DUNNET HEAD • SCOTLAND

The cliffs of Dunnet Head in Thurso (Caithness), Scotland.

One fun thing that I left out of my About Me blog post is that my family is half Scottish. Now you might be thinking I mean that my ancestors are Scottish and it’s just been handed down through the generations of my American family, but no I quite literally mean my family is half Scottish. My grandmother was born and raised in Caithness, Scotland and moved to the U.S. with her then husband at 21 years old and became a naturalized citizen. She was the only one in her family to move stateside and the rest of my great-aunts and great-uncles and cousins are still over there. I’ve had the pleasure of traveling overseas to visit all of them twice now and each time has been absolutely breathtaking!

I firmly believe that for any adventure seeker, Scotland should be a must on your travel bucket list. It’s a small country, you can travel from coast to coast in less than 8 hours, but it’s full of beauty, wonder, and true magic. I’m only focusing on my trip up to Dunnet Head in this post, so you’ll have to keep an eye out for upcoming posts about my other favorite Scottish sights.

We were lucky enough to see an elusive puffin on our trip! Dunnet Head is a Nature Reserve and one of the few places where these birds are firmly protected.

Dunnet Head is the northern most part of Scotland located just off Scotland’s North Coast 500 route and is just outside of Thurso, a small historic town in Caithness. It’s known for its dramatic 270 ft tall cliffs that overlook the North Sea and is home to a multitude of animals from puffins and kittiwakes to seals and more. Historically it was even home to a World War II radar station. But for my family, it holds a more sentimental purpose. Dunnet Head was my grandmother’s favorite places to visit growing up. During the war, she was sent to live on her grandparents’ farm not far from the coast outside of Dunnet Head and would often sneak out to go sit on the cliffs and stare at the vastness of ocean. She loved it so much that it’s where she wanted her ashes spread after she passed, and that’s exactly what we did on this particular trip. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to her, sitting on the cliffs in her favorite place, enjoying the view and humming her favorite folk tunes.

A scenic outlook along the Cairngorms Snow Route in the Cairngorms National Park. We were here in August when the heather was in almost full bloom.

If you’re limited on time, Dunnet Head can easily be visited as a day trip from Inverness or even Dundee. For our trip, we planned it out as a stop along the way to my cousin’s friends’ farmhouse in the Highlands and began our day in Dundee after visiting with family the night before. We started early in the morning and chose the scenic route through the Cairngorms National Park to see the blooming heather and along the NC500 route making a few coastal outlook stops for some fresh air. The entire trip took us about 6 hours and 45 minutes with our stops, but was more than worth being in the car for that amount of time. If you’re there in the summer like we were, make sure you go through the Cairngorms Snow Roads Route for the best scenery and stop at any of their scenic outlooks! You can also make a stop at John O’Groats along the way to see some amazing sea stacks.

For more information about places to see on the way to Dunnet Head, click here.

We spent about 2 hours or so exploring the peace and untamed beauty of the cliffs and the nature reserve. If you’re planning your own trip to Dunnet Head, learn from our trip and make sure you plan to wear/not wear and/or bring the following:

Windbreaker or jacket - It gets surprisingly windy and cold on the cliffs, make sure you’re being careful because strong gusts can come out of nowhere and can knock you off your balance.
Leave any hats in the car unless they tie around your chin!
SNACKS OR A PICNIC - I can’t reiterate this one enough, learn from our mistake, pack plenty of snacks and food on this trip. There aren’t very many restaurants or places to stop for a bite to eat.
A camera with at least a 200mm lens or a point and shoot camera with up to 30x zoom - On the chance that you’re lucky enough to be there when the puffins and seals are out, you’re going to want to have a camera that can zoom far enough to capture them. Check out my favorite point and shoot camera to travel with.
Hiking boots or sneakers with a good grip - If it’s been raining, the grassy slopes can get pretty slick on your way out to the cliffs, you also probably want thick socks because it can be chilly even in the summer.
A physical map - Make sure you print out a copy of the route you plan on taking and don’t rely on cell service if you don’t have access to a GPS system in your car. Even still, our rental didn’t have the best GPS system and we lost service a few times in the middle of nowhere and had to make a handful of u-turns to get back on track.
Check out the route we took below!