July 2026 – Back on the road again

In May 2026 we travelled through the Outer Hebrides. We watched golden eagles on Lewis in the north and crossed the hills of Harris to camp by its sweeping beaches. Sailing to North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist we heard and saw the rare corncrake and wandered through flower-rich machair under boundless skies. Barra, the most southerly of the Outer Hebrides showcased local producers in its community shop and gave us wind, rain and sunshine on our hill walk. Visiting the Outer Hebrides was fascinating and relaxing.

We used campsites every night and stayed two or three nights in most of the campsites below. The campsites were all around £30/night, in addition some of the sites charged for showers.

Many of the campsites were small and family-run or were income generation for community development trusts. This meant that the money we spent during our visit to the islands benefitted islanders and stayed local.

Laxdale Holiday Park, Stornoway – This small, family-run and friendly campsite uses every space possible for pitches. It is on the edge of Stornoway and about a 30-minutes walk to the town centre [there is a bus service from the main road five minutes walk away]. The site is popular and it is worth booking if you want to stay here. Our pitch was the best on the site, with trees on one side and grass on the other and a view across countryside to the sea. There are other good pitches but some are on sloping gravel and concrete. The site is well kept and we found the showers to be good with continuous flow and hot water. The windows and doors are kept open to keep the facilities aired and there was no heating on when we were there, so it might be bracing. The washing up is indoors. Stornoway is certainly worth a visit to see the harbour and castle and the larger supermarkets are here.

Eilean Fraoich Campsite, Shawbost, Lewis – We received a friendly welcome at this family-run site. The site is level and grassy with wide-open views and the pitches are fitted in like a jigsaw around the buildings. The campsite is in a peaceful crofting township, with the coast about 30 minutes walk away. The shower were continuous flow and adjustable temperature and cost 50p for four minutes. The washing up is in an indoor kitchen and there are some separate unheated bathrooms. This campsite asked that you didn’t put washing out on a Sunday. The site is around 20 minutes drive from the main Calanais Standing Stones site and the museum at Geàrrannan Blackhouse Village is around 15-minutes drive.

Pairc Niseaboist, West Harris – This site is one run by the West Harris Trust, who work to develop the area’s economy and housing and support the community. We liked the space between pitches and the sea view on the campsite. The online booking system worked well and enabled us to choose our pitch. The level area has just seven pitches and a smart pre-fab with two bathrooms and a kitchen. This was kept spotlessly clean. The electric shower wasn’t powerful but was continuous and with adjustable temperature. The sea is just across the quiet road from the site and you can walk around the small headland and to MacLeod’s Stone with views over white sandy beaches. There is a good community cafe and gift shops next to the camping area.

Balranald Camping, North Uist – This was the largest campsite we stayed at in the Outer Hebrides. It is well-run by a family and is mostly level. It sits within an RSPB reserve and so is perfect for bird watchers. There are farm buildings along one side of the site and we had some noise from the cattle and machinery but otherwise it was peaceful. There are two small modern facilities blocks where showers are £1 for 7.5mins. The cubicles are just big enough and the water is continuous flow with temperature control. The walk around the bay and the headland is spectacular, taking in white beaches, machair and dunes and you will see plenty of birds. We went to sleep to the sound of corncrakes. The campsite has a food truck at lunch times with drinks, meals and cakes. Next door is something I’ve not seen before, inside a large industrial-looking building there is a help-yourself farm shop with vending machines selling a limited selection of food and snacks.

Otters Edge, Benbecula – This level site has marked pitches and a beach just beyond the dunes. The owners are friendly and welcoming. The dated facilities block is kept clean but there is no heating and little natural light. The temperature in the showers is not adjustable and they are the push-button type. There is a kitchen with a washing up sink. The Dark Island Hotel is just five minutes walk away and serves delicious food. The Co-op is about 45 minutes walk away. We enjoyed a good walk along the coast and on inland lanes and the island bus goes past the site a few times a day.

Kilbride Campsite, South Uist – This site is on a slightly sloping grassy field. It is popular with tents as well as campervans and there is a hostel and cafe alongside, making it a busy site. The facilities are modern and the showers have adjustable temperature control and are continuous flow but they do have the dreaded shower curtain! They weren’t the cleanest showers in the Outer Hebrides but this was partly because the site is so busy. The small kitchen with two washing up sinks got particularly hectic at times. Behind our campervan there were corncrakes calling in the scrub and we were thrilled to spot one here. We took the bus to Eriskay from the campsite [the bus stop is about 20 minutes walk away] and we walked around the island, shopped in the village shop and had drinks and food sitting outside the Am Politician pub with a sea view. The Polochar Inn is about 30 minutes walk away from the campsite but we didn’t try this.

Barra Sands, Barra – Another friendly Hebridean welcome at this campsite. The site is grassy and terraced with slightly lumpy ground. Some pitches have sea views. The facilities are two showers and two toilets each for men and women and a washing-up sink in each block. The showers are £1 for five minutes and have adjustable temperature control and are continuous. Everything is kept clean and tidy. A gate from the site takes you to the beach in minutes. We walked over Dun Sgurabhal on a damp day and along the fabulous stretch of sand backed by dunes, returning by the airport cafe.

Wavecrest Campsite, Barra – This grassy site on the west coast of Barra has narrow pitches, most with a slight slope, and sea views over the Atlantic. The new facilities are modern and clean, with impressive individual toilets and showers. However, £2 for a five minute shower each was more than we were prepared to pay, although the cubicles are roomy enough to share! The pleasant kitchen with windows overlooking the sea has washing up, a book exchange and wi-fi. Walking to the nearby chapel and burial ground across the machair is a perfect in the Hebridean evening light.

