Camping and caravan club sites in Scotland

Touring Scotland with a caravan is a different exercise from touring England. Distances are longer than the map suggests, road quality drops away sharply once you leave the trunk network, and fuel stations thin out north and west of Inverness. A 1,500kg outfit will use noticeably more diesel here than it does in the Midlands, and average speeds fall accordingly.

The road network

The M74 and M8 handle the Central Belt. North of Perth, the A9 to Inverness is the main artery — largely single carriageway with intermittent dual sections, average speed cameras from Dunblane to Inverness, and long queues behind slower traffic in summer. The Drumochter summit at 452m is exposed and closes in heavy winter snow. The A82 up Loch Lomond and through Glencoe is the western approach; the stretch between Tarbet and Ardlui is narrow, twisting and hemmed by rock, and it punishes wide outfits. The A83 over the Rest and Be Thankful into Argyll has a long history of landslips and convoy diversions onto the Old Military Road below. Check its status before setting off.

West and north of that, single-track roads with passing places are normal. Passing places exist for passing and for letting faster traffic through. Pulling into them promptly is the local etiquette and ignoring it is how visitors earn a reputation.

Where the sites are

Club sites concentrate in four places: the Loch Lomond and Trossachs corridor, Argyll and the Oban area, the Cairngorms and Speyside, and the Highland coast around Ullapool, Gairloch and Inverness. Dumfries and Galloway holds a useful cluster for anyone breaking the journey north or catching the Cairnryan ferries. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth each have sites within reach of the city.

Season and weather

The season runs roughly from late March to late October, with fewer all-year options than England — Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway is one of the dependable winter sites. May and June are the best months: long daylight, drier conditions on the west coast, and the midges not yet at full strength. Midges are a genuine planning factor from mid-June to early September on the west coast and through the Highlands. An awning without fine mesh is close to useless in July at Arisaig or Torridon.

Ferries and passes

Island touring means CalMac. Vehicle reservations on the popular routes — Oban to Mull, Kennacraig to Islay, Ullapool to Stornoway — need booking well in advance for July and August, and you must declare the combined length of car plus caravan. Turning up on spec with an outfit in high season rarely works.

Bealach na Bà, the Applecross pass off the A896, climbs to 626m on 1 in 5 hairpins with no barriers. It is signed against caravans for good reason. Take the coast road via Shieldaig instead.

What first-time visitors get wrong

Planning by mileage. Ninety miles on the A835 or A87 takes far longer than ninety miles on the A9, and longer again with a caravan. Budget a 35mph average on the west coast and you will not be caught out. The other common error is leaving fuel to chance in the north-west, where stations are sparse and often close early on Sundays.