Best Things to do on the NC500 North Coast

We continued along the north coast over two days exploring beaches, and tourist spots!

John o’Groats

Mainly famous for its sign detailing distances of places much further away, which is probably one of the most photographed in the world, we decided to do the tourist thing & stopped at John O’Groats. We came here in the morning after leaving our B&B, there were a few people around and we did have to wait for our cliche photo even though it was like 9.30. Other than the sign and coloured houses which are slowly becoming popular there isn’t much else to do here. A lovely elderly couple took this photo for us, you will rely on others here.

Dunnet Head

Dunnet Head is officially the most northern point of Scotland, and there is a cute traditional lighthouse here that marks the occasion. Aside from the lighthouse, there are some beautiful sea cliffs to admire. If you head down the side of the wall before crossing the cattle grid to the end of the cliff, look towards the lighthouse viewpoint and you will likely see puffins nesting underneath.

Dunnet Bay

Dunnet bay was not on our list of places to stop but we had plenty of time so just deicded to stop as we passed by. It is a very long beach with soft sand.

Melvich Beach

One of the north coast’s best beaches, it is just a short walk from the road to Melvich beach. There is a car park down the road to the beach but the road is rough, one of the worst we used. If you’re in a small car don’t try unless you are willing to risk damaging your car. We also had a pizza picnic here as we stayed in a local hotel.

Strathy Bay

The award-winning beach can be accessed by turning off the main A836 to Strathy and following the meandering single track road past the cemetery to the car park. We understood why this was an “award winning” beach, it was one of our favourites from the entire trip. Barney had a great time on this beach chasing the waves.

Ceannabeinne Beach

Ceannabeinne is a spectacular beach, exposed on Scotland’s rugged north coast. There is a parking area for the zipline, however, drive a little past this and pull up on the grassy verge, for a phenomenal viewpoint over the top of the cliffs. When you’re done with the views, drive to the free car park at the beach. It’s a couple hundred metres walking down to the perfect white sands.

Smoo Cave

This is probably one of the most touristy attractions on the whole North Coast 500 circuit. There’s a good chance the official (free) car park will be full. If it is, there’s another lay-by slightly east, which is also free. From here you can walk the 100 metres or so to the original car park. We had a terrible experience with the people here. A woman kicked Chris’ car out of nowhere and another man slammed his door into Chris’ car too. Smoo cave wasn’t that impressive so we felt this was not worth the stop with the crappy experience of other tourists.

Sango Sands

It’s a nice beach and a useful place to stop off. There are some famous Sango Sands Steps (constantly featured on IG) you should look out from too. We went to the steps at night and it was a stunning view over the ocean, then the beach in the morning. There weren’t too many people around at this time, in the afternoon I imagine it is packed.

Balnakeil Beach

On approach you will discover that Balnakeil Beach is different from the others; it has sand dunes layered up at the back of it with cows grazing on any spare grass! Not only is it very picturesque, but you’ll also experience the unique feeling of walking on a beach while military vehicles drive by with great purpose. There’s a free car park at the enterance to the beach. If you carry on to the end of the beach and follow the road up, you can then head down through the sand dunes to what we assume was another beach.