The Polochar Inn

This is the sort of whitewashed, historic inn, set in an impossibly pretty spot, that bewitches people who’ve never even left Kansas before into booking a flight across an ocean. It is every bit as dramatic as the Scotland portrayed in Mel Gibson movies and on shortbread tins. Don’t tell those prospective fliers that there is an ancient standing stone outside, or they may keel over in excitement. Not that the locals even raise a glance driving past. I say driving past, but in many ways this feels like the end of the road, tucked on the southern fringes of remote South Uist, with only St Kilda separating you from the Americas.