Discovering Scotland with travel influencer James Campbell
If you had just 24 hours in Scotland where would you go? Add in teleportation, time travel and even the magic of pausing time you can conjure up the day of your dreams.
That is what Our Scotland is all about, highlighting the places and people that are memorable.
Welcome to season 3, with me, Alison Fraser, and this season we’ve got some interesting perfect days that may help or hinder your future holiday plans.
In this episode I’m joined by James Campbell, travel influencer at Discovering Scotland. James is from Glasgow and was introduced to exploring Scotland by his grandfather through their joint passion for fishing.
James takes us all around the country, for some of his picks there are videos in the links below.
Here’s a snippet…
“I want to head to the very north west of Scotland, a place called Sango Sands Caravan Site, and it's in a place called Durness.
It's just one of my favourite places in the country when I get any opportunity. And that's where I want to go, but it is quite a distance and I'm based in Glasgow, it's about four or five hours away in traveling time, but I just absolutely love it.
I've got vlogs on my YouTube showing the beauty of it, you camp right on the edge of a cliff, and down the cliff is a stunning beach, and turquoise waters, and then the water just basically doesn't stop until the horizon, and from that hill you can spot dolphins and whales and all sorts of wildlife.
And yeah, it's just one of my happiest places.
We first stayed there when we were doing the North Coast 500 trip, which is obviously a famous road trip, I think maybe 10, 12 years ago.
And we were camping at the time, I got up in the morning and I went down to the beach and with my little pot of porridge to have my breakfast and about 10 feet away in the surf there was just a dolphin and its calf jumping and it was just like one of the most magical moments that I've ever had and there was nobody else on the beach.
I then climbed up the hill to go back to my partner who was at the tent because we were proper camping at the time and as I was going up I remember there was a couple in their camper van.
And they had parked with the back doors overlooking the cliff, and they had the back doors open, they were in their bed with a cup of tea, and they had just watched what I had watched, and I remember there and then going back and saying, I'm coming back here in a camper van to do that. And sure enough, we did.
We went and eventually purchased our own camper van and went back and had that very same moment back there. So it's just such a special place, but specifically, I would want to be going. wild swimming there.
I'm a huge fan of wild swimming in Scotland. The water's absolutely freezing. There's no way to get away from that, even in the summer, but it's so invigorating.
Still good for you as well. It gives you such an endorphin rush.
And I'd also love to do a bit of fishing there. There's some good sea trout fishing to be having and fishing's a real passion of mine, it's probably one of the main reasons that I've seen so much of the country.
So aye, that's what I'd love to do. A bit of wild swimming in the water and a bit of fishing at Durness.”
James’ perfect day:
Where: Castle Creavie, Sango Bay, St Kilda, Isle of Skye, Atholl Arms in Dunkeld, Kenmore Hotel, Loch Fyne
Food and drink: Boat Shed Cafe at Loch Goil, The Kitchin, George Hotel, Inveraray, Fyne Ales
Music: Beluga Lagoon, Gerry Cinnamon, Have Mercy Las Vegas
A sample of James’ videos:
Castle Creavie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsBnIDrA880
Atholl Arms, Dunkeld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8kaAvSpwSc
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