West Highland Way food: cafés, shops and what to carry

Quick answer: you will find a café, pub or hotel at or near almost every overnight stop on the 96-mile West Highland Way, so you rarely need to carry more than a day of food. The exceptions are the 28 miles from Tyndrum to Kinlochleven and the 21 or so miles from Balmaha to Inverarnan, which have hotels but no shop, and the final 15 miles from Kinlochleven to Fort William, where there is nothing to buy until the edge of town.

If you are wild camping rather than staying in inns, you are self-sufficient more of the time, and Scottish weather adds its own twist: it is often cold and wet, which makes a warm meal worth far more than the same calories eaten cold. Resupply in the towns, then carry compact, calorie-dense food for the gaps and the camp: nuts, flapjack and high calorie bars. The table in section 3 lists the cafés, pubs and shops section by section, with the mileage.

About this guide

Written by James Frost, founder of Flaming Phoenix and the maker of Phoenix Bars. This page is one part of our wider ultra-endurance and expedition nutrition guide. Updated November 2026.

Key points

• The West Highland Way is mostly well supplied, so the job is covering the few stretches with no shop rather than carrying everything.
• Balmaha to Inverarnan along the east shore of Loch Lomond (about 21 miles), Tyndrum past Rannoch Moor to Kinlochleven (28 miles, hotels only) and Kinlochleven to Fort William (15 miles, nothing until the edge of town) are where you carry the day's food.
• Carry a little cash for the honesty boxes you pass on parts of the route, especially along Loch Lomond.
• The walk is 96 miles with over 3,000 metres of ascent, usually done in 5 to 10 days, so the cumulative load builds week on week.
• Wild camping is legal in Scotland under the access code, but the Loch Lomond shore has a permit-only camping zone from March to September.
• Scotland is often cold and wet, so pack a flask or small stove: hot porridge or soup at a wet lunch stop beats the same food eaten cold.
• Midges reward grab-and-go food. The less you have to stop and faff in still, damp conditions, the happier you are.

Contents

1. The food question on the West Highland Way
2. How much the Way demands
3. Cafés, shops and resupply, south to north
4. Wild camping and going self-sufficient
5. Scottish weather, the cold and the midges
6. What to carry and keep light
7. Where Phoenix Bars fit
8. Frequently asked questions

1. The food question on the West Highland Way

Compared with a true wilderness trail, the West Highland Way is friendly. You pass through or near villages most days, and you are rarely far from a shop, a café or a pub, which is part of what makes it one of the most accessible long-distance walks in Britain. So the honest starting point is that you do not need to carry days of food.

What you do need is to recognise the exceptions, because the Way has three of them and they matter. The east shore of Loch Lomond, the long remote stretch from Tyndrum across the edge of Rannoch Moor toward Kinlochleven, and the Lairig Mor crossing to Fort William all go for hours with no shop. On those sections you have to be self-sufficient for the day, and walkers who do not plan for them end up rationing a flapjack across a hard afternoon.

Cover those three gaps, eat well in the towns, and you rarely need more than a day or two of food on your back. Most of this guide is about spotting where the support is and where it is not, so you carry exactly what you need and no more.

2. How much the Way demands

The West Highland Way is a real physical undertaking, even though it is graded moderate. It runs 96 miles from Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, to Fort William at the foot of Ben Nevis, with over 3,000 metres of total ascent, and around 36,000 people walk the full route each year, with well over 100,000 using parts of it.

Most walkers take 5 to 10 days, which works out at anything from a gentle 9 or 10 miles a day up to a hard 16 miles a day on the fastest sensible schedules. The terrain is mixed and often rough: the rocky, root-strewn east shore of Loch Lomond is slow and tiring, and the climbs over Conic Hill, the Devil's Staircase and out of Kinlochleven all add up.

The cumulative effect is the thing to plan for. One long day is manageable on yesterday's dinner, but a week of hill miles with a pack adds up day after day, and the second half is where tired legs and under-fuelling tell. The fundamentals of fuelling long consecutive days on foot are covered in our hiking and trekking guide and long-distance walking guide. The same route also hosts the West Highland Way Race, a 96-mile ultramarathon run in a single push, so if you are tackling it at pace the demands move toward those in our trail running nutrition guide and multi-day ultra running guidance.

3. Cafés, shops and resupply, south to north

Walking the Way from south to north, the support comes and goes in a predictable pattern. Here is where to stock up and, more importantly, where not to count on anything.

Distances are approximate and follow the common seven-section split; most walkers take 5 to 10 days, so your own overnight stops may differ. Hotel and café opening times change with the season, so check ahead from October to March. The longest runs without a shop are about 21 miles from Balmaha to Inverarnan, 28 miles from Tyndrum to Kinlochleven and 15 miles from Kinlochleven to Fort William.

Milngavie to Drymen. An easy first day through farmland. Milngavie has shops, so it is the place to buy your first day or two of snacks, and the West Highland Way Café, the Honeybee Bakery and the café at Gavin's Mill are all close to the start. Part-way along, the Beech Tree Inn near Dumgoyne calls itself the first stop on the Way, and Drymen, about half a mile off the route at the end of the day, has a shop, the Drymen Bakery deli and the Clachan Inn.

