My winter campervan adventure in the Cairngorms, Scotland

The Guardian

29-01-2025

The road north takes us through a landscape muted by frost, the hills hazy beneath the milky winter sun. My friend Anna and I are heading for the Cairngorms in a red campervan called Rowan, which we picked up from Big Sky Campers, just across the Forth from Edinburgh. It's an appropriate name, for we see the red berries of rowan trees everywhere we go, shining so brightly it's as though someone's strung tiny clusters of baubles on the silver-barked branches.
At 1,748 square miles, the Cairngorms is the UK's largest national park, stretching from Perthshire in the south to Moray in the north; mountains rear up just after we pass the riverside village of Dunkeld, armed with pastries from Aran Bakery. When I've been up here before, I've only skirted the edge of the park, sticking close to the hiking-shop-crammed town of Aviemore and seeing the hills – cloaked in snow at Easter and resplendent in purple heather in summer – from afar.
Determined to get right into the mountains, winter feels like the perfect time for a road trip – with few other tourists and the landscape arguably at its most dramatic. Our journey will take us north along the A9 before heading south from Grantown-on-Spey on what Visit Cairngorms calls the Snow Roads. A 90-mile route that includes the highest public roads in Britain, the Snow Roads wind south through mountain passes to Blairgowrie, just outside the national park. Our plan is to drive its entirety over a couple of days, then loop back into the park near the village of Blair Atholl.
With the short days, it feels like we're chasing a sun that only just makes it above the hills. The light is already fading when we arrive at RSPB Insh Marshes after a two-hour drive, silhouetting the leafless trees against the cotton-wool sky. The path – we have only enough daylight left for the one-mile track – winds through purple-tinged birch, frost crunching underfoot. Mountains, dusted with snow like icing-sugared cakes, loom in the distance, and honking gaggles of greylag geese stripe the sky in Vs.
Our campsite for the night, Dalraddy Holiday Park, was set up on Alvie Estate in the late 1960s by the current laird's father to cater for skiers. Today, it's a sprawling but quiet site, handily open all year, with expansive mountain views and more secluded spots hidden among the trees. Rowan has two beds – one in the roof tent and the other on the back seats, which fold down – though we opt for the warmer option of sharing the latter, made extra cosy by the duvets, hot-water bottles and blankets Big Sky Campers provide. We sleep pretty well and wake to the piercing shriek of a tawny owl.
The estate works in partnership, its manager Jonny tells me, with other local businesses including horse riding and ziplining, which I do at night, whizzing above the silver streak of a river. Many of these are run by people who have decided to diversify after having run ski businesses; the changing climate means snowfall is less reliable.
Despite the estate being managed it still feels wild, particularly as we climb up above the tree line for a view of the surrounding snow-streaked mountains. We have lunch in a candlelit bothy while red deer eat just outside; afterwards, we head to a hide to watch for red squirrels, though they only tease us with a brief appearance. Scotland's relaxed Outdoor Access Code means that anyone can explore the land here on foot, but access to the bothy and hide is easiest (and most fun) on a tour with Jamie, the laird of the estate.
If anything, we are too spoiled for choice here in the Cairngorms – particularly when there are only about seven hours of daylight to play with. By the time we're on the Snow Roads later that day, the only thing we can make out in the darkness is the thick fog that descends with no warning. It is with a sigh of relief that we reach the cosy pods at Howe of Torbeg, tucked on a hillside just outside the Cairngorms' dark sky park; normally this would be a fantastic spot for stargazing, but tonight the weather is not in our favour.
The next day, we retrace our steps to see the road in all its glory. It's just 20 miles to Tomintoul, but it takes us a good couple of hours with all the stops to take in the views. 'It's like constant golden hour,' Anna says, our shadows cast long on the ground when we park up at The Watchers, an art installation of four striking cocoon-like seats.
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I'll be honest: we're not hardy enough to stick out four nights in the caravan at this time of year and only spend the first night in Rowan. (Judging from the number of vans we see at Dalraddy and Braemar campsites, there are a fair number of campers made of sturdier stuff than us.) Still, having a van is a real treat. At lunchtime, Rowan really comes into her own: we park beside a narrow burn on the Glenlivet Estate and make tea to accompany our sandwiches, which we enjoy with a mountain view from the back seat. Later, when the weather turns, we use the back of the van to squeeze into more thermals, and warm up on the heated seats after our walks.
We head south for our next stop, Ballater, arriving in the dark (again) at the Balmoral Arms; the morning reveals the village's graceful buildings and independent shops, the wide River Dee rushing nearby. We have just 50 miles left of the Snow Roads from here but allow a whole day to drive it, stopping at Braemar to join a tour with Simon Blackett of Yellow Welly Tours, who takes us to the Linn of Dee ('a linn is a narrow, whooshy gorge,' he tells us, as we watch the frothy coffee-coloured river buffer between steep rocky walls) and to see shaggy coated highland cows.
The landscape becomes gentler and greener as we near the end of the Snow Roads, but swinging back up to the Old Manse of Blair for our final night takes us back into the drama of the national park. We're greeted with mulled cider and a warm welcome from front-of-house Jason. The next morning we wake to the hills just coming into focus, streaked with heather and soft sunlight.
The trouble with having a campervan is that we feel even more untethered to normality than we usually would on holiday; there's a feeling we could just keep going and going. Instead, we put off reality for just a little longer, wandering the woodlands around Blair Castle to find red squirrels, before chasing the last of the sun back to Edinburgh.
Van hire was provided by Big Sky Campers (from £285 for three nights). The trip was hosted by Cairngorms Business Partnership and Visit Cairngorms. To plan a visit, see Visit Cairngorms. Rail travel from London to Edinburgh with Lumo (from £24.90 one way)