The Highlands (Scotland)

Nine nights in a loop from Edinburgh, guided, around the Scottish Highlands on entirely sealed road, in the operator’s only European tour.

Edinburgh opens it with a shuttle into the Old Town, the castle on its rock and a night in the city before the bikes are handed over, which is the right way round for anyone arriving off a long flight.

The loop then runs north through the Highlands to John O’Groats, the north-eastern corner of the British mainland and the traditional end of the 876-mile walk or ride from Land’s End, named after Jan de Groot, who ran the Orkney ferry in the fifteenth century. Between the two ends the route follows the lochs and the glens, with castles along the way, single-track roads with passing places where the etiquette matters more than the speed, and the whisky, the pipes and the tartan that the region trades on, before the loop closes back into Edinburgh.

The bike hire is included, with a BMW F750GS as standard and a long list of upgrades; the full inclusions are not itemised on the operator’s page and are worth confirming at booking. May to September is the window, since the weather is changeable at the best of times and the midges on the west coast are at their worst in high summer. Ten days and a small group makes this the shortest guided tour in the range outside Canada, and it is the obvious one for a North American rider who wants a first taste of riding abroad without a visa or a language to contend with.