North Coast 500 Partnership

Press Release Issued by North Coast 500

The North Highland Initiative is delighted to announce a new partnership between the North Coast 500 and local, award-winning photographer John Baikie to deliver North Coast 500 Photography Workshops and Tours.

The North Coast 500 is a newly iconic coastal touring route that has been making headlines across the world, putting the north Highlands well and truly on the travel map. The route itself covers over 500 miles of stunning scenery and runs from Inverness in a loop across the coastal edges of the north Highlands. The route has recently been hailed as one of the ‘Top 5 Coastal Routes in the World’ by the Sunday Times and has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, BBC Countryfile and is also allegedly the subject of an upcoming Top Gear episode.

This exciting new venture is just the one of many that NHI has planned for the North Coast 500 and is hot on the heels of the new NC500 Membership Club that was created in December. It is expected that a branded line of merchandise will closely follow later in the year

The exclusive NC500 Photography Workshops and Tours will be a new venture for both John and NHI, and will be targeted towards both visitors and locals alike. John Baikie said

“I am delighted to work with the North Coast 500 to deliver top quality photography workshops and tours in the area. The main goal of the workshops is to highlight the spectacular scenery that is available on the route and to provide a direct opportunity for visitors and locals, no matter what your experience is, to capture the true beauty in front of them, with our guidance and support. We want people to take away some amazing images, memories and some new skills to hopefully bring back again for future visits. People visiting the Highlands, love to photograph the northern lights, beaches, castles, mountains and a lot more. With my photography and local knowledge I can take them to all the best places on the route, to capture the true beauty of the area, including sunrises, sunsets and much more.”

David Whiteford OBE and Chairman of the Initiative added
“We are delighted to announce our new venture with John Baikie to deliver the first Official North Coast 500 Photography Tours & Workshops. As well as being a highly experienced local photographer, John is a big fan of the route having cycled it himself for our sponsored charity; MFR Cash for Kids, last year. This makes him the ideal person to provide informative and entertaining photography workshops and tours across the NC500 route. By providing both one day workshops and multi-day tours we hope to have created something for everyone, so whether you want just a one day session or you would like to be taken across the full route of the NC500 – we can now offer that service”.
For us, the North Coast 500 has always been about raising awareness of the stunningly beautiful North Highlands as a destination in its own right. We want to increase visitor numbers sustainably and develop opportunities to improve levels of customer spend to the benefit of the various businesses and attractions along the route. The Photography Tours and Workshops are just one of a number of ways of achieving this goal and we hope this particular venture will mean that each participant will be able to hang their favourite scenes or NC500 memories of their trip on their wall at home!“

www.nc500tours.co.uk for more information.