The Traitors has quietly become one of television's best adverts for the Scottish Highlands. The BBC and Peacock series — including the celebrity edition fronted by Claudia Winkleman — films at Ardross Castle, a 19th-century baronial pile near Alness in Ross-shire, around 25 miles north of Inverness.
The castle sits in roughly 100 acres of parkland and woodland along the River Alness. Built in the Scottish Baronial style in the 1840s for the 1st Duke of Sutherland and later extended, it has all the turrets, granite and panelled interiors the show's gothic roundtable scenes demand. In real life it is privately owned and operates mainly as an events and wedding venue, so you cannot simply wander in on a castle-visiting day trip — which is exactly why the production gets the place to itself for weeks of filming.
That said, fans are not shut out entirely. The surrounding Ardross estate has woodland and riverside paths popular with walkers, and the wider area delivers classic Highland fare: the moraine slopes of the Cromarty Firth, distilleries in the nearby town of Invergordon, and the road north toward Dornoch and Golspie. Inverness makes the obvious base, with regular trains stopping at Alness itself on the Kyle of Lochalsh and Inverness–Wick lines — one of Britain's most scenic rail routes runs right past the castle's doorstep.
The show's success has already had a knock-on effect for the region. Location tourism around film and TV sites is booming in Scotland, and Highland tourism bodies have leaned into the interest, with local operators flagging Traitors-themed breaks and fans making the pilgrimage to photograph the gates. Expect that to grow with the celebrity series drawing a bigger international audience via the US broadcast.
If you want the castle-fantasy without the murder-mystery tension, this corner of the Highlands offers plenty of stately rivals you can actually enter: Dunrobin Castle near Golspie, with its chateaux-like spires and falconry displays, sits about an hour north, while Cawdor Castle near Nairn is an easy run from Inverness. Between them you get the same romantic architecture, plus gardens and tea rooms that Ardross keeps behind closed doors.
For travellers, the takeaway is simple: the Highlands are having a television moment, and the strip of coastline between Inverness and Dornoch is worth a detour whether or not you care who is a Traitor. Just temper expectations at Ardross itself — the best you'll get is the outside view and a good walk along the river, and honestly, that's half the charm.
