Campbeltown for the non-golfer.

85 Longrow, Campbeltown · Tours from £20 · Pre-booking essential

Scotland's most respected independent distillery and one of the most unusual. Springbank malts, floor-malts, distils, matures, and bottles everything on a single site — an end-to-end process that no other Scottish distillery currently manages for its entire output. Three distinct spirits from one stillhouse: Springbank (lightly peated), Longrow (heavily peated), and Hazelburn (triple-distilled, unpeated). The tours are serious and the tasting at the end is serious. If you care about whisky and you are in Campbeltown, this is non-negotiable.

12 High Street, Campbeltown · Tours from £10 · Open daily

One of Campbeltown's three remaining distilleries, founded 1832, currently producing a range of expressions from the 10-year-old to the 25-year-old and an annual vintage bottling. The distillery is on the town's main street, which means the tour starts with a five-minute walk from wherever you're staying. Less celebrated than Springbank, but the single malts are good and the tour is accessible for people who don't know the difference between a worm tub and a shell-and-tube condenser. (Glen Scotia still uses a worm tub.)

10 miles south of Campbeltown · Free · Year-round (road conditions variable in winter)

The southern tip of the Kintyre peninsula, 320 metres above the sea, with Northern Ireland visible 12 miles across the water on clear days. The lighthouse below (built by Thomas Stevenson in 1788) is accessible via a steep path down from the car park. The viewpoint is the kind of place that earns the name — not a constructed viewpoint with an interpretation panel, but the actual end of the land with the Atlantic on three sides. The Paul McCartney connection is real and the locals treat it with appropriate calm.

1 mile east of Campbeltown · Free · Causeway walkable 2 hours either side of low tide

A tidal island accessible across a shingle causeway from Kildalloig Bay, 1 mile from town. The island has a working lighthouse and a painted cave — a crucifixion scene painted on the cave wall by local artist Archibald MacKinnon in 1887, secretly and discovered by accident; he touched it up himself in 1934 at the age of 80. The cave is 20 minutes' walk around the island from the causeway. Check tide tables before setting out — the causeway covers quickly.

Hall Street, town centre · Free · Open Tue–Sat

A small local museum covering Campbeltown's fishing and whisky history in a building that also houses the public library. The Victorian decline of the distillery industry — from 34 to 3 in 60 years — is the story the museum tells most honestly. The Loch Fyne Whiskies shop in town (the best independent whisky retailer on the peninsula) is the other obvious stop for anyone who has been to Springbank and wants to leave with bottles.

5 miles west on B843 · Free to explore

The village of Machrihanish sits between the two golf courses and the Atlantic beach — a long sweep of sand at the foot of the dunes that the golf courses sit on. The beach is accessible from the village and is rarely crowded. The Ugadale Hotel bar (at Machrihanish Dunes) serves food and drink to non-guests and is the correct place to end a day on the peninsula regardless of whether you have played golf.

Town centre · tours available · the third of Campbeltown's three distilleries

Glengyle is the third of Campbeltown's working distilleries, producing the Kilkerran single malt. Founded in 1872, closed for most of the 20th century, and reopened in 2004 by the Mitchell family who also run Springbank. Tours cover the production process and include a tasting of the 12-year-old and the work-in-progress expressions. Booking recommended — the distillery is small and tours fill quickly in summer.

14 miles north on B842 · free · open year-round

The 12th-century Cistercian abbey on the east coast of Kintyre, reached via the B842 coastal road through Carradale. The ruins contain one of the finest collections of medieval grave slabs in Scotland — carved West Highland warriors and clerical figures, some dating to the 13th century. The abbey grounds are free; the drive along the east coast is one of the quieter and more scenic routes on the peninsula.