Dr Samuel Johnson, who was the 18th century's equivalent of Paul Theroux, had a strong opinion about everything from table manners to travel destinations. So it's not surprising that he was aghast at the primitive conditions he found in the Hebrides.
Boring vittles, draughty huts and hazardous transport were only some of his complaints about this part of Britain, which he said was less frequented by British travellers than Borneo.
Visiting these specks in the Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of Scotland is still an adventure, but food and accommodation have improved, while transport has become punctual and predictable, thanks to Caledonian MacBrayne car ferries which ply the islands.
Starting from Ullapool on the west coast of Scotland, our first ferry hop is to Lewis and Harris, the main islands, which are joined at the waist like Siamese twins, and are relics of a bygone world where everything shuts down on Sunday, ferries included. Along these tranquil one-lane roads, drivers solemnly salute each other like fellow-survivors of a lost universe. Thatched crofts and lone farmhouses squat on the edge of sapphire lochs, and apart from black-faced sheep there is little sign of life.
Crofters still dig peat for fuel in the moors, weavers produce the famous Harris tweed in their cottages, and once a year 12 feisty men of Ness still row over turbulent seas to an uninhabited isle for their annual gannet hunt, as they've done for centuries.
Ness, once a Norse seafaring port, is a somnolent hamlet whose pale grey houses overlook the beach. Their telephone book lists subscribers by nicknames such as Bimbo, Pongo, and Soggo: most of the islanders are called MacLeod, Morrison or Maclean, and their first names seem to be either Murdo or Angus, so finding a person by their surname alone would be difficult.