West Highlands Travel & Community Round-up
Across the West Highlands, the responsible option often already exists, but the details that make it usable can be scattered or easy to misunderstand. This week we look at Glenfinnan’s park-and-ride, motorhome access at the Old Man of Storr, a service-status question in Ullapool, and the important difference between daytime motorhome parking and genuine overnight provision around Oban and North Argyll.
Content
At a glance
Over the last few weeks we have been following a recurring question:
If a better option exists, can the visitor actually find and understand it before reaching the pressure point?
As CamperLocations expands across the West Highlands, the same problem is appearing in different forms.
In Lochaber, Glenfinnan has a seasonal park-and-ride that can keep campervans away from one of the area’s busiest visitor car parks.
On Skye, the Old Man of Storr provides parking, toilets and free motorhome waste disposal, but motorhomes cannot use the main off-street car park because of its height restriction.
In Wester Ross, Highland Council officially lists Ullapool Latheron as one of its designated campervan overnight locations, but recent traveller reports suggest the waste facility may have experienced problems.
And around Oban and North Argyll, the council makes a particularly useful distinction:
A parking space being large enough for a motorhome does not mean sleeping there overnight is permitted.
Taken together, these are not four separate problems.
They are variations of one information challenge:
What can I do here, what can my vehicle do here, and what should I do next?
Official updates
Lochaber: the Glenfinnan 9¾ service continues at weekends
The seasonal Shiel Buses 9¾ service continues to provide an alternative way to visit Glenfinnan.
The remaining 2026 service operates on Saturdays and Sundays until 13 September.
Visitors can park free at Banavie Locks near Neptune’s Staircase and use the B8004 Junction stop for the bus to Glenfinnan.
The fare is currently £2 each way, with no advance booking required.
Check the current Shiel Buses 9¾ timetable
This is particularly useful for campervan and motorhome visitors because the National Trust for Scotland continues to warn that Glenfinnan parking can become extremely busy.
Its own visitor-centre car park cannot accommodate motorhomes, although the neighbouring community car park has some larger-vehicle provision.
Check current Glenfinnan visitor information
Skye: The Storr shows what joined-up visitor infrastructure can look like
Highland Council has recently opened phase two of Ionad an Stòir / The Storr Centre.
The wider visitor site now combines:
parking
toilets
motorhome waste disposal
EV charging
ranger services
paths and visitor information
locally supplied retail
The latest Council update also highlights the site’s role in supporting local businesses and managing one of Skye’s highest-demand visitor locations.
Read the latest Highland Council Storr update
There is an important detail for campervan visitors.
Motorhomes cannot use the main off-street car park because of the height restriction.
Instead, larger vehicles and motorhomes should use the designated on-street parking.
Free motorhome waste disposal is available beside the toilets.
Overnight stays are not permitted at the Storr.
Check official Storr motorhome and parking information
Wester Ross: three Highland Council scheme locations remain available
The Highland Campervan and Motorhome Scheme currently includes three overnight locations within Wester Ross:
Ullapool Latheron Car Park
Gairloch Harbour Car Park
Little Gruinard Beach Car Park
Check the current Highland Council scheme locations
These are useful managed alternatives within the region.
However, one of them currently deserves a closer look.
Ullapool: recent traveller reports raise a service-status question
Highland Council continues to list Ullapool Latheron as an official overnight scheme location.
However, several recent Park4Night reports from August describe the motorhome waste point as overflowing or temporarily out of service.
One report dated 28 August says the service point existed but was not working.
This is traveller-reported information, not a confirmed Council closure, so we should not treat the facility as officially unavailable.
But multiple recent reports make it worth checking.
See the current traveller reports
This is exactly the sort of situation where a location can still be officially valid while one important facility has changed temporarily.
Oban and North Argyll: motorhome parking does not mean overnight parking
Argyll and Bute Council’s current parking guidance makes this unusually explicit.
Where a Council car park has motorhome parking, this means the spaces are large enough for a motorhome.
It does not mean you can sleep or stay overnight there.
Check Argyll and Bute Council motorhome parking guidance
That distinction applies to motorhome parking around Oban and other Council locations.
For an overnight stay, visitors need a campsite, aire, private stopover or another location where overnight use is specifically allowed.
What travellers are experiencing
The same symbol can hide very different rules
A motorhome symbol on a map may mean:
Motorhomes can park here during the day.
At another location it may mean:
Motorhomes can stay overnight.
At another:
Motorhomes can empty waste here but cannot stay overnight.
And at the Storr:
Motorhomes are welcome, but not in the main car park.
Those differences are obvious once you have read the detailed information.
They are much less obvious when someone is looking at a map while travelling.
Vehicle suitability needs to include the final parking arrangement
The Storr is a good example.
Simply saying:
“Motorhomes are permitted”
would be technically true but not particularly useful.
The information someone actually needs is:
Motorhome → use the on-street spaces → main car park has a height restriction → waste disposal available → no overnight stay.
That is a much better description of the real journey.
A service point can change while the location remains valid
Ullapool highlights another problem.
An overnight location may still be open and usable even if:
waste disposal temporarily fails
water is unavailable
toilets close
payment equipment stops working
For a traveller who specifically chose the location because they need to empty a cassette, that difference can completely change the usefulness of the stop.
This is why facility status needs to be treated separately from the overall status of the overnight location.
Late-day alternatives need to be realistic
Not every nearby campsite is automatically a useful fallback.
Some operators have:
minimum stays
latest arrival times
booking requirements
limited vehicle sizes
facilities available only to overnight guests
A pin being nearby does not necessarily mean:
“I can use this tonight.”
