Jura is one of the emptiest places in Britain. It is the eighth-largest Scottish island, a little smaller than Islay next door, but only around 260 people live here — and a much larger population of red deer. In 1632 a visiting soldier called it "a horride ile and a habitation fit for deere and wild beastes", and that is still more or less the appeal: bare hills, blanket bog and the three quartzite cones of the Paps of Jura, visible from half of western Scotland.
There is one village, Craighouse, on the sheltered east coast facing the Sound of Jura. It has the distillery, the hotel and bar, a shop, a church, a small rum distillery opened in 2021, and the community-run petrol pumps — which is to say almost everything on the island. Small hamlets string out north along the coast towards Ardlussa, where a gin distillery has worked since 2015.
Jura has only one road, the single-track A846. It runs from the Feolin ferry slip on the Sound of Islay round to Craighouse, then north along the east coast, ending well short of the top of the island. From there a rough track continues past Barnhill, the farmhouse where George Orwell finished Nineteen Eighty-Four, towards the Gulf of Corryvreckan and its whirlpool.
Getting here takes some effort, which is part of the point. The car ferry crosses from Port Askaig on Islay to Feolin, so you first take the CalMac ferry from Kennacraig to Islay. In summer a passenger ferry also runs directly between Craighouse and Tayvallich on the mainland. Come prepared: services are few, and on Jura the deer, the midges and the weather all outnumber you.