Episode 169: Sheelagh Daly
Bikepacking Scotland Solo
Sheelagh first came on Seek Travel Ride about a year and a half ago, and back then she already had some proper adventures behind he, including a solo bike tour from Scotland to Croatia that she talked about with this particular mix of pride and disbelief. It was almost as though she still couldn’t quite believe she’d done it. That episode resonated with a lot of people, in fact another guest of the podcast. Juliana Fontana attributes listening to Sheelagh’s story as being the catalyst for taking her own bikepacking journey through Europe. So it was awesome to have the opportunity to connect with her again and hear all about her adventures in Scotland.
Why Scotland, and Why Solo
Before we even got into the trip itself, I needed to understand the why behind hit. Because Sheelagh has a partner, Michael, who also loves bike touring and they’ve done loads of adventures together. She could easily have brought him along as well. So why did she decide to do this one on her own.
The honest answer is that she was scared to. That fear became the reason for the trip itself.
She’d been doing so much touring with Michael that the idea of going solo again had started to feel genuinely daunting. She found herself trying to rearrange a planned adventure on the Camino del Puma route through Peru and Bolivia, so she wouldn’t have to do any of it by herself.
“I realised I was trying to modify the plan so I wouldn’t be on my own,” she told me. “And I was like, what? You biked across Europe for three and a half months by yourself. You know you can do it.”
But knowing you can do something and feeling ready to do it are two distinctly different things. The Peru route was high altitude, remote, and completely new terrain. For someone already feeling anxious about going solo, layering in all those unknowns felt like too much. So Sheelagh decided to work out what sort of solo adventure could she take that could allow her to work on these fears in an environment that felt more manageable? Where could she go to get her confidence back for wild camping solo, riding offroad trails, and dealing with crappy weather, all at once?
The answer was clear and that was Scotland. Sheelagh had been there before, she had connections there, wild camping is completely legal thanks to the right to roam, and there are established routes like the Hebridean Way and the Pictish Trail in the Highalnds that could give the trip some structure. Oh, and the weather is notoriously excellent training for coping with the weather being absolutely terrible.
The Staircase
Something I appreciated about chatting with Sheelagh was how open she was to discussing her anxiety. During our discussion she used an analogy that I I think I’ll be borrowing for myself. She’d learnt it in therapy years ago: when something feels scary, it’s often because you’re looking at the top of the stairs and trying to figure out how to get there in one step. The problem isn’t the top step itself, it’s that you’re skipping all the stairs in between.
So instead of thinking about solo off-road riding at altitude in Peru, she asked herself: what’s the first stair? What’s the one thing I can actually do right now that starts getting me closer to the top step? For her, it was getting out with friends on mountain bike trails in Canada before she left. That became stair number one and with that the rest of her trip unfolded.
We had this awesome moment during our discussion where I asked Sheelagh to reflect back on where she felt she was at that staircase.
“I might be at the top of the stairs,” she said. “Or close. Let’s say I’m a couple of stairs off.”
It was so awesome for me to physically see that realisation hit her face from the other side of my screen. A realisation landing on her in real time, that she’d actually done it. She’d come into Scotland hoping to get somewhere closer to Peru, and she’d gotten basically there without even fully clocking it. One of the best lightbulb moments I’ve had the privilege of watching happen on this podcast.
Wild Camping, Honestly
Let’s talk about wild camping, because it was a big part of this trip and Sheelagh is refreshingly honest about the fact that it scares her. She’d done some solo wild camping on her Europe trip but never quite got into a groove with it. There was always a campground or a warm showers host to fall back on, so she never felt that she’d properly tackled solo wild camping with confidence.
Her trip to Scotland gave her no choice but to just get on with it. The first night she was genuinely anxious about. But she also knew there was nowhere else to stay and she was going to have to pitch her tent no matter what. And then, just as she was riding in and scoping out spots, she spotted a couple of other wild campers already set up. Just the sight of other people doing the exact same thing helped her settle into it.
Like many things in life when you keep doing something you get better at it and feel much more comfortable and for Sheelagh that was certainly the case with wild camping.
The other thing Sheelagh does to help her feel comfortable when she is scoping out a spot to stay for the night, is she always leaves her bike loaded when she arrives somewhere new. Wild camp spot, bothy, wherever. She doesn’t unpack until she’s decided she’s staying. Doing this helps Sheelagh feel like she has an exit ramp if something feels off and it means she’s not trapped by the faff of repacking everything if her gut says keep going. Trusting your gut instincts is something I’ve discussed with many other guests on the show before and this is a great example of this in practice.
