Picture this: late nights with the glow of the laptop screen, tabs multiplying like midges on a summer evening. Walk Highlands open in one corner, Google Maps in another, Munro Map just behind them, and somewhere in the background, Steven Fallon Mountain Guides offering steady wisdom. Add to that a growing pile of notebooks filled with parking coordinates, route sketches, and messy arrows pointing to “check later.”

It’s chaotic. It’s overwhelming. And yet it feels worth every slogging hour.

Because vanlifers need more than just how to climb a Munro. We need a place to park without frustrating locals. Where to rest without leaving a trace. Where to fuel up without adding unnecessary miles. These aren’t footnotes; they’re central to travelling lightly and respectfully in Scotland’s wild places.

I’ll admit, there are moments where I question the whole thing. Who am I to try to bring all this together? But then I think about arriving at a small layby late at night, unsure if it’s okay to stay, and how reassuring it would be to know someone had checked ahead and gathered the details. That’s what keeps me going.

This series is slowly taking shape one spreadsheet cell, one scribbled note, one quiet “maybe this will help someone” at a time. It’s scary putting this out into the world, because it’s not perfect. But maybe that’s the point: neither are the mountains, neither are we. And still, we keep showing up.

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