I am just doing a wee bit of research for a business plan and could use some data!

If you were considering going on holiday in Scotland where would you be looking (top 5 places/areas if you are feeling generous!)?
What times of year would you consider?
Would glamping be of interest, and if so would you be looking basic or luxury?
What length of stay would be most attractive (weekend/mid week/full week/multi-week)?

I have hit the stage of no longer being able to work in my current industry due to injury so we are working on a plan to find something better than long-term benefits! I am hoping I may be fit enough to start riding again eventually, otherwise I will be needing to earn enough for an eBike!

Many thanks, and I really appreaciate any and all answers which come along! Glamping is one option, trying to convert out buildings into cottages is another and log cabin type things is a final possibility. Possibly a mixture will be the end result, just depends on what we can find in the way of property and what we can afford to do with it!

I’ll chip in off top of head thoughts Rob. Feel free to discard as I’m already here 🙂

We like Cainrgorm area / Strathspey. Close but still a holiday. Quite fancy holiday in Argyll – only been once or twice and so much there. Other than taht – somewher on NW coast that isn’t on NC500. Remoter parts of NE – i.e. beyond Banff.

spring / autumn (i.e. late April, May, abd late Sept, October).

Yes — happy to pay for luxury though basic and quirky would be OK too.

We can manage mid-week and out of season, if that suits. Maybe up to near a full week but not much more.

Locals are absolutely fine too – I used to pop off for weekends/long weekends all the time, and I think this market is going to be a pretty good one to hit to be honest 🙂

Research midge season.
Glen Coe.
Don’t discount Glasgow in favour of Edinburgh.
Train from Glasgow or Fort William to Mallaig then odd days island hopping.

Aviemore obvs
Dumfries & Galloway has huge potential though. Amazing hills and coast and nearer to the population centres of NW England than the Scottish national parks.

Glamping / Camping has some appeal, but it would have to be very special. The usual yurt with a hot tub in a field with 3 others is not special enough IMHO.

Glamping – not sure. I am happy to camp or rent a cottage/apartment. Never tried the middle option.
Usually full week somewhere. Tweed Valley, Fort William (usually because of a race), or with in-laws – Arran. Other places I have enjoyed – Mull, Ardnamurchan.

Any time of year really. Usually Spring/Autumn though.

Ive decided to to do the NC 500 early Spring given the the impending doom, it should be rather quiet.

Every cloud..

Nobeer will be along shortly…

… He’ll say Arran.

He’ll be right. Its lovely.

Not done the NC500 in a long while, I think I was still riding Triumphs last time (been on a Moto Guzzi since 2011!).

Some good thoughts coming through, kinda following my own prejudices which is good too 😉 I am au fait with the wonderful midge being of Orcadian extraction!

I like to do a lot of local holidays.

Places I have really enjoyed or visited multiple times

Skye
Aviemore / Cairngorms
Loch Tay/ Strathearn
Ardnamurchan

I can also see the obvious appeal of the Tweed Valley – but it’s a bit too close to me for me to have holidayed there.

Glamping is fine so long as it doesn’t cost as much as a B&B or a hotel.

Somewhere near (couple of hours drive) of an airport or well connected rail station. If rail a pick up service would be handy.
Glampping maybe, camping no chance, prefer some form of building with sanitation. Don’t really fancy self catering, pubs etc nearby would be good and bike availability would be a positive. For context we live in London but will travel for a break and biking flew up with bikes for grinduro in Arran, had a great time on island and toy with going back but it’s a fair old schlep. Other sports like kayaking and sup would entice Mrs kilo. Also not knowing much about Scotland tourism I think a good website would be needed so I could see what the area had to offer

We got married here which was pretty special. May be something to look into as well as it just being purely a glamping site.

Other than that, the usual Aviemore/Cairngorms and Dumfries & Galloway.

