West coast of Scotland and midges!!!

[NotGenderSpecific]

We're looking at properties on the west coast of Scotland. Does anyone have experience of day-to-day life on the west coast and how midges affect quality of life? Holidaymakers make it sound like a nightmare but I can't find much from people who live there year-round.

How much experience of west coast / Scottish rural life have you got? From your questions I am not sure how much time you would spend there. 'West Coast' covers a huge area, from FtBill and Oban with all the amenities you want, to ar*e end of Argyll or wildly remote Culkein...

For me (and I would suspect most who live there) that midges, wet and windy weather, long dark winters, are just part of life.

Midges can be a pain, usually at peaks through the year, but that is what choosing location, Smidge and nets are for.

Weather and the knock on effects of weather are more important than midges.

More of a pain is the travel times, lack of public services and general rural issues - lack of employment, mixed economy, small communities, lack of housing, high energy costs etc etc.

Thank you for the very helpful response. We're living in Edinburgh at the moment, having moved to Scotland after some years abroad. I'm half scottish and know parts of the country quite well, but not the west.

We want to live in a rural area long-term and your description makes me tend to favour another area we're looking at: Aberdeenshire. It's early days yet, in the planning stage, but you've helped me a lot, thanks!

I grew up on the west coast so midges were just part of life - I never knew any different. Having moved to rural Perthshire I could never go back - it is wonderful to live in a place where I can be in my garden of an evening without swarms of midges and ride my horse without my hat having a black midgy swarm layer on it. If I were to move from Perthshire (no plans to!) it would be to the Black Isle - no midges, relatively dry climate and sunny. Also less tourist traffic and dreaded camper vans.

So although I think the west coast of Scotland is among the most beautiful places on earth, I wouldn't live there. We tend to visit in Spring and autumn, when it is beautiful and the midges are not as bad.

If weather, and indeed midges are an consideration then I'd definitely go with Aberdeenshire.

Another vote for Perthshire. I moved here from London in 1975, and it's wonderful. Easy access to the central belt cities, but also to the coast and mountains. North Perthshire is very hilly and rural, the south a bit more populous, but still some pretty villages. And v few midges! Light til 11pm in the summer, and you can sit out without fear of being eaten alive.

Oh yes to Perthshire. We stayed in Aberfeldy this year and also another time at Blair atholl and wow what an absolute stunning part of the world. Very rural once you're off the beaten track but good transport links when you need them. Not a midge to be seen. The scenery of the drive makes up for the fact the a9 can be a bit of a drag.

Thanks all, for the helpful comments.
I'm getting the feeling that if you've grown up with experience of rural living, midges, and wetter-than-average weather, the west coast might be attractive.
I love a challenge but I think that drier, midge-free, eastern Scotland would give me and DW (delightful/dearest/domineering wife) enough of a challenge with the isolation and lack of regular human contact, to be going on with.
Thus, I think it's Dundee and points north for us!

I currently stay south of Perth - I would say don't discount Stirling (and Stirlingshire), Perthshire and up. Some brilliant places that have good transport and job opportunities, great countryside on the doorstep, good schools and Stirling has just been voted the best city in Scotland....And not as rural as some places further north for the A9 'corridor' from Stirling to Pitlochry.
I agree with east though - when I (in 20 years!) retire, I think I am heading further north and east.

Thanks for the info. In the end, location may well come down to what we can afford. If we could afford somewhere with a few acres, rural, but close enough to main travel routes to remove the feeling of isolation, we'd go for that. However, we're unburdened by great wealth (!) and will have to make compromises to find somewhere with an acceptable balance of factors for us. It'll take a while and it's fun going to new places as we learn more about Scotland.