The ferry to Raasay leaves from a slipway on the shore. The MV Hallaig runs on battery power for part of the crossing, quietly enough that locals took to calling it stealth mode. It made its first Sconser-to-Raasay voyage in November 2013 and was among the first seagoing car-and-passenger ferries anywhere to run on hybrid power. The crossing takes about twenty-five minutes; it runs Turn Up and Go, though it is worth booking a car online in advance and checking in ten minutes before it sails.
Beside the terminal is The Noost, a waterside takeaway with picnic tables, good for coffee and a bite to eat while you wait for the boat or come off it.
Sconser itself is a thin line of houses strung along the A87 between Loch Sligachan and the Red Cuillin, the rounded granite hills; the jagged Black Cuillin sit farther west. The road runs tight against the water. From the shore you look across to Raasay, the Old Man of Storr and the Cuillin, and if you are lucky an otter working the jetty at Sconser Lodge, where seals and dolphins are seen too.
Kyle of Lochalsh, on the mainland, has the nearest railway station. The Citylink 917 runs through the village between Inverness, Portree and Kyle of Lochalsh, stopping at the golf club and the ferry road end.
The Lodge is where you eat. Lisa and Craig McMath run it with a small local team from a building dating to 1871, said to have begun as a MacDonald hunting lodge: pine panelling, peat-and-log fires, a dining room and a bar. The kitchen builds its menu around what comes out of the water nearby. Hand-dived Sconser scallops, Skye seafood chowder, Loch Eishort mussels in cream and wine, Skye-creeled langoustines with garlic butter and homemade bread. There is Skye-ale battered haddock, Mallaig halibut, Skye venison with port and redcurrant jus, and a west-coast fish and shellfish stew. Isle of Skye real ale is on alongside lager and a range of malt whiskies. A family suite, travel cot, high chair, books and games cover anyone arriving with children.
The golf course is nine holes played off eighteen tees, founded in 1964 after a meeting at the Sligachan Hotel. Ian Campbell of Sconser leased the land, and Dr Frank Deighton, a former Walker Cup player, laid out the original holes; one early member remembered mowing the half-made greens barefoot. You can hire clubs and a trolley, there is a tea room, and the views run to the Cuillin, Raasay and the Old Man of Storr.
Glamaig rises straight up behind the village, a steep, mostly pathless grass ridge of 827 metres, four to five hours there and back from a lay-by on the A87, and hard work in both directions. Gentler is the Moll Road, opened in June 2026 as a traffic-free route for walking, wheeling and cycling; a 2018 landslide closed the old road to cars, and the cleared sections now make a quiet route with almost nothing coming the other way. Across the loch, the former main way to Portree follows the north shore of Loch Sligachan, boggy towards the end but with the whole line of the Cuillin in front of you.
John Mackenzie was born in a Sconser crofter's cottage in 1856 and became Britain's first professional mountain guide, climbing the Cuillin so often that one peak now carries his name, Sgùrr Mhic Choinnich. Of the man he shared a lifetime of ridges with, his partner Norman Collie wrote: "There was only one John, simple-minded, most lovable, and without guile."