World Porridge Making Championship

"Traigh Farm near Arisaig holds its games with the Small Isles of Eigg, Rum and Muck shining on the horizon across the blue Sound of Arisaig, a location so extravagantly beautiful that the athletic results become almost secondary to the experience of simply being there."

Arisaig Highland Games

"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

"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

"Set at Inverlochy Castle Farm in the shadow of Ben Nevis, this West Highland agricultural show and family fun day celebrates the farming traditions of Lochaber with livestock and countryside displays."

Lochaber Agricultural Show

"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

"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

"Lauder's Common Riding is one of the most intimate of the Borders festivals, with a mounted Cornet leading riders along the ancient marches of this small market town on the edge of the Lammermuir Hills."

Lauder Common Riding

"Coldstream's civic week climaxes with the Coldstreamer leading a mounted rideout to Flodden Field, honouring the Borderers who fell in the 1513 battle in one of the most moving riding ceremonies in Scotland."

Coldstream Civic Week

"A man encased head to toe in sticky burrs walks the town for nine hours, a fertility custom of unknown but ancient origin."

Burryman's Parade

"One of Scotland's oldest music festivals brings Gaelic nights, ceilidhs, pipe bands and distillery tours to a remote Kintyre town at the road's very end."

Mull of Kintyre Music Festival

"One of Scotland's most distinctive gatherings, the Lonach sees kilted clansmen march twelve miles carrying pikes before the Highland Games begin at Bellabeg in the upper Don valley."

Lonach Highland and Friendly Society Gathering

"Four days of traditional music on an Hebridean island reachable only by ferry, workshops, open sessions, ceilidhs in the island hall, and the Atlantic on all four sides."

Ceol Cholasa: Colonsay Folk Festival