Anyone been camping on Skye?

[DelicateFluffyBunny]

We haven't been camping yet and thought we'd try a couple of nights on Skye as our first outing.

Can anyone recommend a campsite?

Not camped there but reccomend jungle formula for the bloomin midges!!!

I've never been bitten by a midge!

Now my DH on the other hand...

All I acn say in that case is....enjoy!!!

The midges made camping on skye a truly miserable experience, we were either on the zipped up tent or in the car. Don't do it!

I love Skye, but wouldn't camp there. The weather is so unpredictable, glorious one day, fog so thick you can't see your hand infront of your face the next and thats August! Good thing is when it's foggy the midgies go away!!

There are a few campsites though if you do go. I've heard the one near Dunvegan is good. Although they were caravaning rather than camping.

How far are you travelling to get there? If it's your first outing you might want to stay reasonably local to home.

I've camped on Skye twice and both times had to strike camp at 5am due to cyclonic winds and seriously torrential rain! Both times were in August. If you're still interested, the first time was on the campsite at the head of loch sligachan which was great but mostly full of walkers about to take on the cullin. There is a good pub right nextdoor (from memory I think they run the campsite but could be wrong - was a long time ago). Second time was rough camping somewhere off the road to Elgol, right on the beach with fabulous views of the mountains. It may be useful to know that there is a 24 hour service station at Broadford with washers and dryers (this is where we hung out from 5-7am last time!). The midges don't generally arrive until late May but as others have said, when they do, it makes camping in Western Scotland bloody awful!

Oooo, and just remembered a third time! At Uig bay campsite - lovely and friendly, good facilities, bike hire etc. Can get the ferry to Outer Hebrides from there too (we did this with bikes hired from the site)

I've stayed in the camping barn just up from the Glenbrittle site - beautiful for the 2nd half of our trip, when we had amazing weather, it was sunny, breezy (no midges!) and gorgeous. The first half of the trip, the hut was nearly swept away, so god alone knows what the campsite was like. In the rare moments without rain, we were eaten alive by the midges. We were there in June.

So best of luck, and it's worth having contacts of all the local youth hostels as a back up plan in case the weather is REALLY bad.

easter would be a good time to try. the weather has been good the last few years and it is early enough to avoid midgies.

You should be midge free if you go in May (possibly June) or after the first frost - September is often fine. July and August are absolutely the worst months for midgies. The weather is also usually better in these months than in Jul/Aug. Skye has a bit of a microclimate because of the Cuillins and so the weather there is often worse than it is a few miles away on the mainland. If you want to be within striking distance of Skye, you could stay in Kintail somewhere.

June is the best time to go - beautiful then. Flowers out, generally pre-midge (not completely) and generally better weather. Not always possible if your kids are at school though.

The Dunvegan campsite is brilliant - from memory, fantastic hot showers. One of the campsites (I think Glenbrittle) is quite dominated by climbers etc, so I guess it depends on your reason for going.

And if the weather is bad there are generally holiday cottages which tend to be cheaper if booked last minute

why skye? unless you are seriously into walking up mountains there isn't alot ot recommend it.

Glenbrittle is very climby, yes. It's the nearest one to the Cuillins really, so you can walk right in from there. And it's next to the sea, so that keeps the midgies off a bit (in theory...).

And I agree with duplicitousbitch about the charms of Skye. There are lots of lovelier places in Scotland, IMHO.

if you are in the area, stay mainland and go to applecross. my sister says it's The Most Beautiful campsite she has ever been to, and they allow fires.

mull is prettier and you get to go on a ferry

oh yes, i am going to applecross this summer

YES. Applecross is magical. And the pub does very good food too.

Or Mull. Mull is lovely.

pre dd we used to rough camp at loch torridon, it was fabulous

oh i am getting all excited about camping... just bought sims! the kids had them out yesterday, pretending to camp under a blanket. cannot WAIT.

i love skye btw, but from a hotel.

I would second others opinions about Skye not being the top camping destination in Scotland although we did have fun on a whale watching trip we did there after a night's wild camping.

If you do decide to camp on Skye though, should you have a grumpy DH with an aversion to warm beer, you might want to avoid Staffin campsite, not because there is anything wrong with it apart from the midges, which are everywhere anyway, but because Staffin is a dry town with three churches and NO pubs .

A few years ago, DH, me and my brother arrived at Staffin campsite in our VW campervan after two breakdowns in one day, hours on the side of a road waiting for the breakdown truck followed by another half hour midge-fest while DH re-fixed the problem the garage had supposedly fixed only an hour earlier. On being told Staffin had no pubs, DH parked up on our pitch and threw all the contents of our van at my brother and me while muttering incoherently but rather too loudly about the idiocy of a town without a pub and the people (me) who choose such godforsaken hell-holes to stay in so other people (him) have only warm beer from the van to drink after being eaten alive by midges and driving for hours etc etc. Worse, he had run out of cigarettes but luckily the poor Dutch people in the next caravan had been so startled (I suspect) by his outburst and the rather unorthodox way he had unpacked that they offered him what was left of their packet. And peace was restored.

Nevertheless, for the alcoholic camper heading to Skye, let this be a lesson...

BTW, the Glenview Hotel on Skye, about a half hour walk along the road from Staffin, is VERY nice, or was when we were there.

Oh and another thing, Avon's Skin So Soft works surprisingly well against midges