Remote abandoned archipelago of towering sea stacks.
Out past the Uists, and about as far from anywhere as Britain gets, St Kilda is a small group of islands and sea stacks. Hirta is the main island, with Soay and Boreray close by, and the stacks of Stac Lee and Stac an Armin rising sheer from the sea off Boreray; Stac an Armin, at 196 metres, is the tallest sea stack in Britain. Conachair, on Hirta, drops around 430 metres to the water, the highest sea cliff in the country.
Boat trips run from Leverburgh on Harris between April and September, weather allowing, with Kilda Cruises and St Kilda Sea Tours among the operators; landing on Hirta is never guaranteed, and trips are sometimes called off at short notice. Once ashore at Village Bay, you can walk the row of cottages that made up the village street, empty since 1930, when the last 36 islanders asked to be evacuated. The National Trust for Scotland has owned St Kilda since 1957 and keeps work parties and wardens on Hirta each summer; a small radar station linked to the missile range on Benbecula has stood here since the 1950s too. St Kilda has been a World Heritage Site since 1986, and is now one of the few in the world recognised for both nature and history: Boreray and its stacks support one of the largest gannet colonies anywhere.