Whenever Jason (Terrahawk) keeps posting on social media, the D&G looks like a great option

I think Scotland has plenty of expensive holiday cottage rental options, nice hotels (top end of the market) and campsite/hostel options at the cheaper end.

The top end is £100 plus a night bottom end £35 a night camping. There seems to be a gap in the middle (50-100 per night). That could be glamping or some other option.

Location could be optimised to get winter and summer business e.g near snow resorts Anoch Mor, Glen Coe and Aviemore, Lécht Glenshee.

Mmmm, I posted a long reply but it seems to have disappeared???

Short version =

A group of us southerners have booked a couple of cottages in Plockton.

Favoured 5 destinations = West/Northwest Scotland, Skye, Torridon, Plockton. Near mountains and sea is important.
Time of year = Flexible but April, May or June (booked May) preferred.
Glamping? = 50/50 split with us. It would need to be luxury to further the appeal, I would stay in a basic tent.
Length of stay – We are driving up so 1 week minimum for us, although we have 1 lady flying up on Friday and returning Sunday.

We are all work flexible and not overly cost conscious. No kids but most of us are dog owners and are taking our mutts. Most of us have multiple holidays every year.

We are definately doing dogs – it is a nightmare finding somewhere to go when we have our borderline collie with us! May even do doggy day-care for those times when folk want to go and visit somewhere less pooch friendly, just looking into the legal requirements for that service though.

Hire services are something we were looking at, but it depends on the scale we go to, it may be a couple of units, may be 10+ depending on who we finance it and what we can find in terms of space. It won’t be all crammed in like most sites I have seen (and quite a few I have stayed on) – more like the density at Comrie Croft or even less if we go glamping. Cabins/converted far buildings would obviously be different! With a bit of luck/lot of luck we will aim for a bit of a blend, but glamping is going to be the quickest/most cost effective route to start up so is looking most likely.

We will hopefully throw in bookable trips/experiences and workshops/location guiding for photography and possibly other “stuff” too alongside more traditional photography related business stuff!

I’ve lived a very sheltered life, only time I’ve seen Scotland was being driven to/from Glasgow airport ~30 years ago!

But these days, I’d love to cycle Bealach na Bà, as long as it’s dry; not too windy and no midges.

The limitation is surely what is available to buy and what regulations are on it. But I agree with the sentiment that there might be a gap between the lower end (free wild camping to regimented campsites) and the B&B market.

For camping and glamping, your season is only really 6 months and most of that has midges, so you need to carefully consider your income in winter. That comes from a stand-point that, I don’t understand glamping. What am I paying £80-100 for? I can camp for free in Scotland, or at a fraction of the cost including a hot shower and toilet. I can pay the same for a warm, dry youth hostel room or a cabin with drying facilities, why would I choose to be colder / wetter?

IMO, I would investigate one of two ideas:

1. Super luxury. Find a quiet non-touristy bit of the coast where you can buy a decent length of the waterfront/cliff front where you can build / renovate a small 1 bed robust dwelling and do it up with super luxury kitchen and bathroom; windows floor to ceiling, triple glazed, on-site power generation (wind turbine or stream). Google ‘baths with a view’ or ‘hot tubs with a view’. You wouldn’t be able to live on site for privacy, but you could use the income to pay for a small place in a local town and do the maintenance / cleaning yourselves. This place in TAS has slightly less bad winters than Scotland but has an outside bath and has >90% occupancy in spring-autumn and 25% in winter: https://www.thaliahaven.com.au/ The same idea, perhaps with an indoor bathroom, overlooking one of the western isles (ie. from Bute) or within the Dark Skies areas.

2. An eco semi-wild camp on one of the Long Distance Paths and / or loch-side for family friendly canoeists. Probably impossible to find land, but if you could find grants / subsidies to establish deciduous forest near a path or loch, provide very well spread out ‘wild’ campsites with hot water and toilets to walkers or canoeists. Again are there any subsidies for power generation on site?