Drymen to Rowardennan. Over Conic Hill to Balmaha, which has the Oak Tree Inn, with its pub, café and village shop, and the St Mocha coffee shop, then along the loch to Rowardennan, where services thin out to the hotel. Balmaha is your last proper shop for about 21 miles, so top up there.

The east shore of Loch Lomond, the first gap. From Rowardennan the path turns rocky and rooty along the wooded shore to Inversnaid and on to Inverarnan, 14 miles with no shop. There is a small café at Cailness Cottage on the shore, the Inversnaid Hotel sits right on the path about halfway, and the Inversnaid Bunkhouse has a bistro about 800 metres up the hill, but opening times vary with the season and the going is slow, so carry enough food and water for the whole stretch rather than expecting to buy anything. A few honesty boxes appear in places, stocked with flapjacks and drinks, but treat those as a bonus, not a plan.

Inverarnan to Tyndrum. Services return. Beinglas Farm near Inverarnan has a shop and bar, the Drovers Inn is a famous old pub a short walk away, and Crianlarich, roughly halfway to Tyndrum and about half a mile off the Way, has a convenience store and post office. Tyndrum is one of the best resupply points on the whole route, with a well-stocked shop, the Green Welly Stop and the Real Food Café, which is known for its fish and chips and is unusually good for gluten-free and vegan walkers. Stock up properly here, because the next gap is the big one.

Tyndrum to Kinlochleven, the second gap. This is the long, remote, exposed heart of the Way: 28 miles via Bridge of Orchy, then across the edge of Rannoch Moor, the wildest section, past Kingshouse and over the Devil's Staircase before the descent to Kinlochleven. You can get a hot meal at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel, the Inveroran Hotel about two miles further on, the café at Glencoe Mountain Resort (a short detour) and the Kingshouse Hotel, if timings work, but there is nowhere to do a proper shop, and Rannoch Moor itself is open, roadless and brutal in bad weather. Leave Tyndrum carrying everything you will eat across this stretch.

Kinlochleven to Fort William. Kinlochleven has a Co-op open from early until late, ideal for grabbing the next day's food, and places to eat including the Tailrace Inn and the MacDonald Hotel. The final stage climbs steeply out of town and crosses the exposed Lairig Mor, with nothing to buy until you are almost in Fort William and only ruins for company, before descending through Glen Nevis into Fort William, which has full supermarkets and plenty to eat to celebrate, including the Black Isle Bar at the end of the Way. Carry lunch and snacks for that last crossing.

Where are the best cafés on the West Highland Way?

The most useful café stops, south to north, are Milngavie at the start, Balmaha (St Mocha and the Oak Tree Inn), Tyndrum (the Real Food Café and the Green Welly Stop), Glencoe Mountain Resort near Kingshouse, and Fort William at the finish. In between, pubs and hotels such as the Beech Tree Inn, the Drovers Inn, the Bridge of Orchy Hotel and the Kingshouse Hotel serve hot food, but they are places for a meal, not for stocking up for the next day.

Where is the West Highland Way Café?

The West Highland Way Café is a family-run café in the centre of Milngavie, close to the start of the Way, serving traditional Scottish food from breakfast through to dinner. I have no link with it, so check its own listing for the current menu and opening hours before you plan a pre-walk breakfast around it.

4. Wild camping and going self-sufficient

Many walkers camp the Way rather than staying in inns, and Scotland makes this easy. Wild camping is legal under the Land Reform Act and the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, as long as you camp responsibly and leave no trace, which gives you huge freedom to stop where you like across most of the route.

There is one important exception. The shores of Loch Lomond fall under a camping management zone where, from 1 March to 30 September, you must either use a permit or stay at an official campsite rather than camping wild. Plan that section around a permit or a booked pitch so you are not caught out.

If you are camping and cooking for yourself, everything you buy in a town is weight on your back until you eat it. The priorities shift toward compact, light, calorie-dense food and anything you can rehydrate or heat quickly, the same logic that governs our wild camping food guide and backpacking nutrition guide. You still resupply in the towns, but you carry more between them than an inn-to-inn walker does, so calories per gram start to count. Our guide to the lightest high calorie food for backpacking compares the usual trail foods on that measure.

5. Scottish weather, the cold and the midges

Scotland will give you sunshine, wind, rain and chill, sometimes in a single day, and the exposed sections like Rannoch Moor and the Lairig Mor feel it most. This changes what good trail food looks like compared with a warm-weather walk.

When you are cold and wet, a warm meal does far more for you than the same calories eaten cold, both for morale and for keeping your core temperature up. A flask of hot water or a quick stove brew turns instant porridge or soup into something that lifts you on a grim afternoon, which is why anything you can heat is worth its small weight. Our high calorie porridge guide covers the hot-food approach, and our how to use Phoenix Bars guide covers bar porridge.

Then there are the midges. From June to August, in damp, still conditions, these tiny biting insects can make stopping miserable, especially at camp morning and evening. So favour food you can eat on the move without unpacking and faffing, because the longer you stand still in a midge cloud, the worse your day gets. Grab-and-go beats sit-down whenever the midges are out. They bother you far less while you are walking and on breezy days, and they ease off in spring and early autumn.

