North of Inverness is completely brilliant. Lived here five years and love it. People are wonderful and scenery is spectacular. However, if you're in to the night life of any kind, forget it. I'm two hours north of Inverness and up here in the Highlands, its rural, and I do mean rural. One thing that is a problem is deliveries. It's difficult to get anything large delivered up here, for instance I just bought a compressor from SGS. They advertise free delivery to the UK but then demanded 148 pound delivery because I'm in the highlands. I had to pay it as I couldn't even get another company to deliver at all. Also tried to buy a log splitter online. Five different purchases went through and then were cancelled unless I paid hundreds of pounds delivery. But that's the only problem I've had here. Winter rides are great, although the A9, the only road north on the east coast, which is narrow and only two two lanes, can be dangerous in peak tourist season, its fairly well documented on line, and don't get me started on cyclists. When you're part of thirty-five vehicle queue, which includes heavy lumber lorries, crawling behind some idiot cyclist who decided that the A9 was a great place spend his holiday, wobbling up a steep hill, with everybody literally unable to allow him his legal passing distance because of approaching vehicles and hidden bends, you realise that not all two wheeled road users are good guys. And obviously really great for the environment. Still, wouldn't swap it for anything. (Not sure if this helped at all, but I had a good rant. lol)