5 Scotland Getaway- Tomich Holidays

 I've got hundreds of pictures left to sort through from our last few Great Britain and European trips, so I'm afraid there's going to be a bit of darting back and forth across the Atlantic in my posts for a while. Hopefully my pictures will make up for the bit of non-linear confusion!

So you might remember that between our packing out, getting our move sorted, and finalizing our bits in England, I decided we needed one last "goodbye week" up in the Highlands. My love affair with Northern Scotland only grows each time we get up there, and how better to solidify Paul's commitment to my "Buy a cottage in Moray someday" fund than to have some of our last memories of living in GB made in the heart of Glen Affric?

Yep- that's a Target bag. I brought some stuff back in it after my last trip back to the States!

We packed up the car, including all of our remaining food, got both dogs in the back, and set out. While they weren't too keen on the eight-hour drive, we knew they'd be pleased with the destination!

As I googled around for dog-friendly self-catered holiday cottages, I kept coming back to Tomich Holidays. The location was perfect, the individual cottages seemed cosy for our week of getting away from everything, and the estate was dog-friendly.
The property is a working farm and is nestled cosily in a small valley with a tiny little village a short walk down the lane. It's about 25 minutes to Drumnadrochit, the main village on Loch Ness, and 45ish minutes into Inverness. There is a bus that goes into Tomich, but I don't think you'd get the full benefit of the location without having a vehicle.

We whiled away our 6 days taking walks around the property, in Glen Affric, going up to Loch Ness, and further into Inverness a couple of times. We went the whole way over to Cawdor Castle once, but didn't spend any more time in Moray, to my chagrin! Actually, as much as I'd have loved a seaside cottage in Moray there weren't any dog friendly ones that fit our budget, and in retrospect I'm grateful for that. I had a chance to fall in love with Moray two years ago, and getting to know another area of the Highlands was just fantastic!

These woods are along one of the farm roads on the property. It rained quite a bit during our stay, so we headed out with the dogs anytime there was a lull.

Of course, we got caught out in the rain a few times- but my dogwalking bag is waterproof for a reason! This gorgeous double-rainbow framed Tomich Holidays' main building perfectly!

The building to the left is the Victorian Dairy- it was my first choice of cottages, but was booked for part of the time we were able to go, so we stayed in one of the Woodland Cottages.  The setup was perfect, with a small living room, kitchen with all the bits we needed, 3 bedrooms (2 up, 1 down) and 1.5 baths (1 down, 1/2 up). We of course didn't need all those bedrooms, but the downstairs space was great for Max! I don't have any pictures of our cottage specifically, but the website has some great ones if you're curious.

Driving out of Tomich village. This view NEVER got old in our three years of living in sheep country!

Loch Ness, just after another rainstorm.

 I'd recommend Tomich Holidays to anyone looking for a Highland retreat, or just wanting to get away for a bit- it was exactly what we all needed to recharge before getting back to moving!
(Poor Mia didn't get to come along, although she didn't seem to mind the cattery!)

*This was not a sponsored post in anyway. I found it by googling, we paid for it fully, and the opinions are all mine and all positive regardless!