10 Islands. 10 Days that became 12. One Campervan… and Plenty of Yorkshire Tea!
Written by Chris Owen who interviewed two novice campervan enthusiast!
Scotland's wildest island-hopping road trip?
We should say up front: we're not travel writers. We run a campervan, we're partial to a brew somewhere with a decent view, and one wet Tuesday at our kitchen table in Pudsey we got an idea stuck in our heads that wouldn't shift.
You know how people do Scotland by cruise ship? Sit in a nice warm lounge and watch the islands slide past the window. Lovely, we're sure. But we kept thinking — what if you didn't watch them go past? What if you took your own bed, your own kettle and your own questionable driving (or rather mine), and turned the ferry network into one big island-hopping road trip instead?
Ten islands. Ten days. One campervan. Imagine it — or at least that's what we kept doing: you wake up beside a sea loch on Mull. Next morning you're wandering round Iona. A day after that you're rolling onto Skye, then Harris, then Lewis, the Uists, and finally Barra — and the whole time your bed, your dinner and your morning brew are all coming along for the ride.
We'll be honest with you: it sounds a bit daft. It is a bit daft. Which is exactly why we couldn't leave it alone.
The route: 10 that became 12 days, 10 islands and an awful lot of ferries
Here's the good news — you don't have to invent any of this. Scotland's ferries have already done the hard part.
CalMac run an Outer Hebrides island-hopping route that links Oban, Barra, Eriskay, Berneray, Harris and Lewis. All we've done is bolt Mull, Iona and Skye onto the front of it and stretch the whole lot into ten days. That's it. That's the clever bit.
Day 1 – Oban to Mull
Start in Oban, which is about as close to a front door as these Scottish islands have got. We drove the motorhome onto the ferry to Craignure, and within a few minutes the mainland was behind us and we were sat there wondering what we'd signed up for. Mull feels different straight away — beautiful in its own way, but a word of warning: the roads get skinnier, the land gets quieter and emptier, and the sea seems to be on every side of you at once. We spent the afternoon pottering north towards Tobermory and stopping every time the view got too good to ignore, which was often. One bit of housekeeping: sort out a proper, legitimate spot to stay the night before you set off. You can't just pull up wherever you fancy, and we'll come back to that.
Day 2/3 – Mull to Iona
Leave the campervan at Fionnphort — it's no bother, but it can't come with you this time — and hop on the little ferry across to Iona. Iona is small, quiet and far older than you'll ever really get your head round, with an ancient abbey and beaches that honestly don't look like they belong this far north. You can see it all in a day. Then it's back to Mull for another night. It's a slow day, this one. We nearly felt guilty about it, and then we didn't. That's rather the point.
Day 3/4 – Mull to Skye
Drive back across Mull, catch the ferry to the mainland and point the campervan towards Mallaig. From there another ferry takes you over to Armadale on Skye — it's about a 45-minute crossing, and you'll want to have booked it (sorry, we're going to say this a lot), because turning up and hoping is not a plan with a campervan. By teatime you're on Skye. New island, new campsite, and a landscape that looks nothing like the one you woke up on.
Day 5 – Skye
Give Skye a full day; it's earned it. Drive the roads, poke about the coast, stop in Portree, and — depending on how much of a walker you are — have a go at the Quiraing, the Fairy Pools or the top end of the island. Our one bit of advice: don't treat it like a shopping list. You'll only stress yourselves out trying to tick everything off. We had our best hour of the day stopping for a coffee in the middle of nowhere and watching the weather come in sideways over the hills. Do that instead. It's a bit twee, but the air smells fantastic — breathe it in. We sat on the beach and I fell asleep.
Day 6 – Skye to Harris
We drove up to Uig for our favourite moment of the whole trip: loading the van onto the ferry and sailing off Skye towards Tarbert on Harris. Then you arrive, and it stops you in your tracks. Harris has enormous white beaches and water so turquoise you'll do a double-take and check you're still in Scotland. We did. Twice. The sea looked like the Caribbean, except we were each wearing a fleece and every so often a northerly breeze came through to remind you you're still very much in Scotland.