‘Some travel writer [not me] wrote that May was the best time to visit the Outer Hebrides as there are no midges, so now it is our busiest time,’ a campsite owner told me. We were on the Atlantic coast of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and I furrowed my brow, wondering how tiny midges withstand the Hebridean winds. He nodded and smiled, telling me, ‘midges aren’t really a problem here.’

We were certainly not the only campervan travelling through all the islands of the Outer Hebrides in May but there rarely felt too many. Some commentators suggest that responsible motorhome owners should stay away from these islands but, to me, that doesn’t seem helpful. Many businesses and small, family-run campsites rely on seasonal visitors for income. We booked the ferry, willingly spent our money in the campsites and frequented cafes and local shops as we travelled from north to south through all the Outer Hebrides from Lewis to Barra.

Stornoway, the main town on Lewis, was buzzing when we visited. The sun was shining but the buzz was mainly because of the huge cruise ship moored at the deep sea terminal. This gave the town a thriving cosmopolitan air and we met a large French group in a cafe, Australians in the woodland around Lews Castle and Canadians pottering around the shops.

We were on the road early to have the Calanais Stones (sometimes referred to as Calanais I) to ourselves. They sit on a ridge and silhouetted against the sky they are visible from a distance. If seen from above these Neolithic stones form a Celtic cross shape with a circle and lines radiating in four directions. Walking among these old stones in the quiet was a special experience. We also visited Calanais II and III, from where we could see Calanais I on the horizon. Here we chatted to two visiting enthusiasts who were finding fertility links among the stones.

Wildlife. Travelling this far north gave us a longer spring season. Plants that were growing in north Lancashire in April were still flowering on the Outer Hebrides in May. The trees were just unfurling their leaves and the birds were nesting. The bird song was a backdrop to every day in the Outer Hebrides. After a week, you almost take for granted that the call of curlews. lapwings and oystercatchers will be there. Skylarks launched themselves high in the sky as we walked through machair and moorland and on North and South Uist we dropped off to sleep to the sound of corncrakes [and even saw some]. The long light evenings were perfect for strolling.

Shops & Eating Out. After Stornoway there are no large supermarkets on the islands but there are excellent shops that sell a good variety of fresh food and staples, important as we cook for ourselves most of the time. We stopped off in lots of cafes, including the outstanding Oystercatcher Bakery on North Uist that served the tastiest cinnamon buns and creamy baked cheesecake. On Benbecula we had delicious and creative vegetarian meals in the elegant Dark Island Hotel. Part of a group of three hotels on the Outer Hebrides.

Beaches were, of course, a constant feature of our trip through all the islands and each one was magnificent, from the small bays below cliffs to the long sweeps of sand. On a sunny day the white sandy beaches washed by clear turquoise water are a great place to walk and stunning photographs are easy to take. I particularly liked the stipes of colours in the sand between the rusty groynes on the beach on the north side of the tombolo that links Point to the rest of Lewis. There was some shelter on this beach from the dunes, but on the other side of the tombolo I was almost blown off my feet!

The north side of the tombolo to Point, Lewis

Walking. We walked most days, using the Walk Highlands App, but the best walk for scenery and variety was with friends who live on Lewis. They took us around the rocky headland from the Garenin Blackhouse village. We were lucky to have sunshine and I stopped to take in the stunning clifftop scenery and the blue sea as often as I could. We walked to the small modern lighthouse, by the ruins of Laimishader, one of the first townships on Lewis to be cleared in the 18th century, and along an established track where we added our footprints to the many that had walked there before.

The rugged coast from Garenin Blackhouse Village

In Morecambe we have a Time and Tide Bell and having read there was one of these on Lewis, we had to visit. Whereas in Morecambe, the bell sits on the side of the Stone Jetty and only rings at a high tide, On Lewis, the bell is in the waves of Bosta Beach [top photograph in the collection below]. It made an excellent perch for a pair of common terns. These Time and Tide Bells were designed by Marcus Vergette, to highlight the tides and our relationship to the sea. Morecambe Bay is transformed twice a day by the tides and the difference between the two can be as much as 10 metres. In the Outer Hebrides I noticed how the tides only differed by a few metres.

It is no surprise on this western edge of the UK that the weather changes quickly. While we were on the Isle of Barra, the most southerly of the Outer Hebrides, we had persistent rain one day and blue skies the next, all accompanied by the wind! The rain and accompanying low cloud meant that we weren’t able to see any planes landing at the beach runway. The sunshine meant that Vatersay, joined to Barra by a causeway, was the only island where we might have agreed there were too many motorhomes and campervans on the islands, as every parking space was crammed with vans. The Vatersay cafe had a car park with space but their sign said campervans were not allowed as their insurance did not cover them for vehicles with gas on board! Not something I’ve ever seen before. We left the crowds of Vatersay and wandered along a deserted beach on Barra.

My final impression is the most notable, it is the wind! We have plenty of breezy and stormy days in Morecambe but they didn’t prepare me for the Outer Hebrides, where the wind was an almost constant companion. Even when the sky was blue and the sun shone all day, we were still wrapped up in layers due to the wind. My face was the only part of my body that got a tan! My top tip would be visit the Outer Hebrides in May but take your February or March wardrobe!