6. What to carry and keep light

The art on the Way is carrying little but choosing dense, because you restock every day or two but still have to cross the stretches with no shop self-sufficient. A heavy bag of snacks slows you on the rough Loch Lomond shore and the climbs, so dense food beats bulky food.

The reliable carried foods are the usual dense, durable ones: nuts, dried fruit, oatcakes, flapjack and compact bars give the most calories for the least weight and space. For shop-bought bars, see our guide to the best energy bars for hiking. Chocolate works in cool Scottish weather better than it does on a hot trail, though it still softens on a warm day.

A sensible default is to carry a breakfast option for early starts, lunch and snacks for whichever gap is coming up, and a little spare in case of a long day or bad weather, then replenish in the next town. Our calorie-dense foods guide and high calorie snacks guide go deeper on getting the most calories from the least pack weight.

7. Where Phoenix Bars fit

I make Phoenix Bars, and on the West Highland Way they are most useful where the trail is hardest: the stretches with no shop, the camp and the cold.

Across the east shore of Loch Lomond and the Rannoch Moor crossing, a Phoenix Bar gives you up to 557 calories in a compact, 120g bar about the size of a phone, so a couple of bars carry a lot of calories for very little weight through the stretches where there is no shop. If you are wild camping, they cover breakfast before you have packed the stove, or top up a day's eating without adding bulk. And because they mix with water to make porridge, they double as breakfast or lunch on the cold, wet days.

They are vegan and gluten-free, which is useful insurance for the rare rural day when a small shop has little to offer, even though the Way is generally well catered in its towns. They come in six flavours, Apple and Cinnamon, Cherry Bakewell, Chocolate, Vanilla, Salted Caramel and Ginger, so they hold up over a week of walking without becoming monotonous.

The 12-bar bundle suits a shorter section walk, and the 18-bar and 36-bar bundles suit the full route or a camping trip, or you can build your own bundle. You can see the range in the Phoenix Bars collection and the bundles collection.

8. Frequently asked questions

Do you need to carry food on the West Highland Way?
For most of the route, no, because you pass shops, cafés and pubs in the villages and can resupply every day or two. The exceptions are the east shore of Loch Lomond, the 28 miles from Tyndrum past Rannoch Moor to Kinlochleven, and the final 15 miles to Fort William, where there is no shop and you should carry food and water for the whole day.

How many calories do you burn on the West Highland Way?
A full day of 12 to 16 miles over Highland terrain with a pack burns well beyond 2,500 calories for most walkers, more on the big climbs and in cold or wet weather. Across the 5 to 10 days of the route the cumulative demand is significant, so eat steadily from the first day; the second half is where under-fuelling shows.

Where can you resupply on the West Highland Way?
The best resupply points walking south to north are Milngavie at the start, Balmaha, Tyndrum, Kinlochleven and Fort William, with smaller shops at Drymen, Beinglas Farm and Crianlarich (about half a mile off the route). Balmaha, Tyndrum and Kinlochleven are the key ones to stock up at before the stretches with no shop.

Is there anywhere to eat between Tyndrum and Kinlochleven?
Yes, but only hotels and one resort café: the Bridge of Orchy Hotel, the Inveroran Hotel, the café at Glencoe Mountain Resort and the Kingshouse Hotel. There is no shop on the 28 miles between Tyndrum and Kinlochleven, so carry snacks and lunch for the whole stretch and treat a hot meal as a bonus.

Do you need cash on the West Highland Way?
Carry a little. Cafés, pubs and shops in the villages generally take cards, but the honesty boxes you pass on parts of the route, especially along Loch Lomond, usually need cash.

Can you wild camp on the West Highland Way?
Yes, wild camping is legal in Scotland under the Outdoor Access Code if done responsibly and leaving no trace. The exception is the Loch Lomond shore, which has a permit-only camping zone from 1 March to 30 September, so plan that section around a permit or an official campsite.

What food should you carry for the remote sections?
Carry compact, calorie-dense, no-prep food that survives a pack: nuts, dried fruit, oatcakes, flapjack and high-calorie bars give the most calories for the least weight. On cold days, something you can heat with a flask or stove, like porridge or soup, is worth the small extra effort.

Are midges a problem when eating on the trail?
From June to August, in damp and still conditions, midges can make stopping unpleasant, so it helps to favour food you can eat while walking rather than sitting down to unpack a meal. They bother you far less on the move and on breezy days, and they ease off in spring and early autumn.

Related guides

Closest companions: our hiking and trekking guide and long-distance walking guide for the fundamentals, our wild camping food guide and backpacking nutrition guide for self-sufficient walking, and the named long-route guides for the Cape Wrath Trail, the Pennine Way, the Camino de Santiago and the Land's End to John o'Groats walk. If you are running the route, see our trail running nutrition guide. This page sits within our wider ultra-endurance and expedition nutrition guide.

Sources: Official West Highland Way website; Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park, camping byelaws questions and answers; NatureScot, Scottish Outdoor Access Code.