights are booked, and expect to pay a bit more for an automatic.
A small or medium car is the right size; the roads to Elgol and Neist are narrow enough that an estate or a large SUV spends the day with its wing mirrors folded. It feels like a big 4×4 would make sense for Skye, but when you get here you’ll wish you had something smaller.
Learning a manual on the left on a single-track road is not the holiday anyone planned. Download the Skye area in Google Maps before you leave the city, and you’ll have zero map connectivity issues out and about.
Getting to Skye: The Bridge or the Ferry
The Skye Bridge at Kyle of Lochalsh is free, open around the clock and closes only to high-sided vehicles in a gale; a car crosses in all but the worst storms. From Inverness it is two hours to Portree on the A87 with no ferry to catch, and it is the route to plan on.
If you are travelling from Glasgow, your GPS may attempt to take you via the ferry (discussed below), as in terms of distance the ferry route is shorter (but longer overall in time). Do not go via Mallaig under any circumstances if you don’t have a ferry booking. This will add at least two hours to an already long drive. When driving to Skye, put in your final destination address, then add a waypoint stop at the Skye Bridge, to avoid being taken the wrong way.
The Mallaig to Armadale ferry is the scenic way in from Fort William and highly recommended with an advance booking, half an hour on the water, though CalMac may cancel in a swell or a strong westerly wind.
Booking a space is essential. Arrive half an hour before sailing, and look at the CalMac website the morning you travel.
The most unique route onto the island is the turntable ferry from Glenelg to Kylerhea, the last hand-turned turntable ferry in the world. It runs Easter to October and takes six cars.
Phone Signal, Parking Apps and Cash on Skye
Portree, Broadford and the main road have 4G for most of the route. The Quiraing car park, the Fairy Pools and most of the coast have patchy signal, depending on your network.
The Highland Council car parks at the Storr, the Quiraing and Kilt Rock take cards at the machine and the RingGo app on the phone (a recommended download for ease when parking), and the machines work when the app cannot get a signal. Pay at the machine when the signal is down; the fine is £30 if you do neither, and hire companies add an admin fee on top. RingGo rejects some non-UK phone numbers at the verification step, so set the account up at home over Wi-Fi, or forget the app and carry a card.
Cash is for honesty boxes, the odd community car park and a few toilets. Twenty pounds in pound coins will cover most visits. The Bank of Scotland on the square has a cash machine.
Booking Restaurants on Skye
Yes, a booking is most likely essential. From June through August the places people have read about, Scorrybreac, the Three Chimneys, and here at The Portree Hotel, fill a week or more ahead for the most popular times, and the rest fill a few days before.
Book your first-choice dinners when you book the room, or a few months before arrival, to get your exact preferred dates and times.
Antlers Bar & Grill is in the hotel and serves lunch and dinner seven days a week. Across the square, Caberfeidh does pizza and burgers until late and may be able to offer takeaway. If you are happy to drive twenty minutes, the Edinbane Inn does a fantastic pub dinner and serves food all day through summer, while Greshornish House provides a more fine-dining dinner in a country house on Loch Greshornish. The Co-op is open until 10pm and MacKenzie’s Bakery is a minute from the door for the day’s sandwiches and snacks.
How Far Ahead to Book a Room in Portree
For May to August, six months ahead is a safe bet. May and September need about three months ahead to be guaranteed somewhere. For the best places and the best locations, book as far in advance as is sensible for you. Random nights do sell out half a year out, so if you have a specific window, book early.
From October to Easter you can often find something a week before, but again, popular places like our own hotel in Portree may fill on the specific night or two you want to come.
Portree stays can be more expensive thanks to their popularity and convenience. The difference buys you the walk to the harbour, ten restaurants and the pubs without the drive back on unlit single-track at eleven at night. A cottage forty minutes out is a fine base for a week with a car and a willingness to cook your own meals; for three nights it is a lot of driving.
Skye Weather and What to Pack
Skye gets more than its fair share of wet days a year, and much of the rain arrives as showers that pass in twenty minutes. The weather on Skye can add an incredible drama, a shadowy, misty and at times mystical element to a visit. Ideally you will see a bit of Skye in all weathers.
Wind, not rain, is what cancels a big hike, and the Mountain Weather Information Service forecast for the North West Highlands tells you the summit wind speed each morning.
Above 30 to 40 mph, stay off the Quiraing circuit and the top of the Storr and save days of bad weather for the distillery or castles.
Summer highs are 15 to 18°C, winter highs around 6°C, and the light in June lasts until eleven at night and rises again at 4am-ish. Winter has its own page, with the daylight table and information on what you can expect. We have some fantastic winter rates for those looking for a winter getaway.
Pack a waterproof jacket that is waterproof rather than showerproof, boots with grip, a fleece for every month of the year, and sunglasses, because when it clears the light off the sea is fierce. Bring sunscreen too. Skye has a habit of feeling cool in the sun, and you won’t realise you are burning.
Shorts are fine; see the tick section below. Walking poles are handy for the Storr, and your knees will thank you for them on the way down.