Another idea to supplement your income, depends if you or your other half are able to lift a canoe? There are threads on here, and on songofthepaddle, looking for shuttling services for trips on lochs / rivers. There are already some outfitters who do it, but you could look at the viability of a Kennys Taxis (Wye) equivalent, with a vehicle that can carry canoes and mountain bikes and hikers, e.g. located somewhere in the central Trossachs area.

Glampping maybe, camping no chance, prefer some form of building with sanitation. Don’t really fancy self catering, pubs etc nearby would be good

Very definitely this. You either aim for a complete “off-the-grid” experience with self-catering or you go upmarket but then you need to be close to pubs/restaurants etc. So, have a look to see where those are first. I can think of lots of lovely areas but with no facilities nearby, you’ve immediately put some folk off.

Caithness is often overlooked for the splendour of the West Coast but it has lots of interest and is worth an explore.

Pubs can get thin on the ground in the more wild areas – how close would you want to be? Walking distance (a mile or so max?), Short bike ride (3 miles?) Or short drive (5 miles?)

It is something I am keen on finding as I want to be somewhere with a bit of community – particularly as we have kids to worry about too and I don’t want to cut them off from society completely… although how society feels about that I am not so sure 🤣

JoshVegas is the boy. 😁

I’m not gonna agree with him though, too many folk finding out about Arran though… 🤣

Lol Arran is lovely and has been on our radar for a while. Not sure it is quite what we want in some respects but it does tick a lot of boxes (Mull has been on the agenda too but the right places just don’t come up often there).

If you have a squillion pounds to buy somewhere, and then, crucially, can get staff to help if required, then all should be well.
Big pod place near my family in Penifiler ,Skye is up for sale as they just couldn’t get staff.
All the hotels are advertising for staff all season too.
A good old fashioned B& B is probably a good shout.
As for me, I find it hard to see past the West coast and islands, but then that’s because I like stravaiging among hills.
I was working near plockton today and it was just stunning in the changeable weather.

This must be a bummer in the current situation…😷
https://www.ross-shirejournal.co.uk/news/strathpeffer-hotels-china-push-is-coming-up-trumps-174598/

Glamping would be an option for us as a family – we love to camp but have basically quit on the idea of packing the car to the gills if it’s only for a long weekend in the UK, just too much hassle. So timber tenting or what have you works great for us, and doesn’t need to be luxurious.

We also like camping at youth hostels for this reason – they’re usually somewhere nice, impressive old buildings, and we never plan ahead to book a family room so often can’t get one in the Lakes etc. We usually can, though, get a camping spot so just sling the tent and bedding in the car and eat in the YHA or the pub. So if you had a campsite with fixed facilities along those lines that might fill a niche.

Bottom line is the midges, though – just a total non-starter for camping or glamping for me. I’d go to town on midge research for any area I was looking to set up in if it involved camping, as they could sink you (esp in this era of tripadvisor) and you would be powerless to tackle the problem.

I went to Arran last week.
It’s shit! 😉

And you never even made it to the good bits! 😁

2019-11-18_07-04-57 by [/url] – Flickr2BBcode LITE

Arran by [/url] – Flickr2BBcode LITE

Arran Recce by [/url] – Flickr2BBcode LITE

Some more random thoughts…

New from the Outer Hebrides is that, despite it becoming more popular as a destination, accommodation is actually getting harder to find. What’s happening is folk coming up, liking the place, then buying up a substantial house that was running as a B&B and turning it into a second home. The NC500 is starting to suffer the same fate. OTOH that offers opportunities for folk wanting to provide accommodation but it obviously has to meet folks expectations.

Access to pubs/restaurants etc is obviously more important for folk who are on walking or cycling holidays as they have less capability of travelling a few miles to find one. If you are mainly targeting longer stays (weeks and half weeks) then those type of visitors mainly arrive by car so it’s less of a problem.

