15 Best places to stay in Scottish Highlands

This exquisite, honey-hued manse on the edge of the golf links and endless dune-backed beach in picture-postcard Dornoch, oozes luxury and old-world style. The passion project of an American businessman, he transformed what was a rundown property on the northeast coast into a palatial pad.

There are now 15 rooms, scattered across three buildings, all named after Scottish salmon rivers, and peppered with the finest antiques, gilt-framed oil paintings and trimmed with tartan and tweed. Along with a fine dining restaurant, Mara, they have a bistro, the Courtroom, in the village for more relaxed dining.

This sumptuous little hotel is the perfect choice for well-heeled golfers and classic car, top-down, wind-in-your-hair motorists on the North Coast 500.

When this grand Scottish hotel first opened in 1924 it was dubbed ‘a Riviera in the Highlands’.

Today, it’s still the ultimate Scottish resort, famous, of course, for its golf courses and Pringle-touting clientele, but also sporting a staggering range of additional activities – everything from gun dog school to falconry, wildlife photography to off-road driving.

For the more sedentary, there’s a sleek destination spa and two-Michelin-starred restaurant. It’s a one-stop holiday shop.

Unusually for a luxury hotel, Gleneagles is dog-friendly; providing a dog-bed, bowl, dog-in-residence sign for the door, doggy treats – and a pooper scooper for those walks in the ground.

Close your eyes and imagine a picture-perfect, Highland hotel – the image you’ve conjured up probably resembles the Ardanaiseig.   

Built in the Scottish baronial style, this romantic, creeper-clad, turreted, grey stone beauty on the shore of a dreamy loch, is straight out of a fairytale, with huge sash windows, roaring fires and antiques scattered around.  

Bedrooms are flamboyant – bold boudoir reds, four-posters and roll-top baths, with every activity you could crave on your doorstep, from deer stalking to wildlife photography. For a more contemporary feel and total privacy book the Boat Shed.  

There’s no spa but you can book a therapist for an in-room treatment, from a vigorous Swedish massage to relaxing Indian Head massage. 

Right on the loch this state-of-the-art timber and glass construction is a romantic bolthole. 

This romantic, yet family-friendly, 16th-century hunting lodge, a former hideaway of the MacDonald Clan, is an ideal base for exploring the incomparable Isle of Skye. It’s just 10 miles from the Skye Bridge, and 30 miles from the island’s colourful capital, Portree.

This luxury home-from-home has individually-styled rooms, all with king-sized beds. Décor is contemporary cosy, mixed with enough historical memorabilia to retain a welcoming sense of character and heritage.

The excellent in-house restaurant, serving up locally-sourced and home-grown produce, is renowned in the region and, like the Three Chimneys, a pilgrimage for foodies.

The hotel offers fishing, walking, clay pigeon shooting and even foraging in the stunning, tranquil surrounds. Kids are welcome to join in where appropriate. And when you come home, after a day of outdoor activities, soothing spa treatments await.

Foodies have been making a pilgrimage to this legendary restaurant with rooms, founded by Scottish food heroes, Shirley and Eddie Spear, for over three decades.

In 2019 it started a new chapter when it was bought by famous Scottish hotelier, Gordon Campbell Gray who added it to his mini chain, The Wee Hotel Company.

Not that much has changed in the old whitewashed crofter’s cottage overlooking Loch Dunvegan – although you can now eat a la carte; the eight-course tasting menu is still served at the Kitchen Table.

And afterwards, you can sleep it all off in one of the six charming contemporary rooms across the courtyard in the House-Over-By.

Watch the fishing boats unload their catch through the panoramic picture windows as you tuck into breakfast in the architect-designed wooden extension of this quaint 19th-century coaching inn in the northwest Highlands.

Right on the water’s edge, overlooking Loch Glendhu, it’s a gourmet bolthole, famous for its seafood and the perfect pitstop if you’re driving the North Coast 500.

This relaxing retreat, with books to thumb and a telescope for wildlife-watching, is also dog-friendly. Some hotels claim to be dog-friendly, but here they’re really welcome – in the bar and restaurant as well as rooms.

There are 11 rooms in all, four in the modern annex, Willie’s Hoose next door – two with a loch-facing balcony. Ideal for seafood-loving sea dogs and dog lovers.

The heart-stopping grandeur of Glencoe, combined with an unusual hotel concept, are the main draws of this imposing mansion built by Lord Stratchcona in 1896.

This glen is where one of the most infamous massacres in Scottish history took place in 1692, and today is one of Scotland’s greatest drives.

There are 14 one- and two-bedroom suites in the main house, dripping in period features, each with its own sitting room and dining area.

Everything, from breakfast to the five-course gourmet dinners, is served in your suite – essentially, a restaurant experience – without the restaurant.

Adjacent Strathcona Lodge has six contemporary two-storey suites, each with a wood-burning stove and hot tub.

This is a hotel hybrid, perfect for those wanting total privacy.

When this tired Victorian hotel in Braemar was given a revolutionary redesign by Swiss gallerists Iwan and Manuela Wirth, it was the most exciting hotel news to hit the Highlands this century.

