Look at a map of the Western Isles, and you’ll be able to spot the little bit of land on the east coast of Lewis that juts out into the sea, a ‘thumbs up’ from the island to the Scottish mainland. This is Point, also known as the Eye Peninsula (or An Rubha in Gaelic),…
Happy New Year from Stories My Suitcase Could Tell! After an adventure-filled 2014, I’m now looking ahead and plotting potential suitcase stories for 2015. They’re goals rather than resolutions: activities I’d love to experience and places I’m intrigued to explore. The Take 12 Trips Challenge has been making the rounds on social media and travel…
Christmas is over, and New Year (or Hogmanay, if you’re in Scotland) is fast approaching. It’s that time of year when seemingly everyone is exclaiming about the swift passage of time, and looking back fondly and thankfully over the past twelve months. I’m no different – I really can’t believe that 2015 is just around…
For those of us who’ve watched movies like Miracle on 34th Street or Home Alone, there is something fairytale-esque about New York City at Christmas time. With its streets and yellow cabs immortalised in these festive films, New York has something special in the air during the ‘holidays’, as Christmas is called on this side…
Rumour has it there are more bikes than people in the Netherlands, and after spending 36 hours in Amsterdam recently, I can easily believe it. The bikes were the first thing I noticed: in fact, the first thing that happened to me after stepping out of my hotel was a collision with a cyclist. It…
A big part of Stories My Suitcase Could Tell is encouraging ‘local travel’, the idea that if you treat your hometown like a tourist for a day, you’ll likely find there’s more to it than meets the eye. I did that for the last few years, on the island in the Outer Hebrides where I…
Some say home is where the heart is, but I think home is different things to different people. I think, although I cannot speak for us all, that home has a particular meaning for us islanders: for the Leòdhasachs, the Hearachs, the Uibhisteachs. The Hebrideans. For those of us born and brought up in…
From Whisky Galore to The Stornoway Way, the Outer Hebrides have often attracted literary attention, but thanks to Peter May’s best-selling Lewis Trilogy, this literary love is translating into something more. Fans of the crime novels are so taken with the story’s setting that they’re determined to see it for themselves, and are heading for…
It was on the flight from Inverness to Amsterdam that I turned the final, abrupt page of Anne Frank’s diary. Standing in the Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht, little more than 90 minutes later, with her words fresh in my mind, felt incredibly surreal. There can be few people out there who haven’t heard…
Brasserie OCCO, leading to Vinkeles Amsterdam is known for both its history and its hedonism, home to all manner of ‘highs.’ But the high you should be looking for in this city is High Wine, just one of the unique dining experiences found at the The Dylan, the luxury boutique hotel that overlooks the Keizersgracht…
Here in Amsterdam’s ‘De Negen Straatjes,’ where each corner and canal is even more charming than the next, sits a hidden gem of a hotel. Even most of the locals who cycle along the water every day breeze past without any inkling of what’s behind the glossy green door at Keizersgracht 384. If they stopped…
Standing on the white sands of Uig on the Isle of Lewis is a slightly surreal experience. You’re on a beach, but you can’t see the sea (at least not without a swift 15 minute walk to the waves). It’s beautiful, even on a dark day, but it’s famous for more than the stunning scenery:…
