How a remote Highland road went viral

Before the grumbling turned to anger, before the convoys became tailbacks, and before littering degenerated into dumping, the road was just a road. Farmers used it, so did Highland villagers — and some tourists too. Then, 10 years ago, a charity devoted to supporting the economic life of the region’s remote communities decided a rebrand might put it on the map.

The North Coast 500 is actually 516 miles — a loop from Inverness around Scotland’s northern seaboard, turning at John O’Groats and Durness, then cutting back inland at Lochcarron — but the name (and hashtag-friendly abbreviation, NC500) was a masterful one. Five hundred miles carried associations with The Proclaimers’ song that some see as the unofficial national anthem and, more importantly, including a number meant it could be pitched alongside another, already legendary, road-trip. “People travel from all over the world for Route 66, and with our scenery, there’s no reason why the North Coast 500 can’t prove to be just as popular,” Mike Cantlay, then chair of the tourist board VisitScotland, told journalists as the route was unveiled.

A decade has passed, and in the run-up to this month’s anniversary of the official launch, I spent a week driving the NC500, talking to people living alongside it. They told a strange tale of how a thin ribbon of tarmac — in places no more than a single-track with passing places — has become a parable for the modern tourism industry, an example of the vast opportunities it offers but also a cautionary tale of overnight success and unforeseen consequences.

For the NC500 was a runaway hit. Within weeks of the launch, scores of newspaper headlines had encouraged readers to get their kicks on “Scotland’s Route 66” (or “McRoute 66” as the Sun had it). By the start of August it had already been named alongside the Amalfi coast among the world’s top six coastal road trips by one travel magazine (although another paper snarkily dubbed it the “highway to hail”). Within a year it had appeared everywhere from Die Welt to The New York Times, and Top Gear had been to film an episode.

Such coverage was all the more remarkable because, in the real world, nothing actually existed. The NC500 was a website and Facebook page, and some A5-sized flyers had been handed out along the route, but there was no new road, no road widening or pothole-filling works — not even a single signpost had been erected.

In fact, much of the NC500 — the wild 160 miles between Ullapool and John O’Groats — had already been a long-standing tourist driving itinerary, just labouring under a less snappy name, the North and West Highlands Tourist Route. But incorporating it into a circular itinerary — turning it into a tangible challenge rather than an aimless scenic pootle — seemed to throw down a gauntlet to adventure-seekers everywhere.

I started my own NC500 circuit from my home in Glasgow, the city quickly giving way to the mighty Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. From there, ignoring the odd humdrum town, the scenery is relentless in its gorgeousness, all the way up the west coast. After four hours I arrived at the pretty village of Lochcarron, meeting the NC500 proper, where I spoke to Robin Pettigrew, a retired health and safety consultant. It was a windless day, the grey waters of the loch perfectly mirroring the sky. “That, there — that’s the NC500,” said Pettigrew, as a car rumbled past. “And that’s my front door behind it. These days it’s just degrees of busy, never really quiet.”

A 2017 report found that businesses along the route had already experienced a 10-20 per cent increase in visitors. Statistics on the number of people driving the route aren’t collected, but residents soon began complaining about traffic congestion and the behaviour of tourists, problems that accelerated during the staycation boom of 2021 and 2022.

Given the remoteness of the route, and the scarcity of accommodation and facilities, the key flashpoint has been around wild camping, in motorhomes and tents, with locals forced to deal with campfires, rubbish and chemical toilets that have been emptied at the roadside. Two Facebook groups were set up by locals to document such incidents — “NC500 the dirty truth” and “NC500 the land weeps”. Concerns about overtourism reached such a pitch that Fodor’s Travel Guide included the route on its “no-travel” list for readers to avoid in 2025.

In a bid to reform bad behaviour, NC500 (the company formed to promote the route) now asks visitors to sign a voluntary pledge to be a decent tourist. At the time of writing, fewer than 3,000 people have done so.

“Before the pandemic, we always had a reasonably sustainable tourism model, with people staying in B&Bs or holiday rentals for a week,” said Pettigrew, who campaigns on behalf of the communities along the route. “Now with the NC500, it’s just a night and move, a night and move. I’m not against tourism — the Highlands needs it — but it’s got to be done in a more sustainable way.”

