At the very top of mainland Scotland, on the shores of Loch Hope in Sutherland, a restored 1870s shooting lodge is rethinking what a Highland holiday can be. Hope, the latest addition to Wildland — the conservation and hospitality project run by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife Anne — borrows the expeditionary rhythm of an African safari, minus the lions. Days are shaped by the outdoors: guided hikes across heather moor with local ghillies who point out carnivorous sundews, wild mint and crimson sphagnum moss, cold plunges in the loch, and tree-planting alongside the estate's conservationists.
The safari connection is deliberate. Povlsen became fascinated with the model after a birthday stay at a Singita lodge in Tanzania — not the aesthetics, but the way good lodges use space and light to pull people outside. He paired Singita's South African designers, Cecile & Boyd, with Edinburgh architects Gras, and the pair spent nearly a decade developing what they call "Scot-bush": grass, stone, timber and leather instead of tartan shorthand. Caithness stone slabs were weathered in a field for a year to soften their colour, and botanical artist India Flint created plant-dyed hangings above the beds in the lodge's seven rooms, meant to feel like sleeping under canvas.
There's a serious conservation story underneath. Wildland manages around 89,000 hectares across three Scottish estates with a 200-year vision to restore native woodland and peatlands. Seven million trees have been planted so far, deer management is allowing rowans to regenerate naturally, and the team monitors fish populations with the local fishery trust. The nearby Unesco-listed Flow Country — vast peatland whose restoration locks carbon into the ground — is on the doorstep. The lodge's guides are candid that Sutherland's seeming emptiness is not pristine wilderness but land shaped by centuries of intervention, from the Highland Clearances onward.
Practically, Hope runs as a hotel through late summer 2026 and is also available for exclusive hire. Guests gather at the Clachan, a base-camp-style hub with an equipment hangar stocked with wetsuits, paddleboards and bikes, and Scotland's right to roam lets you wander the whole estate freely. Post-adventure comforts include a wood-fired sauna, dry robes, and herb-whipped crowdie on homemade oatcakes — soft adventure that doesn't ask you to give up a cashmere pillow.
For travellers who like their wild places with expert interpretation and design-forward comfort, this is a genuinely different take on the Scottish Highlands: less castle-and-whisky, more slow, immersive ecology with a lodgeliner's finish.