Bothies
Bothies are remote mountain shelters, originally built for farm workers, dotted across the Scottish Highlands. They’re free to use, maintained by volunteers, and completely off-road. The rules are pretty simple, if you can get yourself there, you’re welcome to stay.
Sheelagh had wanted to stay in bothies on her first Scottish trip but couldn’t because she was on pavement the whole time. For this trip she’d be riding off road which meant that staying in Bothies was something she’d be able to experience this time.
The first one, she arrived alone and wasn’t sure she was going to stay. She did her loaded-bike trick and didn’t unpack straight away. Sheelagh just sat in it for a while and let herself feel it out.
In the end two groups of cyclists woudl also arrive to stay at the bothy that night. They had dinner together, talked for hours, laughed a lot. Two of them invited her to ride with them the next day. It was, by her own description, pretty much the perfect bothy experience. Being able to meet and chat with fellow adventurers has to be one of the best part of going to these places in the first place.
The Hebridean Way
There are ten islands dotted along the route of the Hebridean way which are joined up by a few ferries and causeways. Something else to factor in is the prevailing wind, which most people say blows south to north and which you’re advised to ride with by going in that direction. Whether the wind actually got the memo on any given day is, as Sheelagh found out, another matter entirely.
The Outer Hebrides are flat by Scottish standards and there are no monster hill climbs on the route. But what they lack in elevation gain they well and truly make up for it in atmosphere and weather. Sheelagh got the full range. Weeks of clear skies at the start (it was apparently one of Scotland’s sunniest springs on record, which I can personally confirm because I was also there in May 2025 and I could barely believe it). And then the weather turned.
Her worst day combined gale-force winds with rain, a broken phone cord she needed to replace, multiple closed shops, and the particular misery of being on the worst day of her period with cramps bad enough to make everything hurt from the neck down. At one point Sheelagh had set up to campe and was left gripping her tent with both hands in a wind so strong she genuinely believed that if she let go of any part of it, she’d never see it again. She ended up packing it back up soaking wet, sheltering in a bus shelter, and eventually riding through the rain to a bunkhouse about fifteen kilometres away that turned out to have the last available room in the area.
“My whole body was in agony,” she said. And then she took two rest days at the hostel, made the call to sit out the remaining bad weather, and gave herself permission to not need to be a hero about it. I always say that building in flexibility to your trip — not booking every night in advance, leaving wiggle room in the schedule — means if you need to change tact due to the weather, it doesn’t feel like a fail. It just becomes part of your trip. I feel if anywhere needs this type of flexibility it’s when you are cycling in the Hebrides!
The Landscapes That Broke Her Brain (In the Best Way)
Two moments stood out as genuinely breathtaking for Sheelagh. The first was on the Pictish Trail in the Highlands, on a stretch that other cyclists had flagged in the route comments on bikepacking.com as something special. Sheelagh described it as a bog landscape that looked like something out of Lord of the Rings.
The second was the Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis. Sheelagh had seen pictures of standing stones her whole life and filed them under “looks cool, seems fine.” Then she saw them in person and her mind was completely blown.
“My whole life I’d seen pictures of standing stones and been like, okay, that looks cool, sure,” she said. “But when I saw them in person… I didn’t want to leave.”
Scotland as a First Tour Destination
I asked Sheelagh what she’d say to someone thinking about Scotland as a destination for their own trip, especially if they’re new to bike touring.
Her answer was good. On the Outer Hebrides alone, she saw more solo female cyclists than solo male cyclists. She spoke to women out there on their very first bike tour. Scotland is one of those places that has the infrastructure to support you. There are warm showers hosts, bunkhouses, bothies, the National Cycle Network, beautifully designed routes on bikepacking.com and elsewhere, and the legal right to wild camp. It’s also a place that was genuinely wild and challenging enough to feel like an adventure.
One Last Thing
Sheelagh described the trip in three words: wild, expanding, lovely. And I think all three of those land harder when you know what she actually went through to get there. Facing up to her own anxieties, from her very first night of wild camping, dealing with the gale trying to blow her tent away on the Hebrides, hours spent sheltering in a bus shelter.
The best thing about bike adventures, she said, is that you can do it any way you want to do it. Which is exactly right. There are no right or wrong ways to take a bike adventure, but it does sound like Scotland is a perfect place to go and build your confidence for taking more and more of them!
Go listen to this episode. Then maybe start looking at flights to Scotland.
You can keep up with Sheelagh’s adventures via her fantastic YouTube channel where she documents her adventures with real honesty and a lot of heart. I loved her Scotland videos and have watched each of them multiple times!