Touring the Outer Hebrides

The five main islands of the Outer Hebrides have surprisingly varied landscapes, but all are united in their "lonely, elemental beauty", says Martin Symington in the Times.

Lying to the northwest of mainland Scotland, they form a narrow chain 130 miles long, and it is possible to drive the entire length, flying from Glasgow to Stornaway on the northern Isle of Lewis and out of Barra in the south.

Lewis is flat and treeless, strewn with megalithic monuments like the spectacular stones of Callanish, while on the Isle of Harris there are "crag-capped hills" and "immense white beaches"; South Uist is "softer and greener" than both. Leaving Barra by plane is a thrill: the runway is a tidal beach.

British Airways (0870 850 9850) flies between Glasgow and the Outer Hebrides from £74. ·