I was in my mid-twenties when I last lived in Scotland; it was the late Eighties and I had to move north to follow a brooding, motorcycle-riding Marxist Scot.
It was a dark period for Scotland. Margaret Thatcher was boss, and my new home, Edinburgh, was suffering.
North Sea oil was being piped away, with all its revenue, to the affluent South; infrastructure was shabby, morale was low, nationalist dreams were seductive but seemed quixotic, and the great architecture of the New Town brooded with a desolate loneliness.
My Scottish friends felt that they were living in an occupied nation; to my fascination, they were the only educated white people I had ever met who believed that they were an oppressed minority.
It was fairly common for everyone I knew to drink gloomily to the point of oblivion on Friday nights. Everyone seemed to be suffering from a collective depression, and self-medicating.
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Yet I loved my three years there: I wrote my first book in a high street caf? (though, post-Harry Potter, that now seems like a clich?); I fell in love with the bleak, soulful scenery and the dazzlingly changeable light; and I was smitten with the wry, hilarious, bitter, tender-hearted Scots.
When I had the chance to go back with my 14-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son, I jumped at it. I wanted to share this difficult, magical place with them. We flew from the States on Virgin Atlantic and discovered that a whole new Scotland had emerged.
When it comes to the tourism industry, it is an amazing argument for national self-determination; what a difference, to a once-vanquished people, a parliament of its own makes. It seems to have cheered everyone up immensely.
Our week in the Highlands, ending in Edinburgh, felt like a victory lap for the nation. Where once there had been cynicism and resentment — with its attendant commercial torpor — this time we were bathed in what is probably the more natural Scottish vibe: an energetic entrepreneurship, a creative engagement with Scotland’s history and beauty, and an atmosphere of rich good humour.
To the nation: well done. Autonomy becomes you.
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Since many travellers these days are single parents such as me, I was attuned to how hard or easy such a trip might be. I wanted to have a a trip that was interesting and not too hard for me, and total fun for the kids.
Our first stop, Bluebell House in Inverness, was the perfect B&B: a late-Victorian grey stone townhouse in a side street, walking distance from the city centre and the River Ness; with clean, charming, comfortable rooms.
My teenage girl wallowed in the big four-poster bed draped with ecru lace and enjoyed the private bath; my son and I liked the dorm-like room next door to it, with its biscuits, tea-set, and big selection of popular movies.
To foreigners such as us the chintz and elaborate Scottish breakfast (yes, honey, that’s blood pudding) was deliciously exotic. Later, we had freshly caught salmon at a trendy restaurant called The Kitchen on the River.
We wandered through the covered Victorian market and took a taxi to get a view of the city — the driver proudly showed us the high points of the river valley. The dark clouds spat rain, making me feel at home. Next morning we were off to look for the Loch Ness monster.
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An hour and a half on dazzling roads that ran, eventually, alongside Loch Ness took us to Jacobite Cruise’s boat tour. While I was braced for non-stop Loch Ness monster kitsch, the tour was pleasantly restrained. We sailed on a big ferry along the gorgeously undulating shores of the loch, accompanied by an informative and funny narrative. Back on land you could buy little purple monsters as keepsakes, or honey, or home-made baked goods.
From there, south to Fort William on the A82 — one of the loveliest roads in Europe, with sheer forested hills on our right and glittering Loch Ness on our left. At Fort William, we took a sharp turn and drove into a magical wilderness — and came, as the light waned, to our inn.
This was the high point of the trip: Glenfinnan House Hotel is everything a family could hope for in a Scottish tour. Not only is the inn an old estate house, each bedroom furnished eclectically in 1930s shabby-country-house style (the real thing, not the Ralph Lauren remake), but it also faces a mirror-like lake, surrounded by craggy, bare hills.
You feel cut off from the modern world and drenched in beauty. There is no television in any room, no mobile phone reception and no lift between the four floors.
There were deer heads in the bar, where local musicians played, and a roaring open fire in the common room. The food was local and organic and there was a selection of heavenly local whisky.
