Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park: free audio guide
The story of Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park in Argyll and Bute, as the Votura app tells it on location. Read it here, or hear it on the spot with turn-by-turn walking directions.
Before you go
- Address
- Loch Lomond, Argyll and Bute, G83
The story
Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park is Scotland’s first national park, created in 2002 and covering about 1,865 square kilometers of mountains, woodlands, lochs, and glens. It stretches across a dramatic meeting point of the Highlands and the Lowlands, with 21 Munros inside its boundary and 22 major lochs, making it one of the most varied protected landscapes in Britain. Loch Lomond itself, the park’s best-known water, is the largest inland stretch of fresh water by surface area in Great Britain, and its length of about 36 kilometers gives the park a powerful north-south backbone. The loch is dotted with more than 30 islands, including Inchmurrin, the largest freshwater island in the British Isles, and Inchcailloch, whose woodland and burial ground preserve a deep sense of human history.
The name “Trossachs” points to the wooded, corrie-filled country around Loch Katrine, Glen Gyle, and Glen Finglas, a landscape that became famous through Sir Walter Scott’s 1810 poem The Lady of the Lake and his 1810 narrative poem The Lady of the Lake helped turn the district into one of the defining Romantic landscapes of Scotland. Scott’s writing draws visitors into the same waters and hills that later shaped Victorian tourism, when steamers, inns, and roads made the area a classic Highland destination. Loch Katrine is especially important because Glasgow’s water supply scheme begins here in 1859, when the Loch Katrine Aqueduct opens and brings clean water to the city after the 1848 cholera outbreak sharpened demands for safe supply.
The park also preserves some of Scotland’s most famous battle ground. At Glen Fruin in 1603, the Battle of Glen Fruin pits the Colquhouns against the MacGregors in a violent clan conflict that later feeds the long persecution of the MacGregor name. Near the southern edge of the park, the shores around Balloch, Balmaha, and Luss connect to centuries of settlement, travel, and trade, while the old A82 and A85 routes thread through scenery that has guided movement between the central belt and the western Highlands for generations. The village of Luss, with its much-photographed stone cottages and churchyard, sits beside Loch Lomond and serves as one of the park’s most recognizable historic communities.
Wildlife is one of the park’s major attractions, and the protected area supports red deer, ospreys, golden eagles, pine martens, otters, and red squirrels, alongside Atlantic oakwoods, Caledonian pine fragments, and extensive upland heath. The park’s forests include regeneration areas where native woodland is expanding, especially around ancient oak and birch stands. Many visitors come for the long-distance routes: the West Highland Way passes along the loch shore, the Rob Roy Way links places associated with the outlaw and cattleman Rob Roy MacGregor, and cycling and hiking networks reach deep into glens that remain remote despite their proximity to major Scottish cities.
Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority manages the park from its creation in 2002, balancing conservation, access, recreation, and local livelihoods across communities that include towns, villages, farms, and ferry crossings. The park’s scale is huge enough for boat trips, mountain ascents, and sheltered lowland walks in a single day, yet it remains tightly tied to historic routes, clan stories, Romantic literature, and modern conservation. For travelers, it offers a rare combination of Britain’s largest lake by surface area, one of Scotland’s most storied literary landscapes, and a national park where every major vista has both a geological story and a human one rooted in clearly dated events.
Written for the Votura audio tour and read aloud in the app. Opening hours change, so check with the venue before you go.
Self-guided tours that stop at Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park
- Lochs, Legends & Highland Vistas: An 8-Stop Scottish Highlands Drive
- Edinburgh Highlands: Loch Ness, Dams & Whisky Day Tour
- Highland Heritage & Spirits: 2-Day Castle and Distillery Road Trip
Hear it on the spot
Votura plays this guide when you reach Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park, then walks you to the next stop. Works offline.