CamperLocations will increasingly try to capture those practical differences.
What local communities are seeing
Good visitor management separates different types of demand
The North Argyll example at Ellenabeich is particularly interesting.
A private overnight motorhome area has operated there specifically to help manage motorhome parking pressure.
The operator asks daytime visitors to use the public car park and overnight motorhomes to use the designated overnight area instead.
There is no need to book, but the overnight area has no toilets, water, electrical hookup or waste disposal facilities.
See the current Easdale motorhome parking information
That separation is useful:
Day visitor → public car park
Overnight motorhome → designated overnight area
It protects the role of the ordinary village car park while still providing somewhere legitimate for visitors to stay.
The Storr demonstrates another approach
The Storr tackles pressure differently.
Parking revenue helps support:
the parking infrastructure itself
paths
toilets
motorhome waste facilities
wider visitor management
Visitors receive useful infrastructure, while some of the economic value generated by the attraction is reinvested locally.
The latest phase also includes products from more than 25 local suppliers.
That is an important reminder that visitor management does not have to mean simply restricting visitors.
It can also mean capturing and redistributing some of the value created by visitor demand.
Glenfinnan shows why alternative transport matters
If visitors know about Banavie park-and-ride before reaching Glenfinnan, fewer vehicles need to compete for limited spaces around the monument and viaduct.
That potentially means:
less circling for spaces
fewer inappropriate parking decisions
less pressure on roadside verges and access
fewer large vehicles trying to manoeuvre at the attraction
The visitor still gets the experience.
The pressure is simply managed differently.
Positive developments
Some of the strongest solutions already exist
This week has produced several positive examples across the West Highlands.
Glenfinnan
A seasonal park-and-ride allows visitors to leave the vehicle outside the hotspot.
The Storr
Parking, toilets, motorhome waste disposal, visitor information and local economic activity are combined at one destination.
Wester Ross
Three Highland Council locations provide managed overnight alternatives.
Ellenabeich
Day parking and overnight motorhome demand are deliberately separated.
None of these is a universal solution.
But collectively they show that there are several ways to manage campervan tourism constructively.
Information is part of the infrastructure
A bus service nobody knows about does not reduce parking pressure.
A waste point somebody cannot find does not prevent inappropriate disposal.
An overnight area that looks like an ordinary car park does not necessarily reassure a visitor that they are welcome.
And a motorhome parking symbol without an explanation of the overnight rules can create uncertainty rather than remove it.
The information connecting these services is therefore part of the infrastructure too.
Patterns we're watching
One location can have several different roles
We increasingly need to distinguish between:
Day parking
Overnight stay
Motorhome service point
Park-and-ride
Visitor attraction
They may sometimes exist at the same location.
But they are not interchangeable.
Facility status needs its own verification
The Ullapool reports highlight something we will now watch more closely.
A listing can be:
Open
while one of its facilities is:
Temporarily unavailable
That suggests CamperLocations needs to think increasingly in terms of:
Location status + facility status
rather than a single overall verification date.
Vehicle suitability is about more than road width
The Storr shows that vehicle suitability can be affected by:
height barriers
which parking area should be used
turning arrangements
designated large-vehicle spaces
roadside versus off-street parking
Those details can matter more than the road leading to the attraction.
The responsible option needs to appear before the problem
The same principle keeps returning.
At Glenfinnan:
Tell people about Banavie before they reach Glenfinnan.
At Oban:
Explain daytime motorhome parking before someone assumes they can sleep there.
At the Storr:
Explain the motorhome parking arrangement before someone reaches the height barrier.
At Ullapool:
Show current facility status before somebody arrives specifically to empty waste.
That is where good local information has the greatest value.
CamperLocations this week
We are widening the weekly watch across the whole West Highlands
CamperLocations now covers:
Lochaber
Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh
Wester Ross
Oban and North Argyll
The weekly round-up will increasingly reflect that full area.
We will not force a story from every region each week, but we will look across the whole West Highlands before deciding what is worth highlighting.
Ullapool waste facility: verification needed
The recent traveller reports about Latheron are significant enough that we will treat this as a data-check priority rather than immediately changing the listing based on app comments.
The useful questions are:
Is the disposal point currently operational?
If not, what is the nearest reliable alternative?
Storr listing: capture the actual motorhome journey
We will check that the CamperLocations information makes the distinction clear:
Main car park → height restriction
Motorhomes → designated on-street parking
Waste disposal → free beside toilets
Overnight → not permitted
Keep the Glenfinnan alternative visible
The 9¾ park-and-ride remains available at weekends until 13 September.
If you are visiting in a larger vehicle, it is worth considering before heading directly to Glenfinnan.
Around Oban: check whether you are parking or staying
Argyll and Bute Council is very clear that its motorhome parking spaces are generally day parking, not overnight accommodation.
Use Find a Stay when you need a clearly permitted overnight option.
Use Facilities for water, toilets, waste and other practical services.
And use Travel Updates before committing to the next part of the journey.
Help us catch temporary changes
A broken waste point or changed sign may not appear quickly on an official webpage.
If you find something that has changed, use Help Improve.
A dated first-hand report can help us identify what needs checking without automatically replacing trusted source information.
Useful links
This round-up combines current official information with clearly identified traveller reports. Recent comments about Ullapool’s waste facility have not been treated as an official closure and require verification.
Current signs, operators, land managers and emergency instructions always take priority.
Make the responsible choice the easiest choice.
Share responsibly
Know someone travelling this way? Share this information to help them plan responsibly.