We holiday in Scotland throughout the year. Favourite locations are the Outer Hebrides and the North West (I’ve developed a particular soft-spot for Lochinver as some friends are converting an old coastguards shed into a holiday home). More off the beaten track (for the moment) would be the Ardgour/Ardnamurchan area and bits of Argyll/Kintyre but these are exactly where you start running out of pubs and shops and, especially if you are aiming at families, things to do when the weather isn’t playing ball.

Sorry if all of this is obvious, it’s just feedback from tourists and a bit of “local” knowledge.

If you were considering going on holiday in Scotland where would you be looking (top 5 places/areas if you are feeling generous!)?
Our favourite places in Scotland (highest ranked first) is:
Cairngorns (specifically Glenmore / Aviemore)
Shegra / Sandwood Bay
Applecross
-We’ve not been Glencoe yet so we’re doing that for Easter this year. Will report back if this is a new favourite!
-Also not done the islands, that’s on the to do list this year

We have a campervan so this feedback is mainly campervan specific. However we absolutely love Aviemore / Glenmore as nearly all outdoor activities are on the doorstep. Watersports on the loch, lots of MTB, winter sports (during the winter!), hiking, and plenty of paid for activities at Rothiemurchus. We now go up there at least 3 times a year (from Cheshire).

We did spend Christmas at Pine Bank Chalets staying in a log cabin in Aviemore and had a brilliant time. Close enough to the pubs / bars, and still having all the outdoor stuff a short bus ride/drive away. I have noticed they are building a rather large Premier Inn next door to the log cabins though…..

What times of year would you consider?
Our general rule is campervan during BST, glamping or log cabins during DST. Not my rules…..other halfs!

Would glamping be of interest, and if so would you be looking basic or luxury?
Personally we prefer a more luxury glamping experience, but this is biased as we’d only pick this option during the colder months.

What length of stay would be most attractive (weekend/mid week/full week/multi-week)?
If in the van then long weekends are what we do. Drive up Thurs or Fri, leave on Monday. For glamping or log cabins we usually book 7 days.

Other feedback – we have a dog, so dog friendly accommodation is an absolute must. What we also look for is any sort of pub/bar within walking distance that is dog friendly. If there isn’t one nearby then we wouldn’t stay for more than a night or two.

How’s it going Rob?

Haven’t read all of the above so apologies for any duplication.

In my opinion (13 years so far) you need somewhere with year round trade. That’s the Cairngorms (Aviemore) or here (Fort William/Glencoe).

Further north the season is too short. Something on a long distance footpath is going to be short season too. I guess these two would work IF you could charge high enough prices during the season to cover the bills when no one is there. Good luck with that!

Accommodation wise. Bricks and mortar is best for resale value longer down the line but higher prices upfront. High quality glamping pods can be had relatively cheap. Spec them well enough and have a ‘feature’ (hot tub, sauna, stunning view, decking etc.) and you can charge ridiculous money on them. e, the prices some of my competitors charge is eye watering BUT people pay it. People will pay a lot of money for a quality product though.

Major issue right now is over abundance of accommodation in some areas with air bnbers jumping on the bandwagon and more pertinently in the immediate future Coronavirus. Hopefully that blows through quickly.

Easy way of forecasting turnover etc. – give me a shout if you need more info.

All the best.
Keith.

 I have noticed they are building a rather large Premier Inn next door to the log cabins though

Premier Inn is now open. It actually looks OK. Haven’t tried their food offering yet.

@Nobeerinthefridge

Bit hard to venture up Goatfell with two 80 year old terminally ill grandparents.

I think this is more about what market/sector you are after and where you want to live.

As an example – I’m off to a glamping village that seems really busy and popular for a wedding this year. It had to be booked a year ago. It’s in Cumbernauld FFS! However, they know thier market. It’s central to Edinburgh and Glasgow, it’s glamping while not scary rural. Folk seem to fill the place for long weekends, to visit the cities and to break journeys.

I think you need to work out who is coming and why.

