If so whats it like? My wife is applying for a job up that way so if shes successful we may be making a move… 🙂

David.

Don't live there but I've spent a lot of time in the area over the years.

Kinlochbervie is a very remote fishing community just south of Sandwood Bay. The scenery is spectacular and if you're into the outdoors it's got a lot to offer. However, it is very cut off from the rest of the world and it might get bleak in the winter!

Much of Sutherland is pretty empty (the legacy of the Clearances) but it has a unique beauty which may be an acquired taste. Lairg has a lots of brilliant biking and hillwalking within easy reach (Golspie, Balblair etc.) – Oh, and there's a branch of Harrods nearby.

When the weather is good, there's pretty much nowhere on Earth I'd rather be than the north west of Scotland, though I come from a long, long line of Highlanders so it may well be in my DNA…

as above really, when younger I lived all over rural Scotland (dad was a lighthouse keeper). As a child I loved it, as a teenager I found it could be hard going.

If you miss town centres, takeaways, shopping choice and city facilities etc it might be a bad move, ie the nearest decent shopping centre is Inverness.

I'd take into account things like fuel price rises, cost of living (houses wil be cheaper but not goods) if you have kids bear them in mind – facilities, proximity of friends etc and how what you want to do and like to do/lifestyle fits in with the area and it's facilities. I'd suggest you'd need to be pretty happy in a small pool and prepared to work hard at integrating and building up a social life.

Kinlochberview isn't the prettiest of villages but the surrounding area is. The main road to it is probably better than you'd expect (I don't think there are any/many singletrack sections between it and Inverness as it was upgraded for the fish lorries).

I wouldn't want to live up there with teenage kids (mine get restless when we're up there for a week or so on holiday) but with younger or no kids it'd be fantastic and I'm hoping to move to the North West of Scotland at some point myself (although more likely in Wester Ross than Sutherland).

The area is fantastic for outdoors stuff – cycling, hillwalking and kayaking etc.