THE LAZY GAL’S GUIDE TO SOME AMAZING VIEWS (WITH MINIMAL EFFORT . . . )

I’ve been a bit lax with the whole actual writing posts of late (great start, considering this website is still in its very early infancy, eh?) but in my defence Scotland opened back up and for the first time in close to six months I’ve been able to finally travel outside my council area so we’ve been making up for lost time and getting our roadtrips on.

But let’s get back to it with a topic very close to my heart – amazing Scottish views.

Now, there are a LOT of these, and I guess probably the best views are ultimately those atop a Munro. However, this is me, self-proclaimed lazy gal, and so with that in mind, I am going to share with you a favourite of my few Scottish views which don’t involve you breaking into too much of a sweat. Or a sweat at all in some cases . . . unless it’s hot weather, and we all know that’s rare in Scotland.

So without further ado, let’s get going!

REST AND BE THANKFUL VIEWPOINT

A mere zip in the car down the A83 road towards Inveraray and the Kintyre peninsula, you’ll find the Rest and Be Thankful and its viewpoint. This is one of my absolute favourite places for getting an amazing view down the glen, and the best part? There is a car park right next to it, so you can just hop out of the car and take a couple of snaps without actually having to do any climbing or walking. (Obviously given the place is surrounded by hills you can do your research and do a bit of a climb of one, or wander down the old military road if you so desire but you don’t have to…)

CARR BRAE VIEWPOINT

I’ve mentioned this area before as you get a great view of Eilean Donan from there, but if you continue up this road from Dornie you also can get fabulous views over Loch Duich and they’re pretty damn impressive.  Once again, not much effort involved. Park the car and within a couple of minutes walk from the car the views are right there for you.

MAM RATAGAN

On the single track road to Glenelg, on the other side of Loch Duich, you will find two great viewpoints near the start of the road, both with amazing views over the loch and mountains. Once again you can park in the car parks and they’re right there for you.

CATHKIN BRAES

Great views over Glasgow and the hills behind within a few minutes of walking. We were very happy to realise during the most recent lockdown that these were within Glasgow council area as it felt like one of the closest places we could get to the countryside and be able to pretend we were NOT in Glasgow – even though we were looking right at it!

QUIRAING

Massive views from this landslip up on the Isle of Skye and it’s up to you how much effort you put in as you don’t have to walk far at all if you don’t want to. We walked for around five to ten minutes to get views like ours and, to be honest, we would have went further but we were very aware of the sheer drop at some points at the side of us, which put us off quite a bit!

MCCAIG’S FOLLY

This folly looms over the lovely town of Oban and gives you a great . . . vista (trying to say something other than “view” is hard!) over it. You can walk up from the town itself, but there is a car park and within five minutes from the car you can see it all for yourself. The tower itself is also pretty cool.

DUNCRYNE HILL

Last of all (for now anyway) I will mention The Dumpling near Gartocharn. I have mentioned this before, but I would highly recommend it as  it has great views over Loch Lomond and some of its many islands. Now, it involves a bit more walking than any of the other viewpoints I have mentioned, probably somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes to walk up to the summit, but you get it over with really quickly and  the views are great for such a short distance uphill. (It has the Lazy Gal stamp of approval, which I’ve literally just invented as I type.) I’m hoping to revisit The Dumpling again soon so once I do expect a post devoted just to it.

Anyway I hope you found this helpful , happy travelling and all that . . . and I’ll just leave you with one reminder, just since everything is now opened up again – just make sure to park responsibly, drive responsibly, use passing places properly and just be generally considerate. (The last rule just applies in general too!)

Do you have a favourite lazy viewpoint?