Day 7 – Harris to Lewis
No rush today. Take your time round the Harris beaches before carrying on up into Lewis, where you'll find the Callanish Stones. They're apparently thousands of years old, standing there in the middle of the landscape, and we're not ashamed to say they gave us a bit of a moment. Best of all, there's no dashing back to a hotel afterwards — your kitchen and your bed are parked right where you left them.
Day 8 – Lewis to North Uist
Head back south through Harris to Leverburgh and take the ferry across to Berneray, and just like that you're on North Uist. Every crossing feels like you've unlocked the next bit of the map. It's like following a treasure map — twelve miles north, fifteen miles east, and here you are.
Day 9 – North Uist to Benbecula to South Uist
This is where it stops feeling like an ordinary road trip. Causeways stitch the islands together, so you just drive — North Uist into Benbecula, Benbecula into South Uist. No ferry, no border, no fuss. Another island simply shows up through the windscreen and you carry on.
Day 10 – South Uist to Eriskay to Barra
Drive down to Eriskay and get the motorhome on the ferry to Barra. And then there was Barra, which has the beaches and the hills you'd expect by now, plus one thing you won't: an airport where the runway is the beach, and the timetable works around the tide. We could have watched that all day. By now your ten-day trip is nearly done, which we tried not to think about.
Day 11 – Barra to Oban
One last island drive in the morning, then it's down to Castlebay and onto the ferry for Oban. As Barra shrinks away behind you, it's worth having a proper look back at what you've just done: Mull, Iona, Skye, Harris, Lewis, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Eriskay and Barra. Ten islands. One mobile home. And more photographs than any phone was built to hold.
Day 12 – The Ride Home
This isn't really a road trip
That's what we liked about it. It's part road trip, part ferry adventure, part walking holiday and part expedition, and you're never quite doing one thing for long.
You're not just driving from A to B. You keep changing worlds. One minute you're winding through the mountains, the next you're stood on a ferry deck in the wind watching an island disappear, and an hour later you're crawling down a single-track road towards an empty beach with your whole house following you along it.
And unlike a cruise, you're not looking at Scotland through glass. You're driving through it, stopping in it, walking about in it, cooking your tea in it and sleeping right next to it.
One thing you do need to get right
The freedom of a van is grand, but it doesn't mean you can park wherever takes your fancy. Scotland's right-to-roam rules are for people on foot, not vehicles, so campervans and motorhomes have to stick to the parking restrictions, local rules and site guidance. It matters.
The decent way to do it isn't about finding somewhere to dump the van overnight. It's about finding the right spot, spending a bit of money with the island businesses while you're there, and waking up somewhere spectacular without leaving any mess behind you.
The ferry timetable is part of the fun
Don't attempt this off the cuff. Ferry space for campervans is limited, and several of these routes need booking well ahead. We learned that the slightly stressful way.
But honestly, that becomes half the enjoyment of it. Instead of “where shall we go today,” you find yourselves asking “can we make the 10.15?” — and when you do make it, there's another island sat waiting for you on the other side. It's a strange little thrill and we're not going to apologise for it.
The other great Scottish road trip?
Everyone's heard of the NC500 by now; it's become one of the best-known drives in Britain, and for good reason. But we reckon there's another Scottish road trip quietly waiting to be found. One where the road keeps vanishing under the sea, your motorway is a ferry deck, and your sat-nav cheerfully tells you to drive across a causeway onto the next island.
And one where, twelve days later, you look up and realise you've crossed a whole chain of islands and never once had to leave your van behind to do it.
That's not Scotland by cruise ship. That's Scotland by campervan, one island at a time. We'd do it again tomorrow.