Just down the road from Balmoral, the Queen’s Highland holiday home, this grand granite pad has put the eastern corner of the Cairngorms National Park back on the map for style-seekers.

The 46 rooms and suites, each inspired by local characters or famous figures who once schlepped up here – and the hotel itself, are maximalist in design, wreathed in rich fabrics, vibrant wallpaper and striking modern artworks. The cooking is equally theatrical; the restaurant’s centrepiece is a wood-fired barbecue.

It’s the ideal bolthole for extrovert art lovers and Highland history buffs with deep pockets.

Highland Perthshire is a hotbed of foodie enclaves and field-to-fork ventures. This boutique hotel is the sister property to Ballintaggart Farm, a rustic restaurant with rooms and a cookery school just down the road. In 2018, the Grandtully Hotel, an old Victorian hotel in need of a revamp, joined the stable.   

It’s now a contemporary, country-chic eight-bedroom gourmet escape, the restaurant dishing up a daily changing menu of seasonal Scottish dishes, showcasing the best local artisan produce.

It’s also got a buzzing bar, the Tully, with a list of creatively-concocted, hand-crafted cocktails to work your way through. Ideal for weekending bar-flies and feasting foodies. 

Until Prince Charles opened this luxury B&B in the old grain store just across the fields from his late grandmother’s Scottish holiday home, the Castle of Mey, it was slim pickings up here in terms of upmarket holiday accommodation.

The 17th-century granary has been painstakingly restored and converted into a cosy, chintz-clad guesthouse with stellar green credentials, of course, by the Prince’s Foundation.

There are 10 individually designed rooms and suites in fabulous fabrics, a log fire-basted drawing room and a corridor lined with black and white photographs of the Queen Mother enjoying blustery picnics – one for Royalist road trippers.

There are sweeping views out across the Pentland Firth to Orkney, and it’s the perfect pitstop if you’re driving the North Coast 500.

In the 1990s, this Grade-A listed Georgian mansion was on Historic Scotland’s endangered list. Then Don and Wendy Matheson lovingly restored what has been described as the most beautiful Regency house in Scotland.

Today, it’s an award-winning hotel, scattered with antiques and artworks – although the main focus has always been on providing three simple ingredients ‘a warm welcome, a comfortable room and a fine dinner.’ Talking of which, there’s a Michelin-starred restaurant too.

If you’ve ever dreamt of bedding down in an ancient castle, it might well have looked like this bijoux bolthole.

Straight out of the pages of a romantic novel, 16th-century Kilmartin Castle lies in a wild, windswept west coast glen, once owned by the Campbell clan. Now a luxurious five-bedroom B&B, it’s been sensitively converted, retaining the stone-flagged floors, barrel-vaulted ceilings and spiral staircases.

It’s a tiny castle with bags of attitude and quirky touches, flickering fires, a record player and stack of vinyl and freestanding copper tubs. Best suited to history lovers, wild romantics and ‘Outlander’ fans, wanting to live the craggy-castle dream.

Just off the winding, often a single-lane track that snakes its way along the south side of Loch Ness, this Victorian lodge has tree-fringed views over the water and cool, vintage chic interiors.

The characterful conversion, peppered with eclectic auction and antique store finds – as well as a smattering of taxidermy – gives it a theatrical vibe.

There are eight bedrooms up the grand staircase; walls daubed in dramatic tones of aubergine, forest green and teal, bare-board floors strewn with rugs, and bathrooms of Victorian porcelain.

There’s a cosy, tartan-trimmed sitting room where you can hole up with a dram, a peacock (stuffed) and a piano in the Art Deco-styled drawing room and bar.

This is one for design-conscious couples, looking for a funky Highland hideaway.

Who doesn’t want to bed down in a Highland castle? Although to be strictly accurate, this turreted pile only dates back to 1863, built by Lord Abinger close to the original 13th-century fortress. Queen Victoria was said to have taken a shine to it, however, as did celebrity guests Charlie Chaplin and Robert Redford.

It’s old-school luxury – there’s a dress code for dinner and gentlemen are requested to wear a jacket and tie – with reams of chintz, four-poster beds, a belt-busting Michelin-starred restaurant and glorious grounds.

To arrive in serious style, the hotel can arrange airport transfers from Glasgow or Edinburgh in a Rolls Royce phantom, which can also be hired for guided day tours.

Tennis superstar Andy Murray has seen his share of swish hotels during his career – and in 2014 decided to open his own. Just outside his home town of Dunblane in the Highlands.

Cromlix is a handsome, turreted Victorian mansion surrounded by 34 acres of carefully tended grounds – and a tennis court, of course. Purple and green (Wimbledon’s colours), it’s the only reference to its famous owner.

Inside it’s sumptuous Highland house-living, with a grand games room and whisky snug, stags heads on the walls, wood-paneling, fine antiques and opulent fabrics. There are 15 old-school-traditional bedrooms and suites (named after famous Scots such as Robert the Bruce) and a strikingly contemporary Chez Roux restaurant.

This is one for those wanting a taste of a high-end Highland house-party.