You mention dogs already, I’ve a friend who holidays with her horse and it’s a constant challenge to find locations which rent a field and byre. They pay a fortune for the horse it seems.

Are you after families?
Couples?
Full weeks or just a few days?
Year round?
Lots seem to go to places because it the venue – Comrie Croft for the riding and feel of the site seems to be the main attraction, not the hills and lochs around, for example.

@hamuf was slightly tongue in cheek fella 😊

So… we have had an offer come in on our Lakes house this morning. Just in that considering and negotiating position at the moment but we may be under starters orders. Keith, will drop you an email in a bit!

Good stuff mate, best of luck.

Taking some of the points from above and being biased towards D&G the area is lacking in affordable accommodation for outdoor pursuits.
Not many if any youth hostel type accommodation. Gorsebank near Dalbeattie being an exception. There is more and more pod style popping up on camp sites. There are lots of old derelict farm buildings, many being snapped up by “developers”
There is a large art based community including photographers.
There are many other attractions to keep people occupied.
Lagan outdoors is closing their outdoor facilities this year due to costs and weather to concentrate on their other ventures.
There is an obvious increase in camper/motorhomes visiting the area so a few cheap ehu’s and waste disposal points would keep you busy.
Dumfries and Lockerbie have train stations for those who wish to travel that way

With the lodge development currently planned for the Borders at Glentress the luxury market is being catered for.

Planning departments may be your biggest obstacle🙁

Now may be a good time if this lot are going to splash the cash or become a talking shop.
https://www.sosep.co.uk/

https://www.gallowaycycling.com/
https://www.dumfries-and-galloway.co.uk/accommodation/caravan.htm

I’ve not read the rest of the thread because I cba. But I love the south west, it’s great we go most years. May and August are great.

There’s a bit of a shortage of good quality mtb friendly accommodation for families in the area so I’d prefer that rather than glamping, but I may be in the minority.

Tiree for me but the price of property there is getting a bit silly. Cool much cheaper but less of an attraction for some reason than Tiree (though a designated dark sky location from memory). No mountain biking to really speak of on either other than fat bike on the beaches.

So if I have understood the premise of your question correctly, you are hoping that someone on here suggests a location in Scotland which is going to have cheap property/land, be reasonably straightforward to get planning permission for, and be attractive for tourists (presumably middle class Audi driving IT consultants from the UK).

Good luck finding that gem that nobody else has considered – if you go too off field you’ll need to market the area as much as the facilities, if you go mainstream you’ll have competition. Either way I’d want to be in a part of Scotland that I wanted to live in all year round. Some of the amazing summer spots are bleak in winter, miles from any mainstream facilities, and probably not somewhere you go to open a business on a whim. That winter issue is a real factor to consider; the proper tourist season is short. Glamping from October to March is going to take some serious thought (who wants to walk through horizontal sleet to take a pee at 2am? – so you’ll want toilets in the pods), insulation and heating will push up initial build cost and running costs respectively. Even then I think it will take some marketing genius to convince a typical gla per to come and post amazing trip advisor reviews, about a cozy little retreat in an amazing setting.

Either way I’d want to be in a part of Scotland that I wanted to live in all year round. Some of the amazing summer spots are bleak in winter, miles from any mainstream facilities, and probably not somewhere you go to open a business on a whim.

When we decided to move north that was a very real consideration. Although we’d also holidayed lots in the Aviemore area it wasn’t actually our immediate first choice. We looked at lots of options on the West Coast but came to realise that they wouldn’t have all we wanted as somewhere to live full time (15 year old daughter in tow meant schools, social life and transport were even more of an issue).

Having said that, there are still some small areas that are overlooked. I hadn’t appreciated how nice the area south of Loch Ness was as I’d just always pass it on the way north. The creation of the South Loch Ness Trail/ Loch Ness 360 is a bit of a win for some of the locals there who started developing it a few years ago. With easy access to Inverness, Fort Augustus and the Cairngorms it’s definitely an area the OP should consider.