Lochaber Agricultural Show

"Blairbeg Park in Drumnadrochit holds its games with Loch Ness stretching south toward the Great Glen and Urquhart Castle ruins visible from the throwing circle, a combination of Highland athletics and legendary scenery that no other games ground in Scotland can match."

Glenurquhart Highland Games

"Three days in a Black Isle village near Inverness where the sessions run late and the Moray Firth catches the September light outside, a small Highland folk festival doing exactly what it promised."

Ardersier Folk Festival

"Competitors from across the world converge on the Cairngorm village of Carrbridge to contest the Golden Spurtle trophy each October, cooking traditional porridge and open specialty oat dishes to a panel of judges in the village hall while the birch woods outside are turning the first rust of autumn."

World Porridge Making Championship

"The brainchild of Blazin Fiddles immerses a Highland village in fiddle music for a week of classes, talks, sessions and ceilidhs marking its 25th birthday."

Blazin in Beauly

"Deep in the Great Glen, this small community gathering at Invergarry draws athletes and pipe bands from across the West Highlands for a traditional day of heavy events and dancing."

Glengarry Highland Gathering

"The Eilan at Newtonmore in the Spey Valley hosts this village games where Badenoch and Strathspey meet, the shinty-playing heartland of the Highlands where the heavy events are contested with a seriousness and local knowledge that puts the big tourist-facing games firmly in perspective."

Newtonmore Highland Games

"The Royal Deeside market town of Banchory hosts its agricultural show each August at the gateway to the Cairngorms, where Aberdeenshire beef and Highland cattle are judged against a backdrop of the Forest of Birse and the River Dee shining in the valley below."

Banchory Show

"Market Park in the town that was once the largest cattle market in Scotland and the southern end of the drove roads from the Highlands hosts its gathering each August, where the Knock hill rises above the ground and the games feel rooted in a landscape that shaped the character of the entire Highland cattle trade."

Crieff Highland Gathering

"The Haugh at Forter in remote Glenisla holds its games in a glen where the only road is single track, the mobile phone signal is unreliable and the audience has come from the farms and shooting estates of Angus rather than from any tourist trail, making it one of the most authentic Highland gatherings anywhere."

Glenisla Highland Games

"The March of the Lonach Highlanders, kilted men with pikes walking the glen, precedes a day of games at Strathdon."

Lonach Highland Gathering

"The largest Highland games in the world, closing with a torchlit march of massed pipe bands through Dunoon."

Cowal Highland Gathering

"A cherished one-day agricultural show in the spa town of Moffat in the Southern Uplands, celebrating hill farming traditions and Dumfries and Galloway livestock with a strong local community spirit."

Moffat Show