The Highlands. The flight, the long road north and the estate track, all in one plan for the season.

From London the Highlands are a ninety minute flight and then anything from forty minutes to four hours by road, and almost everyone underestimates the second number. Inverness is the natural airport for the central and northern Highlands, about eight miles from the town at Dalcross, with business aviation handling on the field. Aberdeen serves Deeside, Speyside and the north east. Edinburgh and Glasgow are the fallback when the aircraft, the slot or the weather says so, but both add two and a half to four hours of driving to almost anywhere worth going.

The other honest option is a helicopter. For an estate with a usable landing area it turns a four hour drive into forty minutes, and in the short days of the stalking season that can be the difference between arriving in time to go out and arriving in time for dinner. Weather in the Highlands, however, is the deciding factor rather than availability, so a helicopter plan needs a road plan behind it. See Inverness Airport, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, turboprops and helicopter charter.

Highland estate addresses are rarely at the end of a made road. The usual pattern is a public road, then a private estate track of anything from half a mile to six, often gravel, often with gates, sometimes with a ford. A chauffeur driven saloon will reach most lodges and no hill. That is entirely normal and it is how these places work: guests are delivered to the lodge and the estate's own vehicles take the party onto the hill from there.

What goes wrong is when nobody establishes where the handover happens. Ask the estate where a road car can reach, whether the track is passable on the day, and who is meeting whom and when. Mobile coverage across much of the Highlands is poor to non-existent, so a plan that relies on a telephone call at the last moment is not a plan. We ask for a pin or a what3words for the lodge, a second one for the meeting point, and a name and number for the keeper or the factor.

Away from the A9 and the A96 a great deal of the Highlands is single track with passing places, and using them properly is a skill rather than a courtesy: you pull in for the vehicle coming down, you let the local van past, and you do not sit in a passing place to admire the view. In the stalking season, deer on the road at dawn and dusk are a genuine hazard rather than a scenic feature, and on an unlit road with a stag standing in it the speed you were doing matters a great deal.

Winter adds its own list. Snow gates on the A9 and the A939, ice on estate tracks long after the main roads have cleared, and daylight that runs from about half past eight to half past three in December. None of it is a reason not to come. It is a reason to build the day around the light and to have the driver briefed rather than guessing.

Our own cars and chauffeurs are in London and Manchester, and a trusted global network covers everywhere else. In Scotland, vehicles and chauffeurs are arranged through operators we know and have used, with one person at Odyssey holding the whole itinerary: the London collection, the aircraft, the handling at Inverness or Aberdeen, the transfer north and the return. For a long stay, or a party that wants the same vehicle and driver throughout, we sometimes run a car up from Manchester instead, which is worth asking about.

See long distance chauffeur, multi day tours, group travel, the V-Class and private jet transfers.