Practical Information
Everything above is the romance of it. Here's the stuff we wish someone had told us before we set off — most of it learned the hard way, usually on a slipway in the rain.
Book the ferries the second you can. The summer timetable usually lands around January, and the good sailings — early mornings and evenings — vanish months ahead in July and August. Vehicle spaces are charged by length, so measure your van properly before you book (be honest, not hopeful). The old money-saving Hopscotch tickets have been scrapped, so you now just book each leg separately. And turn up at the terminal 30 to 45 minutes before the sailing, not two minutes before like we did at Uig.
Have a plan B for when the weather wins. Crossings do get cancelled, and on a tight ten-day chain one cancelled ferry knocks the rest over like dominoes. Build a bit of slack into the itinerary and don't book anything unmissable — a fancy meal, a non-refundable pitch — for the far end of a crossing you haven't made yet.
You can't just park up for the night. This is the big one. Wild camping in Scotland is a right for people on foot, not for vehicles, so overnighting a van means a proper campsite or an approved motorhome spot — book these ahead too, they fill up. Never park in a passing place, on the machair (that lovely flowery coastal grass), in a business car park or across someone's gate. Use the designated points for chemical waste and grey water, and take your rubbish with you if the bin's full.
Single-track roads have their own etiquette. Passing places are for passing, not picnics. Pull into one on your left to let oncoming traffic through, or wait opposite one on your right. Give way to anything coming uphill. And if a local's caught up behind you, pull in and wave them past — they're going to work, not admiring the view like you are. A little thank-you wave is more or less compulsory. Sheep, for the record, always win.
Respect the midges, and time your day around them. Midge season runs roughly late May to mid-September, and July into early August is the worst of it. They love still, damp, overcast air at dawn and dusk, and they hate wind, bright sun and rain — so pick the breezy, exposed pitches over the cosy sheltered glens, and do your cooking and setting-up in the middle of the day. Pack Smidge and a couple of head nets. You'll feel daft in the net. You'll feel dafter without it.
Sundays are quiet in the north. On Lewis and Harris the Sabbath is still observed — less than it once was, but enough that plenty of shops, cafés and fuel stations shut on a Sunday. Don't get caught out on empty. Fill up when you pass a station rather than when you finally need one, and stock the cupboards before the weekend.
A few odds and ends. Gas for the stove is easy enough to top up across the islands. Phone signal comes and goes, so download your maps and ferry times for offline before you lose it. Bring layers for all four seasons because you'll get all four, often before lunch. And leave more time than you think — the whole point of this trip is that you're not really in a hurry.
A few links worth bookmarking
These are the sites we kept coming back to. Bookmark them before you go — the signal's not always there when you need them.
CalMac Ferries — book every crossing here, and check for cancellations before you set off for the terminal. https://www.calmac.co.uk
VisitScotland – ferry travel — a plain-English overview of the ferry network and how island-hopping works. https://www.visitscotland.com/travel-planning/ferry
Visit Outer Hebrides – motorhomes — the official do's and don'ts for vans in the Hebrides, including where you can and can't stay. https://www.visitouterhebrides.co.uk/planning-your-trip/motorhomes
Search For Sites — the campervan community's map of campsites and approved overnight spots (aires) — invaluable for finding a legit pitch. https://www.searchforsites.co.uk
The Scottish Midge Forecast — a five-day midge outlook by area, so you know what you're walking into. Genuinely useful in summer. https://www.smidgeup.com/midge-forecast/
Traffic Scotland — live road, weather and closure updates for the drive up and back. https://trafficscotland.org
Planning note. Ferry timetables, routes and vehicle availability change, so check the latest operator information before you travel and book vehicle spaces well in advance. The ten-day itinerary is ambitious and built around the ferry network, so be ready to adjust it for weather, cancellations or sailing times.
About Author
Chris Owen is a seasoned editorial strategist, brand marketer, and travel storyteller, Chris Owen has built his career at the intersection of compelling content and commercial impact.
