This week on Epic Trails, I’m hiking Scotland’s West Highland Way—96 miles from Milngavie to Fort William—and I brought a very special guest: my dad. We start in Glasgow to soak up a little local culture (including a stop at the Scotia, Glasgow’s oldest pub), then head north to kick off the trail. One of the things I love about Scotland is how the world slows down here—everything feels easy, breezy, and paced—and that vibe carries right onto the path. On this first leg, we climb out of active farmland (yes, it smells like a farm—and that’s a good thing), hit Conic Hill for our first big look at Loch Lomond, and then follow the shoreline into dense, ridiculously green forests. We stumble on an honesty box, pass a memorial sculpture in the national park, and take a very cold “refresher” dip before hopping a ferry to Inverarnan for the most Scottish meal I could think of: haggis. Spoiler: it’s objectively good. Then the scenery shifts hard as we climb into the lower Highlands toward Glencoe and the Kingshouse Hotel—bigger views, sharper wind, snow still clinging to the mountains. We cap it with a proper whisky tasting (turns out I was wrong about whisky) and some live Scottish music—plus my dad jumping in with the band.