Tarbert — An Tairbeart, "the isthmus" — is the main village of Harris, squeezed onto the neck of land between East Loch Tarbert and West Loch Tarbert. That neck is what holds Harris together: north of it are the bare mountains of North Harris and Clisham, south of it the beaches and rock of South Harris. About 550 people live here, and the ferry from Uig on Skye docks right in the middle of the village.
It's a small, practical place: a pier, a couple of hotels, a general store and a Harris Tweed shop looking down on the ferry road. The modern landmark is the Isle of Harris Distillery, opened in 2015, whose gin flavoured with local sugar kelp has done more to put Tarbert on the map than anything since the tweed. Harris Tweed itself is still woven by hand in islanders' homes, and you'll see it for sale all over the island.
Tarbert is the obvious base for exploring all of Harris. The A859 heads southwest to the famous west-coast beaches — Luskentyre, Seilebost and Borve — and on to Leverburgh and St Clement's Church at Rodel. The narrow east-coast road through the Bays, the stretch known as the "Golden Road" because it cost so much to build in 1897, winds through a landscape of bare, three-billion-year-old gneiss and tiny crofting townships. North of Tarbert, a single-track road runs out past Amhuinnsuidhe Castle to the beach at Hushinish.
Harris is quiet, and services are thin once you leave Tarbert, so fill the tank and the shopping bag here. Beyond the Skye ferry, a second CalMac ferry links Leverburgh with Berneray and Uist, and Stornoway on Lewis is a little over an hour north by bus.