Location
The conference will be held at the Macdonald Aviemore Resort. 

Full AV equipment will be available.

All lunches and two of the dinners will be held at the resort, with a third dinner being held in Newtonmore at the Letterbox restaurant.  Please do let us know of any special dietary requirements well in advance.

Getting there...
There is a train station just minutes away from the resort (see nationalrail.co.uk), and buses arrive acrosss the road from it.  There are five or six services every day from each of Edinburgh, Inverness and Glasgow by both bus and train.

Of course, you may prefer to rent a car and make a more extended Highlands tour.  If you do you will certainly want to make sure you have a GPS, as some of the country roads can be rather difficult to navigate.

Accommodation
The Highlands and Islands can be heavily booked during summer so we strongly recommend booking your accommodation for the conference and other travels well in advance.

Aviemore has many accommodation options that can be found through the usual websites and travel guides, or simply by looking on a map and calling them.  This includes a Youth Hostel and other options that might suit those on a budget.

The Macdonald Aviemore Resort itself has rooms available for a conference rate of £139.00 per night for a single occupancy room or £164.00 per night for a double occupancy room, including breakfast.  The complex is quite extensive and includes a pool, sauna, gym, spa, mountain bike hire and other amenities.

Exploring the region
General information about tourism in Scotland can be found here: www.visitscotland.com.

Aviemore is considered the gateway to the Cairngorms National Park, which is a rugged mountain plateau containing five of the six highest peaks in Britain.  It is a centre for tramping, fishing and other outdoor activities, and also features the Cairngorm Mountain Railway and the Strathspey Steam Railway for day trips.

The region also features many sites of historical interest, such as the battlefield of Culloden and the Clan MacPherson Museum both of which we will visit.  There is also the magnificent Highland Folk Museum, for which we strongly recommend you set aside a half-day to visit (an episode of Outlander was even shot there).  Also nearby are the historic Ruthven Barracks and the Highland Wildlife Park, where you can see the endangered Scottish wildcat. 

There are of course many distilleries in the region, most of the closest being referred to as "Speyside" Whiskys, so named for the river Spey which runs through the area.  You can find out about distillery visits at the Visit Scotland website here (but please ensure you have a designated driver!).  Many of the nearby ones lie north-east of our venue, along the Spey, though you will also pass a couple along the way if you are driving up from the south.

But of course, none of this comes close to exhausting the possibilities that the Highlands, the Islands, and Scotland generally have to offer, especially for travellers with historical and literary interests, or those who may have Scottish ancestry they wish to explore.

Please email Richard Berkeley with any questions (berkeley5000@gmail.com). 

The Scottish Wildcat, which can be found at the Highland Wildlife Park.