Yet even as concerns about overtourism grew, the NC500’s model was being enthusiastically replicated by tourism authorities elsewhere. England got the Northumberland 250 and South West 660, Wales launched the Coastal Way, the Cambrian Way, and the North Wales Way; Iceland unveiled the Arctic Coast Way; even Newfoundland got in on the act, with Expedition 51º.

In Scotland, the scenery is as breathtaking as ever and, provided you come outside the summer peak, driving the NC500 remains a thrilling experience. From Lochcarron, I pressed north to Applecross, tackling the celebrated Bealach na Bà, the closest thing the UK has to the great passes of the Alps but also one of the worst choke points on the NC500. Ahead of the tourist season, I found it both empty and exceedingly pretty, a remarkable serpentine road creeping up through a U-shaped valley, sumptuous views exploding from either side at the summit. With so many distractions, I was glad to be in a small car, my wing mirrors safely out of the way of occasional oncoming vehicles.

Down the other side in the waterfront village of Applecross, Judith Fish, owner of the Applecross Inn, was waiting to talk to me by an open fire. “When we first heard about it, I thought: well, this is great,” she told me as people bumbled in and out, all astonished by the gargantuan Bernese mountain dog on the floor by the bar. “And my business is very busy — in summer we have the outside tables full and I’ve had to take measures to give us more of a break — but for lots of other people round here it’s not like that.”

She went on to describe a local store that was struggling in part because people load up on supplies in big supermarkets before coming north. Fish pined for more organisation, better information for visitors and support from local government. “I would hope that in another 10 years, people have got their act together with visitor centres, rangers to police the route, the toilets, the waste disposal — all of that,” she said.

That call, for the downsides of tourism to be countered with greater planning and regulation, was echoed along the route, as it is across tourism hotspots from the alleyways of Barcelona to the beaches of Bali.

I continued my drive, mountains handing over to moorland as I motored on to Durness, a village of about 400 spectacularly sited close to mainland Britain’s north-westernmost corner. There Fiona Mackay greeted me at the village shop, which she runs with husband Robbie, alongside various accommodation businesses, from a bunkhouse to luxury houses to rent. Inside the shop were displays of local produce — honey, cheese, charcuterie — plus wine from a dozen nations. Highland hospitality used to be famously inhospitable, the dining options miserable, but an unarguable upside of today’s increased footfall has been the improvement of the food, both in restaurants and in shops like this.

“I think we would struggle a lot if we didn’t get the volume of traffic we do,” said Fiona. “We’ve been winners of it as a business, but losers as locals. I remember the first time I spoke to a guy in the shop who said he was here to drive the new route. I was like: what new route? It’s always been here. That name sounded so stupid.” And yet she insisted that the village would now rather have the route, than not. She wanted the same thing as many Highlanders: support, information, investment — but not abolition.

Slowly, the real world NC500 might be catching up — signs were finally installed in 2019, average-speed cameras are due to be turned on in some places next week. In 2021, a small team of “access rangers” began working along the route. And North Highland Initiative, the charity that kicked the whole thing off, is running “Press Pause” projects, designed to help communities steer and “take ownership” of tourism by setting their own objectives and priorities.

A bigger change now looks likely, too, potentially by the end of 2026. Highland Council, the local government body that covers the route, is consulting on plans to introduce a tourism levy that would add 5 per cent to all accommodation bills, with the estimated £10mn annual proceeds going towards the development and upkeep of tourist facilities.

Not everyone is convinced. “If you just make the hotels and B&Bs more expensive, you’ll only put more folk in motorhomes,” Pettigrew told me with an exhausted sigh.

I drove east, past the string of white sand beaches just beyond Durness, and on to John O’Groats, looking out across the starkness of the North Sea. In Wick, I met Murray Lamont, owner of Mackays Hotel and one of the project’s co-founders, who — despite all the detractors — remained bullish about its success. “The Scottish tourist board had been fighting for years to get people to the Highlands,” he told me. “The NC500 did it in a matter of months.”

In Inverness, the start and end point for most people on the route, I checked in at a converted Victorian mansion called Lochardil House, now one of seven hotels in the Highland Coast Hotels group, which was set up in 2021. Its chief executive, Guy Crawford, talked about the need to learn from the route’s first decade, and his optimism that as a “small and nimble” country, Scotland would be able to address the issues. Perhaps the experience will provide an example to others.

“We need to develop slower tourism. . . to propose that you’re not trying to do it in a rush, but to take some time and properly look around,” he said. The bottom line, though, remained simple: “The route is our reason for being.”

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