A slow adventure in the Highlands: a new laid-back holiday for the benefit of people and the planet

"We can take the highlands and possibly avoid the bog and stream or take the easier lowlands and probably end up in both," says our mountain guide Anna Danby as we gaze our route along the Abhainn Rath - a stream that flows under the Ben Nevis range. Rain and sun come and go leaving a patchwork of changing colors on the valley floor below.

We opt for the heights, weaving our way along the contours and admiring six deer watching us silently from a ridge 20 meters away. Once at the bottom of the valley, petrified tree trunks, the remnants of a forest preserved in the bogs that filled this landscape 7,000 years ago, spring from rust-red and peat-black ravines. The baby frogs are bouncing around. Away from the main hiking trails, there is no one else in sight.

Twenty-four hours earlier, I had watched the UK pass by in the train from Brighton to Edinburgh and the Highlands. In Spean Bridge, an unassuming village often overlooked by visitors to Fort William down the road, I meet Sara Mair Bellshaw, founder of new tour operator Slow Adventure, whose maiden voyage I'm here to sample. "It's our first trip, and it's also my hometown," she says. "We've all enjoyed the people and experiences on our doorstep much more during Covid-19, and now I can share my local discoveries with visitors."

The first part of the adventure lasts three days of hiking and wild camping with Anna (who runs the Wild Roots guide), setting off from Spean Bridge towards Corrour - a sprawling regeneration estate home to the UK's most remote railway station. After that, windswept and a little euphoric, we return to Spean Bridge by train for part two, which focuses on hyper-local food and beer experiences, with Tirindrish House B&B as our base. A tour and tastings at Glen Spean Brewing Co with co-founder Ian Peter, and a feast of sustainably sourced venison and garden produce at the home of Great Glen Charcuterie founder Anja Baak are highlights. /p>

Wild camping and sipping wine in a beautiful Georgian mansion might not seem like a natural companion, but these experiences share a slow-travel ethos - a deep, thoughtful dive rather than a box-checking exercise , showcasing local organizations from different sectors.

After their plans were interrupted by Covid, Sara started Slow Adventure with Jane Stuart-Smith (who previously owned the White House slow food restaurant on the west coast of Scotland) in the late 1920s...