Glenbrittle Beach, Isle of Skye
- Feb 16
- 2 min read
One of my biggest discoveries since moving to the Scottish Highlands has been my love for beaches. I would never have called myself a beach lover before moving here, but over the years I have discovered so many incredible beaches throughout the Highlands and Islands (many of them I've shared about on this space).
On a recent delivery run to the Isle of Skye, we decided to take a wee detour down to Glenbrittle Beach. It's a beach I've never braved the road down to for one reason: it's on the same road as the Fairy Pools.
I've shared some of my thoughts on visiting the Fairy Pools on a recent blogpost, but for me, the popularity of the Fairy Pools amongst tourists visiting the Isle of Skye is one of the most obvious examples of over-tourism we have here in the Scottish Highlands. I haven't ever really shared too many thoughts on the effects of over-tourism here in the Scottish Highlands, but it is something that I probably talk about with locals and tourists here every day. So often, people are coming to the Scottish Highlands to only see a couple of places. These places then end up becoming incredibly busy and overcrowded, with tourists sometimes drastically altering the landscape to get a glimpse of a spot they see on social media. The Fairy Pools feel like a completely different place from what they were like 10 years ago, and so many people probably miss out on so much of Skye by only seeing the places everyone is visiting.
We bypassed the Pools entirely by heading a bit further down the road to visit Glenbrittle Beach. Before heading down to the beach, we picked up a wee coffee from Caora Dubh in Carbost (one of my favourite coffee spots on the island) which made it the perfect wintery wander along the beach. One unique part about the beach at Glenbrittle is that the sand is actually black. You feel like you might be somewhere like Iceland with the incredible volcanic sand, but actually you are in the middle of the Isle of Skye.
You can actually stay almost on the beach at Glenbrittle at the Glenbrittle Campsite, which was named as No1 in the Top 10 Best Cool Coastal Campsites. I'm not much of a camper myself, but nothing really beats waking up by the sea, so I'm sure that would be an incredible place to wake up.
If you want to know more about other beaches on the Isle of Skye, check out these other blogposts of mine.