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The kids loved the ring of quiet beaches around the lake, where they could dream and throw stones. It was elemental, pre-modern, eccentric. It was anti-tourism. It was one of the most truly sublime places I have ever been and the owners deserve every kind of credit for leaving its charming, dated qualities alone.
The next day we headed to the Harry Potter bridge. We walked to the majestic aqueduct, built by Edwardian ironsmiths, that spans a sweeping plain ringed with low mountains, where, as any child knows, the Harry Potter train passes on its way to Hogwarts.
This trek was dreamy for us: there were trees perfect for climbing, sunlight streamed down, and we were stopped on our return by the jovial caretaker of the estate, who put to my son, from his tractor, a serious and detailed quiz of Harry Potter trivia.
With regret, we left the following morning. We drove through yet another of Scotland’s great theatres of beauty — an increasingly rugged, bleak beauty — to Stirling. I have to warn the traveller, especially the single-mother traveller, that you can go for hours on this road without phone reception or petrol stations.
At one point I felt overwhelmed by the sense of danger and solitude, but at last we arrived at a Georgian farm, near a beautiful wood, that was our last stop before Edinburgh. Stirling feels like a big, modern town and the castle was a little overwhelming for the attention spans of my children.
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So with delight we sped towards Edinburgh for our final weekend, where we would be joined by a London-based friend of mine, also with a teenage daughter. We stayed in the New Town, where I had lived in the 1980s: the area famous for its Enlightenment-era architecture and noble crescents.
Edinburgh Residences, our boutique hotel, comprised three grand houses. The decor for each room was lush and retro: flocked wallpaper, deep duvets, plum and turquoise accents and carefully chosen antiques.
Young people from Central Europe — whose presence speaks volumes of the boom in Scotland’s economy — were almost unnervingly attentive. The next two days were perfect for all the children.
The Camera Obscura is a Victorian building in the Old Town with a display that shows a kind of living hologram of the city. We also went to The Real Mary King’s Close, a scary (too scary for young or sensitive kids) tour of the old subterranean habitations of the poor and working-class.
We visited friends (indeed, that same Marxist, presumably now post-Marxist, Scot, who is a lawyer in the Scottish Parliament, married and a father of three) for an invigorating walk up Arthur’s Seat.
We made the teenage girls happy by shopping along the High Street parallel to Princes Street Gardens. The city is alive with the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish National Gallery, new buildings — and crowds as energised as those in Manhattan.
In the evening we found that New Town had trendy digs and clubs in the once-staid old crescents, and up-to-the-minute restaurants climbing the hillsides with their views to the Firth of Forth. Even Stockbridge, which once had nothing but chip shops, was so vibrantly buzzing with edgy cuisine and sophisticated Friday nightlife that the only place we could get into was a Pizza Express.
Whatever had happened north of the Tweed, we had the kind of family journey that you remember for ever. And whatever the changes, it still felt like a homecoming.
Need to know
Naomi Wolf and family travelled with Visit Scotland (0845 2255121, visitscotland.com/autumn).
Getting there Flybe (flybe.com) flies from Gatwick to Inverness. Car hire from Arnold Clark Rental at Inverness Airport (0844 5765425, arnoldclarkrental.com).
Stay Bluebell House, Inverness (01463 238201, bluebell-house.com). Doubles from £60.
Glenfinnan House Hotel, Glenfinnan (01397 722235, glenfinnanhouse.com). Doubles from £85.
West Plean House, Stirling (01786 812208, westpleanhouse.com). Doubles from £64.
The Edinburgh Residence, Edinburgh (0131-226 3380, townhousecompany.com). Doubles from £125.
Tours Jacobite Inspiration Cruise (one-hour boat trip on Loch Ness; 01463 233999, jacobite.co.uk). Adults, £11; child, £8.50.
The Real Mary King’s Close (0845 0706244, www.realmarykingsclose.com).