Doctors, Pharmacies and Mountain Rescue on Skye
Portree has a community hospital with a minor-injuries unit, a GP surgery, a dentist and a pharmacy. Broadford’s hospital, forty minutes south, takes emergencies and has the island’s A&E, with Inverness for anything bigger.
Out of hours, NHS 24 on 111 triages by phone and directs you to the right place. In an emergency on a hill, dial 999 and ask for mountain rescue; the Skye team is volunteer based and exceptionally skilled, though it’s best to be prepared, well informed and risk averse to avoid needing them.
Bring enough of any prescription for the trip plus a week; the pharmacy can help with a lost inhaler but not with a controlled drug from abroad.
Step-Free Skye
A good deal of the scenery works from a car park or a flat path. The Sligachan bridge view of the Cuillin, the Quiraing viewpoint fifty metres from the car, Kilt Rock from a railed platform, Armadale’s gardens on wide gravel, Dunvegan’s ground floor and gardens, the Talisker visitor centre and the harbour front in Portree are all level.
The Storr, the Fairy Pools past the first kilometre, Neist Point’s stairs and Coral Beach’s farm track are not. The boats from the harbour are boarded down tidal steps, so ask the skipper first.
Portree itself has many pavements but not many accessible points to wheel onto them. It has been noted that Portree does not feel particularly wheelchair friendly, partly due to the steep hills heading up from the harbour and partly due to the pavements. So, worth noting.
Midges on Skye: When They Bite and When They Don’t
The Highland midge is out from late May to the end of September, worst in July and August, and gone with the first frost.
Midges are not dangerous, but they can be annoying. Their bites don’t hurt but they do leave a mild itch. There are creams easily found in the pharmacy that help to cool the effect of any bite. They are an inconvenience at most to anyone who is not camping. And to those who are camping, well, The Portree Hotel is open to you too, should the fear of the midge drive you inside.
They fly at dawn and dusk, in still air, near water and long grass. A gentle breeze and they are no longer a threat, and on the west coast that is most afternoons. They cannot keep up with a person who keeps walking, and they hide from direct sun, so the middle of a bright day is close to midge-free.
The people who get eaten are the ones standing still in a sheltered glen at nine on a calm evening, pitching a tent. On the Storr path, the Quiraing ridge or the harbour wall with the wind coming in, you will barely meet one. In the car park at the Fairy Pools at dusk, you will meet all of them. If you are not planning to come to Skye simply to stand still, you will be fine.
Buy Smidge midge spray, sold in many shops on the island; give yourself a spray and get going. A head net costs a few pounds and lives in the glovebox for the one evening you want it. Wear long sleeves at dusk. Then stop thinking about them. In a hotel room in Portree Square you almost certainly won’t notice them. We may well be the most midge-free hotel on Skye, though sadly there is no award for it.
Ticks on Skye and What to Do About Them
Ticks live in bracken and long grass from spring to autumn, and Skye has plenty of both. Walk the path rather than the verge, tuck trousers into socks in high bracken, and look at ankles, knees and waistbands when you get in.
Following these rules will mean you are very unlikely to see or come into skin contact with a tick. In most cases a tick must be attached for 36 to 48 hours without you noticing before there is any chance of harm. So trousers in socks, or close checks on return to the hotel, and the odds are very much on your side.
A tick tool is £3 at the pharmacy in Portree, and a pharmacist can give you advice on what to do next. Removed within a day, the risk of any adverse effect is very low.
Trip Planning for Skye, Answered
Short answers to what people ask before they book.
Are the midges on Skye really that bad?
For a tent out of the wind on a still July evening, yes. For someone walking in daylight or sitting in a breeze, barely. Repellent from any shop on the island and a room to retreat to cover it. Midges are at worst annoying for short periods, not worth deciding a trip over.
Is driving on Skye difficult?
The main roads are ordinary two-lane roads. The single-track sections to the sights need slow speed and patience at the passing places. First-time visitors manage it every day, including in hired automatics. Skye’s beauty is partly its remoteness; don’t let some single-track roads stop you. Be patient, be kind to other drivers and away you go.
Do I need to book restaurants on Skye?
On a summer night, yes. The popular rooms take bookings weeks out, so reserve when you fix the dates.
Will the Skye Bridge be closed?
Almost never to cars. A few times a year a storm closes it to everything for a few hours, and Traffic Scotland posts the closure and the reopening.
How do we get to Portree from Inverness?
Two hours on the A87, all of it road.
Is there phone signal on Skye?
In the towns and along the A87, yes. At most of the car parks for walks, no, so offline maps and a bank card do the work an app would.
What if I get ill on Skye?
See a pharmacist or the GP in Portree for small things, the Broadford hospital for anything urgent, and dial 999 for an emergency anywhere on the island. A&E treatment is free to everyone; anything beyond it is charged to visitors from outside the UK, so bring travel insurance.
The Easy Base for a First Visit to Skye
Rooms above Somerled Square, the restaurant on the ground floor, and the bus stop, the taxi rank and the tour pick-ups all on the square.
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